The Steel Guitar Forum

..wonder what the message said before it was edited? Do you have a picture of you and Alan Jackson together?

...Hey, b0b, how about a new forum area exclusively for white Christian people who like country music....ah, hell, then we'd have to define exactly what is white, what is Christian and what is country...we'd never get it off the ground...

..how about a "skinhead" area?

rayman, You have a very good point and I think you should get the message out to the whole world with a strong statement. I suggest you sit down in the middle of a busy intersection, pour a can of gasoline on your head and light a match. This is a very affective method of protest. Heck, maybe they'll even put another star on the Confederate flag in your honor. You go get 'em boy!

Flame On!

I ain't touching this with a 10 foot pole. But then again most anything I said would add some dignity to it.

Bob carlson

Uff Da Meg for sure

<SMALL>Does anyone else out there notice a conspiracy to kill country music? You can here all the hip-hop music you want on television commercials but hardly ever country.</SMALL>

The conspriracy in television commercials is to sell products. Hip-hop music says "this is trendy" to certain audiences, and trendy stuff sells.

Country music by definition is not trendy. You only hear country music in commercials that connotate stability and wholesomeness. Real estate, life insurance, breakfast cereals, dairy products, etc. will use country music.

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session S-12 (E9), Speedy West D-10 (E9, D6),
Sierra 8 Laptop (D13), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (D13, A6)

The entertainment industry isn't looking to kill off country music - it's looking to move forward and (like it or not) country is not a new style. The entertainment industry moves on as new audiences arrive to attract. When Hank came on the scene as a hot young talent, many of the country singers established at the time had a hard time getting airplay and keeping up with his success because they weren't new and Hank was. Now the new styles are pushing Hank's style towards the fringes.

It's not a question of racism, it's a question of moving times. Maybe a certain element of society does poke fun at the South and it's music but I'll bet it's mostly because they think they're living in a more sophisticated world and need to convince themselves that their way of life is "better". There's good guys and bad guys in all walks of life.

No, I don't think there is a conspiracy. There are a lot of white acts that are christians in their personal lives that border on hip hop (In Sync, Backstreet Boys) and their music is pretty cool. No, I don't believe its a racial issue, its an ignorance issue. Most of the advertising moguls still think of country music as hayseeds and hay bales. Hopefully with the help of - you won't believe this - Madonna, and some of the hip country clubs popping up in New York City and Los Angeles (see USA Today 9/28/00), the country music atmosphere is becoming cool again much like it was in the late 70's and early 80's. And ironically, I'm producing Lena Cardwell (she's on "Passions", NBC daytime television), a black female singer that is as country as a gord dipper. Rayman, after you hear her, you'll be her biggest fan.

I understand your frustration, Rayman. But hang in there, keep it country, keep your cool, and love your fellow man. Best, Boomer

<SMALL>But hang in there, keep it country, keep your cool, and love your fellow man. </SMALL>

Again I'm reminded why Boomer Castleman has been so dear a friend to me for 35 years. Right on the money, bro'!

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Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

Herb, help...
The Russians are bugging my apartment through the shower head in my bathroom

John
The same thing happened to me, but the bugging device was inserted in my toilet bowl! Don't ask how I discovered it!!

Hmmm.... maybe there is something to this conspiracy stuff!

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Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

Herb , I trust you were able to flush out the little buggers ?

Herb, you need to change Plumbers!

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kd...and the beat goes on...

It just goes to show you that, after all is said and done Herb really does give a s--t. Best, Boomer

I don't think country music will "die." I think it's just sliding downhill from the wave of popularity that it's ridden for about the last ten years.

IMO this is a great thing! I remember when the "Urban Cowboy" craze hit in the 70's and we had Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton doing pseudo-disco things like Islands in the Stream and we had Crystal Gayle doing all that poppish stuff that she did. It was largely a time of musical sterility foru country music as far as I was concerned.

As that phase waned, country music became a little more traditional again with the rise in popularity of artists like Ricky Skaggs, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, George Strait, etc.

