Kazz said:
Deaa.....it is time for your musical education. You really need to find yourself some Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash and going old old school even some Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and just sit back and listen.....for Willie I suggest any of his greatest hits collections that have "Angel Flying To Close To The Ground" on it.....That guitar is very much the center of his music. - snip -
OK, this has been a revelation...well to start with: I listened to a few Willie's songs, Waylon too - actually a duet with Willie for instance...and that angel thing too. (Garth Brooks btw sounds extremely well done and so on, but it's kinda hit-pop I don't care for, reminds me of something like David Hasselhoff or something might perform in a Vegas nightclub really, no offense intended
Willie I kinda liked, except when it went into that sidestick drum drone on some songs I found. Them Flatt and Scruggs - what I found reminded me of 'Deliverance' - it's kinda 'Bluegrass' I guess?
Now, they all did sound very familiar, exactly what you hear in movies in scenes located in some southern/cowboy bars etc. Full of certain riffs and melodies that make them instantly recognizable as country. Always those same first full-then 1,5 step bass down riffs, the sidestick drums, picked and slide...I guess just like guitar rock, they have a lot of common factors. Anyway they started to sound a little too familiar...I did some digging...
It's kinda funny...Johnny Cash and many other that style musicians though - a lot of older country etc. style songs have been translated into Finnish as well, I bet many many people don't even know they are originally foreign. I remember we used to sing a LOT of those kind of tunes in primary schools...in Finnish, though. Stuff like Riders in The Sky (hear in Finnish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVcCxa0SVyA
and I walk The Line (in Finnish here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrlBWl_57Jk and, you know, older stuff like Georgia on my mind, Clementine and Yellow Rose etc...I know them by different names and sung by Finnish disco/dance singers of the 70's etc. and in schools as children's songs, go figure. Well they are very simple catchy melodies. I walk the line was one of my super favorite songs when I was six, but it was in Finnish...I sang it all the time. There are a lot of songs I sang when I was a kid I later learned were actually some US songs originally, let me think...'Mexico'....'1-2-3-4-Motorway', stuff like that too, but I never did know they weren't Finnish originally. So you could say it is, in a way, music of my childhood in the 70's.
Anyway...at best I do like some country-style stuff...I always liked Grateful Dead's two 'country' albums American Beauty and Workingman's Dead VERY much, but they don't have these omnipresent sidestick drums and such that I don't like about country.
But what strikes me as funny is that indeed a lot of this country style music has been converted into 'old people's music' or 'children's music' here in Finland, it's exactly the kind of stuff they play in day dances for the 40-70 year olds, and astonishingly I bet a LOT of those songs are actually more or less direct translations of american country classics. They are often however changed to something more like Tango, more danceable...old folk here are crazy over tango etc.
So yeah...it doesn't seem to be my cup of tea. I like rock, most all kinds of rock from Buddy Holly to Lamb of God, but them country songs...too much the music my parents would have listened to in the 60's. There are a few gems I really like - I had this epiphany of seeing Johnny Cash's version of NIN's Hurt and it was simply awesome...and there are others that strike me as pleasant. But in general, I don't think I'd want to listen to music like that - any more that is.
