Is country music dead?

Fox News ^ | 05/16/2014 | Collin Raye

[Responsibility2nd]

As a platinum-selling country music artist and, more importantly, a lifelong fan of the genre, I’d like to send out this heartfelt plea to the gatekeepers of the industry:

Enough already.

I’d like to think that I am expressing what nearly every artist, musician and songwriter (with perhaps a few exceptions) is thinking when I contend that the Bro’ Country phenomenon must cease.

It has had its run for better or worse and it’s time for Nashville to get back to producing, and more importantly promoting, good singers singing real songs. It’s time for country music to find its identity again before it is lost forever.

~snip~

But as someone who grew up loving and being forever affected by the true greats of country music, I simply have to offer up this plea to the Nashville country music industry to reclaim the identity and poetic greatness that once was our format. The well-written poetic word of the country song has disappeared.

~snip~

Willie Nelson once wrote in his early song, "Shotgun Willie," that “you can’t make a record if you ain’t got nothing to say.” Apparently, that’s not the case anymore.

Disposable, forgettable music has been the order of the day for quite a while now and it’s time for that to stop.

[Ditter]

Go to post #308 and you will find a link that will take you to all of those old songs you remember.

[Ditter]

Thanks, I have 3 favorite shows. I listen to Michael Berry on AM740 from 8am till Rush comes on at 11am till 2pm. Then Michael Berry from 5pm till 7pm. In between I listen to Country Legends on FM97.1.

That is the schedule I would like to keep but life gets in the way and I don't really spend every minute listening to the radio. :)

[Benito Cereno]

Girls can’t sing country and Western music.

That’s not to say that a woman can’t do it justice, but I’m talking about a woman like Patsy Cline or Loretta Lynn, not all of these bleach blond 17 year old girls that Nashville keeps churning out.

Girls can’t sing country and Western music.

[Benito Cereno]

Nitzy, check out the Pandora channel called Traditional Country Hymns. Most of it is pure gold.

[OldPossum]

Thanks. That is a good site. Imagine that! Real C&W music can still be heard on the radio!

I put it on my favorites list.

[mojito]

It did my heart good to hear that classic.

Thanks for posting it.

[mojito]

Please check this out if you have the time. This streaming country station plays hits and rarities from the 50’s and 60’s.

The DJ has the most amazing country oldies record collection that I've ever heard:

http://www.mygen365.com/index.live#stations/laserhead2

[mylife]

Thanks Love Coutry but I’m a Rocker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkhP8ZbyOeY

[Rastus]

In the full article, Raye has some praise for Miranda Lambert. I don’t know “White Liar,” but the only song I do know of her is the same music for morons he’s complaining about. Something about, “I’ll be wearing nothing but a tattoo and a smile.” Charming.

[a fool in paradise]

There is still good rock and roll but sadly it was run off from radio by the time of Woodstockcommiefest...

[Elsie]

The problem with country music is that it was never translated into other languages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqEvRqCnfQA

[OldPossum]

Thanks, mojito. Between the site you suggested and the one Ditter put me on, I’m set for life now.

I just never thought the old stuff was still being played. Then, again, I should have remembered: the Internet fulfills all niches of one’s interests.

[exDemMom]

I have never been able to stomach pure country music—some of the cross-over music (like Glen Campbell’s work) is about as country as I will go.

However, I will make the prediction that there are a few gems of today’s country music that will still be around decades from now, just as the classics of yesterday survived and are still being listened to today. Most of the music in any generation is trash; only the good stuff survives.

I see this happen in the soft rock genre; I have no reason to think that country is any different.

[Rodamala]

It don't matter who's in Austin...

Bob Wills is Still the King.

[Rodamala]

The Wreck of the Old WillieGreen Express

[Rodamala]

Actual Mexican music tends to be country ("ranchera" as they call it)

I liked it better when it was called, "Polka".

I refer to it as Mexican Circus Music.

[GeronL]

That was hilarious

[GregB]

Just love Johnny!!

[BuckeyeTexan]

Pretty good list. I’d add Steve Earle :)

[RipSawyer]

I’ve been listening to Johnny Cash since I was a boy, I still remember the first time I heard “Teenage Queen”. I was in grade school and I am less than two weeks away from seventy. I also remember the first time I heard this amazing song on the radio. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4oFrXx8ogI I was still a kid but I knew this was what it was all about. Nobody plays real country now because everybody old enough to have lived the life it was based on is either dead or too old to perform. I was born in ‘44 and the lifestyle that REAL country music grew out of was over by the time I finished high school. You will see nothing like it again, there will be performers who can imitate but there will be no more original music that really fits in the same category.