Don't tell me you don't like country music
Don't tell me you don't like country music
By: Bill Mead
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Posted by editor Mon May 21, 2007 11:32:50 PDT
Viewed 926 times
0 responses 0 comments A while back my wife and I were watching an arty program on T.V. featuring young girls who were dancing ballet. The girls were graceful and talented but my wife was most impressed by the accompanying music which she said was beautiful although she didn't recognize it.
Knowing how much she dislikes country music, it took me a while to get up the courage to tell her the beautiful ballet music was a symphonic arrangement of a Buck Owens tune entitled “Cryin' Time.” It's been played thousands of time in honkytonks. It's also been recorded by Barbra Streisand and at least a dozen other “sophisticated” singers.
As much as I kick the truth around about most things, I don't hesitate to admit that I like country music. I don't consider rap, acid rock and similar noise pollution to be music but I enjoy all kinds of real music, including classical, opera and even the lively tunes you hear played on an out-of-tune piano in a beerhall.
I don't know why pseudo-intellectuals like to pretend they are too refined to listen to country music. I'll bet a lot of them listen to country as soon as they get in their cars and roll up the windows. I realize that country music stations seem to be on the wane. I believe that's mostly because today's audiences are either too young to appreciate anything better than amplified screeching with accompaniment that sounds like a ten-car pileup or, due to immigration, more listeners are coming from other parts of the world where American country music has never penetrated.
Somewhere along the way, what we used to call popular music has almost disappeared. If you're under 50, I should explain that popular music was melodic, had lyrics you could understand and it was inviting to dance to. Most of the popular music during my prehistoric youth consisted of ballads. Today, the only ballads are coming from the country corner of the music world.
This is not something that most country performers intended. It happened because good country ballads have been regularly hijacked by artists who don't wear ten gallon hats. Tony Bennett can tell you about that. Early in his career, Tony was dragged kicking and screaming into the recording booth to do a song by Hank Williams called “Cold, Cold Heart.” With his agent's knife still at his throat, Bennett saw his rendition of this hillbilly favorite shoot him to the pinnacle of show business where he has remained for almost 60 years.
Singer Clara Jean Fowler, who took the name Patti Page at the behest of her first radio sponsor, probably has sold about as many popular records as anybody. Clara wasn't setting the woods on fire until she dragged out a song called “The Tennessee Waltz,” which country journeyman Peewee King had written and recorded years before. This raw country piece launched a high-octane career that still keeps Clara working a half-century later.
I have a fondness for almost any category of music so long as you can whistle it. For a long time I wasn't sure whether my all-time favorite number was “He Stopped Loving Her Today” by the legendary George Jones or one called “Etude in E” by a small town Polish kid named Frederic Chopin. I hope George's fans won't throw beer bottles at me when I say I now believe Fred wrote the better tune.
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