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Country music evolves . . . like it or not
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Taylor Swift, Queen of Country Music
Tom Joyce of the Mount Airy News wrote an excellent article yesterday titled “Country Music is no longer about ‘country’ or ‘music.’”
My automatic reaction was to stand on my office chair and applaud.
I did not do so because a) my office chair is on wheels and b) it did not take me long to discover I disagreed with much of what Mr. Joyce had to say.
In essence, Mr. Joyce opines that true country music is pretty much dead, replaced by bleached blondes and pretty boys producing “stylistic garbage with almost no substance just to increase the bottom line.”
But, please don’t allow me to generalize what Mr. Joyce wrote. Read it. It’s great.
Criticism of changes in country music is nothing new. I recall the 1975 Country Music Awards Show. When it was time for him to announce the winner of Entertainer of the Year, Charlie read that John Denver was the winner and set fire to the results announcement.
Country music had evolved. Charlie, a wonderful representative of an older style of country, could not handle it.
The result? John Denver kept selling records to country music fans and Charlie Rich began having sales problems.
The evolution began years earlier. When Johnny Cash added Mexican brass to “Ring of Fire,” some country fans were initially startled. Was it country music? Sure, it was, and it was terrific.
In the early 1970s, Lynn Anderson released “Rose Garden.” I think of it as one of the earliest so-called Nashville Sound recordings. The production-rich 45 released in stereo was terrific, and represented further evolution in country.
And, who can forget the hoopla in 1992 over “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus?
Rejection of the new is common to all music genres.
Rock was declared dead when The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean came along, was declared dead again when The Beatles and other British acts came along, and declared dead once again when The Beatles broke up, and Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison died.
Rock is still around. It has evolved. Some like it, some don’t.
Even some classical music lovers of great composers like Bach and Beethoven are reluctant embrace modern classical music. After all, the thinking goes, how can a symphony composed last year be classical?
Music has always evolved, whether we like it or not, and it always will. I do not understand why it is not possible to like Hank Williams and Carrie Underwood, or Johnny Cash and Taylor Swift.
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