Honky Tonk Country Music

Tommy Gibbons · Post by **Tommy Gibbons** » 30 Nov 2009 6:53 pm

This is the sound of great country music. I guess that is Mr. Tom playing steel on first link. This is more than just music. It's a life-style with feeling and memories!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GPVS8v_ ... L&index=73

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jztFNVM_C4w

Mr Gaylord Corp. just doesn't get it...well, they do, it's about MONEY! Look at the CMA show, a disgrace.

Thanks for allowing me to vent.

Tommy

Charles Davidson · Post by **Charles Davidson** » 30 Nov 2009 7:29 pm

Ricky Thibodeaux · Post by **Ricky Thibodeaux** » 1 Dec 2009 3:05 pm

AMEN BROTHER

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 1 Dec 2009 3:32 pm

I don't know how anyone can listen to this and then listen to the music like the CMA awards, and claim that it's just the evolution of the music. It's a completely different sound. Now you listen to today's country and compare it to rock/pop from 20 years ago and they fit together nicely.

Sorry, just more preaching to the choir and crying on one another's shoulder. We won't make any difference, but they can't say we didn't stick up for our music. Leave country alone.

Charles Davidson · Post by **Charles Davidson** » 1 Dec 2009 4:10 pm

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 1 Dec 2009 4:46 pm

No Bama, we do agree. When Bill Monroe came along to the Opry in 1939 his music turned out to be too refined to be "old time" music, and the timing and high lonesome sound, didn't fit the country label, so Bluegrass was born.

Some people still think old time banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, etc... is bluegrass, but they don't know any better. This sets me off into another rant about booking bluegrass bands at all the "old time" events, like antique tractor shows, horse and buddy things, etc..... You can thank Hee Haw and Beverley Hillbillys with Lester and Earl, and Andy Griffith with the Darlings for a lot of that. That's not what Monroe was all about. I got really close to him and he expressed a lot of frustration with these things.

A lot of so called bluegrass bands are doing what was called folk "flower child" music in the 60's and calling it bluegrass. So, I suppose music is a dyanamic thing and is constantly crossing genre lines back and forth. My main concern is that in the current shuffle, real country is being pushed out of the mix and will not be able to sustain itself.

Just because you can go to Nashville and hear some real country or Texas Swing in a club that seats 125 people, does not mean that country is alive and well. It's just more evidence of how it's being pushed out of the mainstream (Opry) and into niche status.

Yep, it's a waste of time to discuss it. We can't change it. It's too far gone. Sad.

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 1 Dec 2009 8:52 pm

I prefer to listen to older country music myself (mostly 1950s and 1960s stuff), but in the same breath I'll say that honky-tonk wasn't the only good country music to listen to. There were a lot of different things happening back in the 'good old days', with and without steel.

Les Anderson · Post by **Les Anderson** » 1 Dec 2009 10:03 pm

What do you suppose would be the response if these guys played at the 2010 CMA Awards?

Would they love it or sit there and wonder what in hell it was?

Tommy Shown · Post by **Tommy Shown** » 2 Dec 2009 8:42 am

Rick Campbell wrote:I don't know how anyone can listen to this and then listen to the music like the CMA awards, and claim that it's just the evolution of the music. It's a completely different sound. Now you listen to today's country and compare it to rock/pop from 20 years ago and they fit together nicely.

Sorry, just more preaching to the choir and crying on one another's shoulder. We won't make any difference, but they can't say we didn't stick up for our music. Leave country alone.

I am in total agreement with ya'll on this. That is real Country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tommy Shown
SMFTBL

Tom Wolverton · Post by **Tom Wolverton** » 2 Dec 2009 11:13 am

Amber Digby!

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 4 Dec 2009 1:56 am

So far for me, Willie's Place (XM-13) is where my dial stays tuned.

Dick Overby is my hero.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 4 Dec 2009 3:10 pm

Tommy Gibbons wrote:This is the sound of great country music....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jztFNVM_C4w
...

Absolutely. (I'll even forgive the rhythm guitarist for his French Flag guitar.)
This is what country music should sound like. You don't need synthesizers and fuzzboxes, and you don't need to run around on the stagelights like my namesake enjoys doing. Just plain country, with plenty of steel guitar.

