Rural America in decline?

Greg Vincent · Post by **Greg Vincent** » 27 Jul 2009 7:54 am

Hi folks,

I've been hearing a lot lately about the decline of rural America. It seems that people are moving to the cities in greater numbers these days --since that is where the jobs and careers are-- which is causing rural America to have a decreasing influence on our culture.

If this is true (and I have a feeling that it is), might this explain the disappearance of "country-ness" in country music over the last several years?

Is this why today's country sounds like bad rock 'n' roll?

Will country music soon cease to be a living, growing genre because, demographically speaking, the audience no longer exists?

Ron Page · Post by **Ron Page** » 27 Jul 2009 8:09 am

Greg, you're probalby on to something. I've always been a bit of an outlier since my teenage years in Anaheim. I was listening to Buck and Merle on KFOX and KLAC when my classmates were listening to rock on KHJ. I hope the artists down in Texas will keep producing great country music, even if there is no large commercial outlet--not on FM radio anyway.

Carl Morris · Post by **Carl Morris** » 27 Jul 2009 8:22 am

I like the topic, but my personal opinion is that it's two separate things. Yes, I think the country is becoming more urban/suburban, and yes, I think that traditional sounding country isn't played much by the younger generation. I'm not sure the two are directly connected, though.

I think when people get lucky and succeed in music to the point that we get to hear them, it's only natural that what we hear them play will have been influenced by whatever they grew up listening to. Nobody these days grows up listening to the same stuff that traditional country players from 40-50 years ago grew up listening to. That's just how life works. Therefore they are never going to sound the same as those guys, even if they wanted to.

I'm too young to know this for a fact, but didn't the country guys from pre-WWII think the country guys from the 50s-60s were sounding a bit too rock-n-roll for their tastes? Seems like I remember hearing stories about that...

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 27 Jul 2009 8:34 am

I think it's a big mistake to associate country music with rural America only. That's the stereotyping that Hee Haw and the Beverley Hillbillys did to bluegrass.....like it was the music of a bunch of ignorant, country, mountain hicks. Not true. In fact, The Father of Bluegrass Bill Monroe was a very refined gentlemen and would never thought of appearing on stage in overalls, etc... he always wore a suit and tie.

Thanks to Hee Haw, the term "Picking and a Grinning" has become so common. I grit my teeth everytime someone asked me if I'm picking and grinning this weekend.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 27 Jul 2009 12:06 pm

If you look at the sales of McMansions and the SUV's used to get to them, it's pretty clear that the suburban bloat is a burst bubble. I suspect one of the great growth industries of the next several decades will be in converting failed housing developments into communal and single-family farms... and when the electricity starts failing on a regular basis, acoustic music will be making a big comeback! Yay!

Young people will be playing whatever blues/dread/dirge music that's generated when they realize that mommy & daddy used up all the good stuff, and mommy and daddy will be playing whatever blues/dread/dirge music that's generated when they find out the kids won't work three minimum-wage jobs to pay the oldster's Social Security. But no, I can't predict anything.

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 27 Jul 2009 12:29 pm

Technological change is the driving force behind the decline of rural America. Larger farm machinery, more advanced and efficient farming methods, and less need for manual labour ultimately mean smaller and fewer farm families.

But I agree with Rick. The decline of rural America does not necessarily mean the decline of traditional country music. It will always be around, although it's unlikely it will ever be a part of mainstream radio and television again.

Clyde Mattocks · Post by **Clyde Mattocks** » 27 Jul 2009 12:58 pm

It used to be that towns of any significant size were maybe 30 miles apart. Now, little crossroad
communties first have a McDonald's, then a Family Dollar store and pretty soon you can't drive any
distance at all without encountering a "business
distict" of some sort. I think this may lead to part
of the perception that rural areas are shrinking.
Think of all the little communities that 25 years ago had nothing but a general store that now have a chain business of some sort.

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 27 Jul 2009 2:16 pm

Towns put a bypass highway to allow the traffic to flow around all the congestion of businesses. Then someone decides the bypass needs a 7/11 then a McDonalds, Walgreens, etc... and finally a Walmart and Lowes. Next thing you know, they're building a bypass around the bypass, and then they're trying to raise money to rebuild the downtown area because it's dying.

Clyde Mattocks · Post by **Clyde Mattocks** » 27 Jul 2009 4:38 pm

That really summed it up, Rick!

Jeff Evans · Post by **Jeff Evans** » 27 Jul 2009 6:28 pm

If you look at the sales of McMansions and the SUV's used to get to them, it's pretty clear that the suburban bloat is a burst bubble. I suspect one of the great growth industries of the next several decades will be in converting failed housing developments into communal and single-family farms... and when the electricity starts failing on a regular basis, acoustic music will be making a big comeback! Yay! Mr. Green

Young people will be playing whatever blues/dread/dirge music that's generated when they realize that mommy & daddy used up all the good stuff, and mommy and daddy will be playing whatever blues/dread/dirge music that's generated when they find out the kids won't work three minimum-wage jobs to pay the oldster's Social Security. But no, I can't predict anything.

