WMV Music Web Log

Ed Lyle writes to let us know about some real music that we might not yet have encountered: "Alt Country". I watched a bunch of YouTube videos from the artists he mentions, and they are pretty incredible.

Hi Carl,

I enjoyed talking with you last night about lots of things at Rix's party. I have gone to YouTube and now have the first movement of Brahms' Second Clarinet Sonata going in the background.

Gee, you really can play the piano!

Truly remarkable for a guy who did all those years in administration at NIH.

You were mentioning last night that you were interested in Bob Dylan songs because of their poetic nature. On the way home, that made me think that you might be interested in spending a little time in the world of Alternative Country music.

Alt Country isn't the pablum that now passes for country music on the radio. It's the stuff that can't get on the radio. It's some of what country music was like before SonyMusic and other record labels hijacked the genre in Nashville about 15 years ago. They brought in pretty boys, dressed em up as cowboys, and had them sing country pablum in an effort to get 20-somethings to "go country" rather than something else.

Most of AltCountry comes out of hardscrabble Texas. It's honest and doesn't kow-tow to anyone. A lot of it is "message" music. For a starter list of notables you might want to go to www.lyricsfreak.com, enter "Townes van Zandt," and, after perhaps going through some of his lyrics (try "Pancho and Lefty," which you may have heard), scroll down to the bottom of the page for the list.
Dylan is on the list. Another is Kris Kristofferson, who you may have heard of.

This list does not include a number of others, however, who I think are equally good as singer/songwriters: Tom Russell, Billy Joe Shaver, Joe Ely, Willie Nelson for starters. One of Tom Russell's themes, for instance, is what the white man continues to do to others in this world. It ain't the most refined poetry, but it comes through like a freight train. An example is his "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall," part of which goes as follows: "We've got fundamentalist muslims, we've got fundamentalist jews, we've got fundamentalist Christians, they'll blow the whole thing up for you. But as I travel around this big old world, the one thing I most fear, is a white man in a golf shirt, with a cell phone in his ear."

Another "messenger" is Billy Joe Shaver. He's been through three heart attacks, had his wife, mother and son die almost simultaneously, lost a finger off one hand but adapted in playing the guitar, as tough as they come, salt of the earth, and a wonderful, wonderful poet and performer. An example is the way he mocks his own naivete as a young man on "Fast Train to Georgia" or the naivete of soldiers on "Feedom's Child." Shaver played a date in Falls Church, Virginia about four years ago, and I just loved him.

A lot of Alt Country is wonderfully funny and satirical. An example is a song written about seven years ago by Rodney Crowell and Vince Gill and sung by The Notorious Cherry Bombs. Its title is, "It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night that Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long." This, too, wasn't played by country radio stations.

You can get to these other folks either through YouTube or Google.

And then there are the queens, among the foremost of whom are Patsy Cline and Emmylou Harris. Each is a queen in both Austin and Nashville, though, again, neither is played much on the radio these days. If you've never heard Patsy Cline, go to YouTube and listen. What clarity in her voice! Try "Sweet Dreams" or "I Fall to Pieces" or "Crazy." You'll need only five seconds or so to get the idea.

Back in the early 70s, Harris was the girlfriend of Gram Parsons, who is widely viewed as the first to bring country and rock music together before he died of cocaine. One of her most famous songs is "Boulder to Birmingham," which she wrote about him after his death.

Both Patsy and Emmylou were from northern Virginia (Cline from Winchester, Harris was valedictorian of her class at Gar-Field High School about 40 miles from here in Woodbridge). Cline died in a plane crash in 1963. Emmylou continues on, three times divorced, pushing 60 and gray haired, but still a gorgeous "folkie" in country garb with a wonderfully sweet voice.

Finally, there's something called "South by Southwest" or "SXSW," which is a week-long annual festival of Alt Country music and films in Austin, Texas, the heart of Alt Country. Music-wise, it's a little like reading Nietzsche: sorting through the mud to find the diamonds. But the diamonds are there, and SXSW has a lot of music discussion groups and other things that I think you might find interesting. One of the greatest, cheapest experiences in America is go to down to the bars on 6th and 8th Avenues in Austin and listen to the music for the price of a few beers. It's that same gut-bucket honesty, delivered for pennies.

OK, that's enough for background on Alt Country. The clock is now ticking. And the question now is: How long will it take Carl to appear with his ensemble doing "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?" as a sonata? Remember, somebody's gotta do the vocals!

When Carl puts that together, I want a free invitation!

Regards,

Ed