Country California

Click the bullet after each quote to visit the original source.

I would hazard a guess that some members of the rabid keep-it-country purist crowd are also angry Yankee-haters and those who are suspicious of anyone who appears to be from somewhere else. ●
- – Chet Flippo posits that hardcore traditional country fans are Southern bigots. Huh, okay. What about the uptown purist demo sent up in Robbie Fulks’ “Countrier Than Thou”?

Everybody knows Kenny’s “Love Everybody” [slogan]. Everybody knows that’s not necessarily my mantra all the time. I think some people deserve one of these (clenches fist) including me sometimes. ●
- – I’ll agree with John Rich, but only because he added “including me” and only on the condition that we change “sometimes” to “pretty much always.”

I’ve always felt this attraction toward and love for people that America sort of uses to make itself feel smart as a culture. Somehow we’ve got it in our heads that we’re brighter than Britney Spears. And I really love Britney Spears, and I didn’t really like her until she shaved her head and started hitting that car with the umbrella. That’s my kinda action. I swear, it’s the truth, I’m not as into music as I am into chicks who will shave their heads and f-cking whack a car with an umbrella. ●
- – In his own way, Todd Snider believes in championing the underdog.

Rimes opened her set with “Crazy,” the Willie Nelson standard made famous by Patsy Cline, and “Blue,” a song originally written for Cline that Rimes put on her 1996 debut record… But Rimes took an intermission after just those two songs, leaving much of crowd confused and/or stunned as she headed for the wings. ●
- – Honestly, I’m more confused and/or stunned by the fact that she opened with “Crazy” and “Blue.” It’s almost as though she fancies herself a country singer again.

It limits you – puts you in a box – when you can use only certain instruments or lyrical structure. ●
- – Taylor Swift won’t be boxed in by your… I mean, my… narrow genre definitions.

That’s how open-minded country has become. But like Oprah Winfrey said when Rucker was on her show in April, country music is the real soul music. ●
- – Wow, Alison Bonaguro defers to Oprah for a definition of country. Just beautiful.

Obviously, they push you to write with other people, because you write faster, you produce more and heck, that publisher just wants to get songs cut. If I had to pick one nowadays, I would pick writing with some of my buddies because that’s the only time I get to see them. ●
- – Darryl Worley on cowriting.

White kids that grew up in the south in the late ’60s and early ’70s shied away from their roots – they disdained people like Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Roy Acuff, George Jones, Jim Reeves and Roger Miller kind of the way black kids around the same age stopped listening to people like Louis Jordan or Lighting Hopkins or Robert Johnson. It was their parents’ and grandparents’ music, and it revealed a rawness and lack of sophistication about their past that they wanted to pretend wasn’t there. ●
- – Scholar Paul Hemphill (Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams), who passed away on July 11, quoted by friend Allen Barra in a remembrance for Birmingham Weekly.

Critics who accuse Strait of being too cerebral don’t know what they’re talking about. Strait can pound out an uptempo dance tune with the best of them. A great example was “Honk If You Honky Tonk,” a tune that would blow the roof off any country dance club in North America. ●
- – Has anyone ever accused George Strait of being too cerebral?

Hank Williams got his start writing music for Nashville publisher Acuff-Rose.
So did Kenny Chesney.
And that is where the musical similarities end. ●
- – Ha, no kidding. Now that’s the way to kick off an article about Kenny Chesney.

Look at all those bikinis. Me like-y. ●
- – Insightful stage banter from Phil Vassar.

A couple recent additions to the blogroll: Bluegrass & Honky Tonks for bluegrass and traditional country and itinerant blogger Blake Boldt’s internet home for country and entertainment-y type stuff. Check ‘em out.