Enough with the sunny optimism — is there a downside?

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 28 Jul 2009 5:57 am

...mommy and daddy will be playing whatever blues/dread/dirge music that's generated when they find out the kids won't work three minimum-wage jobs to pay the oldster's Social Security.

Maybe the kids could work some of those "for the door" bar gigs. $:\$

Alan Kirk · Post by **Alan Kirk** » 28 Jul 2009 6:58 am

Every generation, in every culture, in every country, has its own music, fashion, slang, etc.

Stop complaining and grow old gracefully!

And what do you mean by "traditional" Country music? Bakersfield? Wills? Hank? Willie? Tennessee Ernie Ford? Carter Family? "Traditional" Country music is a vague and ambiguous term, and means one thing to one person and another to someone else.

FWIW, when I see all those Gibson guitars in Nickel Creek, it just don't look very Country to me. (Yes, I know Gibsons have been used in Country forever. But if I don't see a Telecaster, I pretty much know I won't like the music.)

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 28 Jul 2009 8:14 am

Nickel Creek?

You must be thinking of another group.

Randy Phelps · Post by **Randy Phelps** » 28 Jul 2009 12:09 pm

I taught school in eastern kentucky in the 1980's in Lee County (it is as rural as it gets.) most of the kids were into rap, metal, and rock'n'roll. when I broke out my flattop and played old time country music or bluegrass, they 'kinda' knew it but only vaguely and it was like a museum piece to them. A few kids liked Randy Travis and Keith Whitley, but groaned about anything older.

They'd also not been taught all the rural 'stuff' I thought they would know and so the AG teacher and I started teaching using the Foxfire books. By spring we did a variety show and the kids were digging some of the old styles and had begun writing songs of their own in a 'country' style about the topics in our area: the perils of govt. cheese, working for the visa and mastercard processing center, the long road to lexington, how it sucked living so far from lexington and things like that...

I think the de-ruralization of america started a long time ago... popular country music, in a sense, was a product of that because so many rural people went to the cities in the war era (II) and continued to leave the farm and the country side for the promise of middle class life in the city.... the radio became the connection and hearing the country sounds reminded them of a simpler time and life.... that has just continued.

I remember when Anaheim was mostly orange groves! I remember breaking horses with my buddie Ed McMahon when I was a kid in a field right across from where the Angels played.... and riding my bike to the beach using the river bed as my road...

That is all gone for most folks... but the rural, country spirit is in my heart like a lot of folks... it just takes 'stewardship' to show folks the music and the cowboy code and the things that matter. Those feelings are felt in the cities too... but, the one certainty is that things will keep changing and hard times will always ensure that good songs about our lives played in plaintive terms will not only endure, but prevail.

The really good stuff will return, it is up to us to keep the fires burning and keep working and showing folks how beautiful that music is... what goes around comes back around.

James Cann · Post by **James Cann** » 28 Jul 2009 4:13 pm

Reading through this thread, I could hear Marty Stuart's "Farmer's Blues" in the background.

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 28 Jul 2009 11:17 pm

The smart people are moving to the country. We just passed a "chicken coop law" here in Buffalo that will allow people to raise up to 5 chickens on their own property in the city. The further away from nature and the closer to technology the more neurotic and destructive the society will get. You can't improve on God.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 29 Jul 2009 6:38 am

The further away from nature and the closer to technology the more neurotic and destructive the society will get.

The Middle East being that one glaring exception, right Kevin?

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 29 Jul 2009 8:20 am

I think the de-ruralization of america started a long time ago... popular country music, in a sense, was a product of that because so many rural people went to the cities in the war era (II) ... I remember when Anaheim was mostly orange groves! I remember breaking horses ...
That is all gone for most folks... but the rural, country spirit is in my heart like a lot of folks... it just takes 'stewardship'

I completely agree. There's nothing new here - it's just that this evolution is well along now and the last truly majority-rural generations are dying off now. For the vast majority of Americans, true rural living is not a first-hand experience. The culture, mostly through mass-media, pushes urban and suburban values, and there's precious little to interfere with that influence anymore.

I agree that some people - including some younger people - are rejecting this move to more and more complexity, affluence, and urbanity. I always felt that this was an important basis of the original 'hippie' movement, and a big part of what distinguished it from, let's say, the more urban-intellectual beat movement. Maybe that can happen again, but again, this ain't 1966 - a lot of water under the bridge since then.

Towns put a bypass highway to allow the traffic to flow around all the congestion of businesses. Then someone ...

Man, ain't that the truth. Just a microcosm of the same thing that happened in cities. Now there's urban gentrification in core cities. At a certain point, if you push out of the core far enough, there's nowhere else to go but back in.

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 29 Jul 2009 9:52 am

Kevin Hatton wrote:The smart people are moving to the country.

They're not 'smart' if they live in the country and work in the city. It just means more cars on the road and increased dependency on the private automobile.

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 29 Jul 2009 1:01 pm

They are smart when they are self sufficient.