Evolution of a Genre Specific to the White Man

I'm going to touch on a sensitive subject here, but just for a moment.  That subject is race.  The white man is a dirty dirty thief.  And I would know.  I've been white my entire life.  When we first came to this country, we pushed the Native Americans back and stole their land, forcing them to live on reservations.  We stole the Native Americans' farming techniques of using dead fish as fertilizer for corn crops.  As far back as time allows us to recall, the white man has done some dirty things to people of different races.  We even stole music.  You guys know a guy named Elvis Presley?  The only reason he was ever recorded was because he brought black music to a white audience.  He would listen to blues artists and mimic them in his bedroom mirror.  The song "That's All Right, Mama" was originally an Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup tune.  Rock and roll music stole from blues and jazz musicians, both genres dominated by black artists.  Even now, rock and roll still relies on those basic principles at its roots.

When it comes to sports, my African-American chums have always been better than me, would it be running, football, or basketball.  My friend Rich would constantly poke fun at this fact responding with, "At least you white guys have hockey."  This is true.  I don't think I've ever seen a black hockey player.  That doesn't mean they don't exist.  They're just like the narwhals of athletes.  We can also apply this concept to music as well, though.  White guys have country music.  The only black country singer I can think of off the top of my head is Darius Rucker.

Country music isn't what it used to be.  Sure, it still reaches out to the same demographic (white, southern folks occasionally living in trailer parks who love hearing songs about a truck, a dog, or a woman), but the sound has changed so much over the years.

My family owns a small piece of property in central New York for hunting, and I go up there quite a bit (sometimes to hunt and other times to just get away).  It's actually pretty rural up there if you can believe it, so country music is pretty popular.  People there even have a certain backwoods bumpkin accent (which part of my "accent" comes from).  On my drives up to the hunting cabin, I usually play some music in the car.  This music ranges from southern rock to classic country to bluegrass.  Tonight, just listening to Willie Nelson made me wish I was up in New York, sitting by a crackling fire with a glass of whiskey in my hand, and the sweet sound of no cell reception to calm my nerves.

Listening also got me thinking.  Has anyone ever noticed how much of a difference there is between country music of the 60s and 70s and the country music of today?  For instance, it's really hard to compare Johnny Cash to Luke Bryan.  It's like comparing apples to oranges.  They're just too different. How did we get from a three/four piece band to artists like Brad Paisley that take seven people on the road with them?

The most basic form of country music is probably bluegrass.  It's also the most consistent for of country music.  Look at Old Crow Medicine Show for example.  They have a fiddle, double bass, acoustic guitar, and banjo.  The format and sound of bluegrass hasn't changed since it started.  In my opinion, this is what country music should sound like.

The genre has pulled itself away from its roots in this and its roots in gospel music.  There is a fine line between southern rock of the 1970s and the country music of today.  It's hard to me to distinguish one from the other.  If I was listening to two analog recordings with the same production value (one a southern rock song from the 1970s and the other a country song from today), I would not be able to tell you which was from which era.  I feel like today's country music has lost touch with its roots.

Now, I'm not trying to say it's bad.  Hell, I love a good Toby Keith song!  I'm just saying that, much like everything else, the sound has evolved with the time.  Each new thing takes a few ideas from the preceding era with it, until the product barely resembles the original.  For instance, take a look at hip hop music.  If you listen to a Jay-Z song back to back with the Sugarhill Gang, there's not much the two have in common.  Sound has evolved.

Willie Nelson is a good example of how the sound of country has evolved.  In 1975, he released an amazing album called Red Headed Stranger.  This was a straight up country album.  The idea was original, the sound was unique, and the production was amazing.  Once music moved into the 1980s, and we had the rising popularity of the synthesizer and new over-the-top production techniques, country moved almost as downhill as rock music did (hair metal or new wave, anyone?).  Nelson's Always On My Mind is a good example of how downhill it had become.  The album seemed too poppy to be called country.  Aside from the title track and maybe one or two other songs, it wan't that good of an album.  The early 90s didn't bring much better production or good songs (I mean... Billy Ray Cyrus and "Achy Breaky Heart" happened.  Need I say more?).  But in the mid to late 90s, production and writing came back to where it should have been all along, and we got the current sound that is played on country stations everywhere.  I'm going to cite "Beer for My Horses," a duet between Toby Keith and Willie Nelson as an example of genius in current country.

I understand that things change and evolve, but I wanted to share my exploration and insight of the progressing sound of country music (almost the whitest music there is).

Side note: Aside from Eminem, I haven't seen a good white hip hop artist.  Personally, I think it is because of the same reason there aren't too many white blues artists.  What do white people have to be blue about?  As Chris Rock once said, "Smile!  You're white."

P.S.

I didn't even want to touch on the evolution of country rock.  That went from straight up country music to bar band music.  That's for another post another day.  Here's what I mean by bar music...