The future of country music?

[Barry Blackwood]

http://mynewsla.com/hollywood/2017/04/3 ... picks=true

[Joachim Kettner]

I guess the folks who like Chris Stapleton will like him too. Me I always liked Los Lobos.

[Craig Stock]

I bought Kiefer's new album and think it is top notch, great songwriting of which he co-wrote ,most of it. It also features Greg Leisure on some of the tracks.

Well worth looking into!

[Graham]

Not a song on the cd that doesn't sound like most everything else called country today!!

[Mark Eaton]

Before everyone piles on Sutherland for being yet another Hollywood type trying to moonlight as a singer/songwriter-musician, here is a short interview I read with him yesterday in the Sunday San Francisco Chornicle.

He comes off as being pretty humble about the venture:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/music/popqui ... 098137.php

[Mike Neer]

Before everyone piles on Sutherland for being yet another Hollywood type trying to moonlight as a singer/songwriter-musician, ....

I wonder if actors complain as much when country singers become actors....

[Mark Eaton]

Not a song on the cd that doesn't sound like most everything else called country today!!

Really? Are we talking about the same CD? There was a link at the end of the article I shared with the music video for Not Enough Whiskey and it's posted below.

This particular song doesn't sound anything like most everything else called country today. Because it sounds like an actual country song.

I looked it up - Greg Leisz is on pedal steel - and this is "straight-ahead-country-Greg" as opposed to "playing-with-Bill Frisell-Greg."

There's more country steel in this song than just about any three (or maybe five) "bro country" songs put together.

Listen to what Greg played on the tune - it's a pretty safe bet that 99% of all the pedal players here would have loved to have been called for the session.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7lUCghDJ7w

[Dave Mudgett]

I think Sutherland is an OK country singer, the production and playing are good. I don't have any spitballs to throw. For decades, actors have turned to music and singing and singers and musicians have turned to acting. I think it's safe to say that this will continue, and perhaps become even more prevalent.

But there is some criticism of this kind of thing, among both actors and musicians. The usual complaint is the fact that famous people are able to cross commercial/artistic lines simply because of their fame. Ask yourself seriously - would this (pick anybody) musician/singer (actor) be taken seriously as an actor (musician/singer) without their fame. I imagine some would and some wouldn't - there are indeed some seriously multi-talented people out there. But I think they're in the minority.

But there's also another undercurrent that involves the idea of famous people basically sucking the oxygen out of the air for people who specialize in a craft like acting or music. These critiques by actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Anthony Mackie of rappers/singers turned actor go to that point:

http://ew.com/article/2002/07/22/samuel ... ed-actors/

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2010/08/ ... ed-actors/

Really, in the current fame-obsessed world, fame trumps all (no pun intended!), and I really do think it's harder to get recognized simply on the basis on one's merits.

Johnny Depp goes further - http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/j ... sic-764820

I don't necessarily agree or disagree with these sentiments on a universal basis, but I think it's something to think about: how many actors-turned-musicians would cut it in a competitive music tryout, or how many musicians-turned-actors would cut it in a competitive acting tryout - if nobody knew who they were?

There's a similar sort of issue in the scientific/academic community - well-known scientists/academics have for decades had an easier time getting papers accepted for publication or grants funded. Some journals and foundations now insist on anonymized reviews, where all traces of authors or their affiliations are redacted before review. It's hard to surgically do this, but I think it does help level the playing field somewhat. I'm pretty confident that this will NEVER happen in showbiz.

[Barry Blackwood]

There's a similar sort of issue in the scientific/academic community - well-known scientists/academics have for decades had an easier time getting papers accepted for publication or grants funded.

There's such a thing as a "well-known scientist?"

[Jon Alexander]

There is no shortage of pop entertainers trading on their fame to find some sort of compensation in other fields,people who resent it or the "unfair " disadvantage of those accomplished artists relegated to obscurity.Name recognition carries an advantage in any field or entertainers wouldn't be shilling for products,politicians or the social cause du jour.It doesn't make them superior people or invalidate the efforts of unknown musicians.Just like everybody else some do well at it,others don't.

[Dave Mudgett]

There's such a thing as a "well-known scientist?"

Hell yes. Of course, there are always world-famous scientists like Einstein, the Curies, Newton, Pasteur, Feynmann, Cousteau, Sagan, Hawkings, and many others. But just as there are "well known musicians" that Joe Blow Mainstream has never heard of, there are "well-known scientists" that most people have never heard of. But they are very well known in their own domains, and that is the domain in which "working crafts-people" of whatever type are judged and where decisions about their careers are made.

... Name recognition carries an advantage in any field or entertainers wouldn't be shilling for products,politicians or the social cause du jour. ...

IMO, the difference is that in some fields, like science, a large number (if not a significant majority) of its practitioners actually care that real talent has a chance to prosper on merit alone, and least try to set up the system to eliminate or at least reduce the "fame factor" in judging merit. You mention entertainers and politicians - well, there's not a helluvalotta intersection between those fields and science. IMHO.

[Jon Alexander]

Science is as subject to human nature as any other endeavor,or Alfred Wallace would be as recognized as Charles Darwin. Wallace wasn't as well connected as Darwin and didn't endear himself to those circles of influence and he was no less accomplished.

[Dave Mudgett]

Of course, science/engineering/academia is subject to human nature. I know only too well, having worked in that area for most of the last 37 years (with a 7-year break in the middle to play music). But I don't think it is "as" subject to it. I honestly believe that there's a level of circumspection and recognition in the sciences about how to deal with things like favoritism and partisanship that will never rear its head in showbiz and politics. Even the most cynical and glad-handing scientist/engineer types I've known in all those years would blush at the level of nepotism, favoritism, partisanship, and rank opportunism that is glowingly heralded in mainstream showbiz and politics. My opinions, based on my experience.

And let me just say - Wallace didn't exactly die an unknown or even remotely unimportant figure in 19th Century science. He had every opportunity, lived the life fully, and was well recognized for his work both while living and after. In my earlier discussion, I was talking about fame-induced favoritism and nepotism choking off the ability of new blood to even get the opportunity to live the life, and I think that is what Jackson and Mackie were talking about.

Let me state it more bluntly. I think if you're a talented young scientist/engineer who is committed to the life and willing to make the sacrifices, then the system is set up so that the probability of "success" - OK, whatever that is, but I'm talking about being able to really live the life, make a good living, be reasonably well-known in your field, and so on, strictly on the merits - is much, much higher than for, let's say, an equivalent young talent in music or acting. Anybody disagree with me on that?

[Brooks Montgomery]

There's such a thing as a "well-known scientist?"

Of course:
Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Ph.D

[Barry Blackwood]

There's such a thing as a "well-known scientist?"


Of course:
Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Ph.D

[Joachim Kettner]

How about a singing gynecologist? Gram Parsons consulted him once, during his stay in England in the late sixties. Hank still performs. Steel by B.J. Cole:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZs-Rg ... 7E&index=7

[Don R Brown]

A singing gynecologist? It's an attention-getter, but probably not all it's cracked up to be.

[Joachim Kettner]

I was wrong with the term gynecologist, but he's certainly a physician.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Wangford