Garth, Tim, Faith, and Shania, et al, have largely sterilized country again, but the downward slide in the popularity of their brand of country will just let it return to a less popular state where those of us who have loved it all along will be happier.

And anyone who has been attending the various steel conventions around the country knows that there are certainly enough of us diehards to keep the real thing alive.

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Rick Richtmyer
Good News


<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by RickRichtmyer on 29 September 2000 at 10:26 AM.]</p></FONT>

Moderator,
Please move this thread to its rightful place at www.whitepower/kkk.

Boomer, you are da man
BB

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www.southernmix.com

Sounds a little paranoid, Rayman. I share your sense of loss at what is happening to country music, but I think it is more attributable to greed and bad taste, than to any conspiracy. And although I agree that country music has been primarily (although by no means exclusively) performed and enjoyed by white people, I question your statement of its Christian basis. Yes, a lot of the fans are Christians, but a lot of us aren't. Yes, some of the songs are gospel based, but most of them aren't, etc.

On the plus side. Because there is no more country music being produced (with a few exceptions as noted), I have been buying "best of" CD's and renewing my acquaintence with the classics. I haven't listened to the radio in about 4 years (except for Baseball games.)

Yes, there is a conspiracy. You stumbled upon it and will now have to be sanctioned with extreme prejudice.

That new model of black helicopters, ya can't even hardly HEAR 'em!

Special Agent Steiner: the pomegranate howls at the moon, ...OVER

Special Agent Don Kedick, deep under cover, signing out....<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by L campbell on 04 October 2000 at 06:55 PM.]</p></FONT>

Surely it's clear that Country Music is currently in one of it's 'watered down' phases - but there's still a lot of great playing on the records. I do get a little irritated listening to CM radio; you hear the same ten or so tracks all day long, and currently it has to be said that these are not the greatest songs ever heard. They're more dance-orientated than anything else...
But I persevere, because I enjoy hearing what Brent Mason, Matt Rollins and, of course, Paul Franklin have to add to whatever they're playing on.
Even Chet was guilty in the very early sixties (he's admitted it often) of deliberately ignoring steel and fiddle in his productions - his remit was to sell records for RCA, and Rock'n'Roll was King - but, in due course, they crept back in. Elsewhere on this thread reference was made to the seventies when a similar thing occurred, and Ricky Skaggs and Randy Travis popped up with sufficient commercial appeal to reverse the process by the early '80s...
You can be sure the same will happen again. In the meantime, I'm still getting the odd CD by Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson...I can't say that every song is a winner, but I delight in the musicianship.

Patience....

Most of what they call Country Music now is hype. It's Madison Avenue fawning to the kids...the younger generation that thinks some cowboys are cool. This will pass. For a while, I thought the "Goths" would be our saviors...dragging all the children away to another kind of music...getting them out of our equation and into some dark dungeon, but it didn't work out.

Country Music survived Elvis and Bill Haley; it survived The Beatles, and everything else the British could throw at it; it survived The Motown sound, as well as Disco, and the Urban Cowboy craze (which still haunts us). There IS still some good Country Music out there. Listen to it, love it, buy it, play it, and support it...and it will return, (it always has).

I think that some country stuff is starting to get back on track. I would like more new stuff if producers were not into playin' it safe. A few months ago every steel player used a sitar bar, (wow creative producer lemmings). I don't notice the popularity of it dying off out here in the "West". Its funny to see the big stereo boom cars pull up at the red light with Alan Jackson playin'. Cool!
JR

Country music targeted for extinction. Hopefully extinct from the stupid TV commercials, but where would Ford trucks be without Alan Jackson?
Most companies realize that country music listeners are not the sector of people to be easily mesmorized by hyped commercials with volume + music, but a little Buddy Emmons or Patsy Cline might get my attention.
I don't know if country music is being targeted for extinction, or if it is the next alternative music source. Most of the new country has more in common with rock-a-billy than what I consider country music. Now if I can just find that station that plays all old-time country all-the-time...
Maybe Steel Guitar is targeted for extinction.....but hell...we will all still play and love it just as much. Sorry for the ramble.
Lefty