Country music...what a heck?

Cheers for the advice, Looks like I'll be buying some CDs pretty soon. :D
My better half will be pleased :rolleyes:
Thanks guys. :) :thumbup:
 
rebeltf gave you some good ones to check out, especially Haggard and Cash :thumbup:

Check out greatest hits CDs from Chris LeDoux, and Randy Travis, and David Ball's Starlite Lounge, too. Those are the first CDs I grab for a road trip, and I might listen to any one of them several times before changing to another.
 
The best artist out today is Geroge Strait. For real country go back in time to George Jones, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizell, Waylon Jennings, Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard, Johnny Rodriguez, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, just to name a few.
 
oz23 said:
Also, can anyone recommend some "entry level" Bluegrass, I like the bits and pieces that I've heard but could do with a spot of help. Cheers. :)
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Indeed, Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers are classics. They cut lots of records, some better than others, some great and some not so hot, and they've had lots of reissues of varying quality. If you're more a music lover than a record collector, you can burn through a lot of money finding music you want to keep.

In 1966, when I was trying to play banjo, my musician friends tolerated my picking (I'm as musical as a crow) for my jokes and ready wit while stoned. Record collecting was simpler then. Everyone owned two Decca LPs:

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If you find them in a library and know how to digitalize them, you'll have a pretty good starter collection!

Bill Monroe recorded his best work for Columbia and Decca, now owned by Sony and Universal Music Group. They reissue the old recordings and cut them out a year or two later: someone in Germany or Japan says "We spent umpteen dollars promoting the XYZ Band, and who the hell is Bill Monroe? Why are we competing with our back catalog?" Now you see it, now you don't. That makes it hard to give you a shopping list.

I liked Bill Monroe's Decca recordings in the 1950s and early '60s. I liked the Stanley Brothers on King-Starday. I was also partial to Jimmy Martin:

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townes van sandy and Kris kristofferson, two of my favrite writers of all time. sad sad songs,you got it.

Outlaw country is a great sugesation already mentioned and the highwaymen for sure.

never listened to any of it myself till I moved to Kentucky, I'm a convert,seems a lot of music owes its roots and heart to county. look up the meaning of the Joshua tree sometime from u2s album then listen to. gram parsons, george Jones, don william. the list goes on my friend.

I like some of Blake shelton and brad paisleys stuff that you mentioned but most modern country doesn't even compare, of course people always say that about the greats.
 
Jamey Johnson is one of my favorite newer country singers/ song writers. I really enjoy Robert Earle Keen on occasion, Alison Krauss has an amazing voice and her band Union Station are excellent in their own right. The Zac Brown Band isn't awful.
 
One of my favorite guys, Tom Russell, refers to the "mainstream" country artists as "The Hats"....

Most all my favorites are guys who are at least influenced by country, but have different sensibilities. Our local community radio station guy refers to "contemporary folk and alternative country", which pretty well describes it.
Artists like the above-mentioned Tom Russell, Guy Clark, Steve Earl, James McMurtry, Willis Alan Ramsey, and many more. Not folks you are likely to find on commercial radio stations.
 
Wow blast from the past, thread from 2005 about Country Music brought back to life, must be it caught on? ;)

I agree with Hunter on the few he mentioned;
Jamey Johnson
Alison Krauss
The Zac Brown Band

I also recommend
Chris Young, his voice is great
Josh Turner

G2
 
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