Rick Campbell wrote:...Some people still think old time banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, etc... is bluegrass, but they don't know any better...

I couldn't have put it any better. The sort of old-time country that used to be played with guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin, before anyone had heard of bluegrass, is the foundation of country music, but is rarely heard nowadays. It's been subverted into "bluegrass". But actually, if you listen to the records of Flatt and Scruggs, for instance, the larger proportion of the music is just country ballads, going right back to folk music, and isn't the high-powered "let's see if I can pick twice as fast as the other guy" sort of music.

But when you compare Country Music from the 50s with today's music, it's not just the music itself, the whole ambience is different. The reflective sounds of the studio have been muffled and replaced with digital reverberation. You can often start a record and feel the ambience before a note has been played.

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 4 Dec 2009 4:04 pm

Alan Brookes wrote:
Tommy Gibbons wrote:This is the sound of great country music....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jztFNVM_C4w
...
Absolutely. (I'll even forgive the rhythm guitarist for his French Flag guitar.)
This is what country music should sound like. You don't need synthesizers and fuzzboxes, and you don't need to run around on the stagelights like my namesake enjoys doing. Just plain country, with plenty of steel guitar.

Rick Campbell wrote:...Some people still think old time banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, etc... is bluegrass, but they don't know any better...
I couldn't have put it any better. The sort of old-time country that used to be played with guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin, before anyone had heard of bluegrass, is the foundation of country music, but is rarely heard nowadays. It's been subverted into "bluegrass". But actually, if you listen to the records of Flatt and Scruggs, for instance, the larger proportion of the music is just country ballads, going right back to folk music, and isn't the high-powered "let's see if I can pick twice as fast as the other guy" sort of music.

But when you compare Country Music from the 50s with today's music, it's not just the music itself, the whole ambience is different. The reflective sounds of the studio have been muffled and replaced with digital reverberation. You can often start a record and feel the ambience before a note has been played.

Alan,

If you keep making sense like this, you'll never get time to do your hammered dulcimer vs. steel research.

Barry Hyman · Post by **Barry Hyman** » 4 Dec 2009 5:35 pm

What a treat! Yes indeed, that is what country music should sound like! And when we play country music around here, that's what we try to make it sound like! Thanks for the link...

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 5 Dec 2009 11:36 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jztFNVM_C4w
Steiner should get a lot of credit for the sound on this clip.

Harold Liles Jr · Post by **Harold Liles Jr** » 5 Dec 2009 5:49 pm

I love the old honky tonk sound. Thats all I prefer to do. Todays country music is so far removed from its beginnings that it's not really country. Long live Buck Owens, Ray Price, and all the other great honky tonkers..

Doyle Weigold · Post by **Doyle Weigold** » 6 Dec 2009 3:12 pm

Don't think for an instant that I am comparing myself to the greats mentioned here, I AM NOT, never will, but 4-5 years ago I bought a new American made Tele and a 65 reissue super reverb Fender amp, 4-10's.I think it was the first month I had it, we were doin' some Buck and Merle that we do every weekend and a young guitar player came up to the stage at break and asked what kind of effects I was playin' thru to get that sound. Needless to say I proudly held up the guitar cord from the guitar to the amp, and told him there was no effects. I guess what I'm trying to say that goes with this thread, is the younger pickers seems to think there is an effects box to let them get what ever sound they are lookin' for. If I'm not makin' any sense I apolagize. We worked 80 mile away from home this fri. and Sat. So I'm still comin' down from a good natural high. A Pickin' Bro. Doyle

David Evans · Post by **David Evans** » 8 Dec 2009 4:34 am

I wonder what influence southern rock and rock has had on the current sad shape country music is in.It seems to me that no longer do "country" guitar players admire Don Rich, Roy Nichols or Leon Rhodes but there heroes are Eric Clapton ,Jimmy Hendrix or any of the southern rockers.I believe this is one of the main reasons for the decline.

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Honky Tonk Country Music

Honky Tonk Country Music

Re: Honky Tonk Country Music

Re: Honky Tonk Country Music

Total agreement