Country music that's actually listenable

[LemonMelon]

A tall order, I realize, but this thread is for that rare moment when you come across a track somewhere within the spectrum of country that's altogether inspired and avoids the usual hackneyed contemporary bullshit. I'm from western Maryland, which is essentially West Virginia runoff, so I have a lot of experience with it. I'm no purist, so feel free to post/discuss anything that would qualify.

A recent, highly wonderful discovery of mine is Flying Burrito Brothers. This track right here boasts probably the coolest pedal steel tone ever. It's practically squirming out of the speakers:

YouTube - Flying Burrito Brothers - Christine's Tune

Probably borderline, but Townes Van Zandt's voice is pure country. Gorgeous:

YouTube - Townes Van Zandt - "Fare thee well, Miss Carousel"

And, of course, some awesome outlaw country shit:

YouTube - Willie Nelson - Bloody Mary Morning

YouTube - Waylon Jennings - Cedartown, Georgia

YouTube - Kris Kristofferson Sunday morning coming down

YouTube - Johnny Cash - Cocaine Blues

I intend to check out Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams very soon. Those two have wonderful voices, and boast some seminal albums.

 

[corianderstem]

If you go to the Flying Burrito Brothers, you go to Gram Parsons, which leads to Emmylou Harris - you MUST check her out. Put her at the top of your list.

YouTube - Emmylou Harris - Boulder to Birmingham

Dolly Parton - no, seriously! She has a recent bluegrass album that's very good. Quite simply, she's awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1zJzr-kWsI

I'm also a fan of Mindy Smith, who does a really good cover of Dolly's song Jolene(which also features Dolly):

YouTube - Mindy Smith - Jolene.

Lyle Lovett - I love his voice.

YouTube - Lyle Lovett - Nobody Knows Me

Mary Chapin Carpenter - more great singer-songwriter stuff

YouTube - Mary Chapin Carpenter - Stones In The Road

And one of my all-time favorite songs. It makes me cry:

YouTube - Mary Chapin Carpenter - I Am A Town (live)

Dixie Chicks - their album Home is one of my all-time favorite albums

YouTube - Dixie Chicks - Long Time Gone

YouTube - Dixie Chicks - White Trash Wedding

And yeah, you can't ignore Mr. Cash and the Red-Headed Stranger. I'll be back when I think of more - I've developed an appreciation for country music (the good stuff) in recent years.

 

[corianderstem]

Ack, I forgot Allison Krauss (with or without Union Station)! One of my favorite voices:

YouTube - DAYLIGHT

And speaking of bluegrass, Sarah Jarosz is young, talented and has a good CD that came out this year. Music starts about :37 into the video.

YouTube - Live Music Wednesday: Sarah Jarosz

Then there's the whole alt-country thing - do they really use that label anymore? Neko Case and Ryan Adams have albums that are downright COUNTRY, but they're not labelled as being country artists.

Miranda Lambert is pretty good as well, she's pretty kick-ass. She leans toward the more twangy side of country, but she's getting raves for her latest album. (I know I'd rather listen to her than Taylor Swift, in any case.)

One more for the road:

YouTube - High Sierra Trio Linda Ronstadt Dolly Parton Emmylou Harris

Emmylou, Linda and Dolly. Sweeter harmonies, you have never heard. (I wish the sound were better on this one - you have to turn it up quite a bit.) Both of their Trio albums are excellent.

 

[corianderstem]

I swear I'm almost done spamming the thread.

Sometimes you just need some down-home old-timey country. Or a reasonable facsimile.

kd lang, before she went all MOR crooner on us, kicked the shit out of country up and down the block. One of my all-time favorite voices. Her Shadowland CD is awesome.

YouTube - k.d. lang & The Reclines - I'm Down To My Last Cigarette

And, of course, the real thing:

YouTube - Patsy Cline - If You've Got Leaving On Your Mind

One more from my main man Lyle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMhaehb5AnE&feature=related

I just adore that song. And I'm not even from Texas (That's Right!)!

 

[LemonMelon]

Then there's the whole alt-country thing - do they really use that label anymore? Neko Case and Ryan Adams have albums that are downright COUNTRY, but they're not labelled as being country artists.

Oh yes, I very much consider alt-country to be under the country umbrella. Again, I'm no purist though, so the boundaries those people make tend to blur for me. All I know is, these songs kick ass:

YouTube - Ryan Adams - Answering Bell

YouTube - wilco- red-eyed and blue/I got you

Speaking of Ryan Adams and Wilco, anyone here into Whiskeytown and/or Uncle Tupelo? I've always had a mild curiosity, but was always more interested in wrapping up the discographies of their more well-known incarnations.

 

[corianderstem]

Whiskeytown is very good.

YouTube - Jacksonville Skyline (Live) - Whiskeytown

I'm not sure I've ever actually heard any Uncle Tupelo.

 

[corianderstem]

Shelby Lynne gets lumped into country sometimes, but really just does whatever the hell she wants. Blues, country, Dusty Springfield covers, whatever. She's flipping fantastic.

Her I Am Shelby Lynne album is amazing and features this gem:

YouTube - Shelby Lynne Your Lies Video

Her sister, Allison Moorer, is also very good. Probably more "country" than Shelby. I can't find anything on YouTube for my favorite song of hers, "Once Upon a Time She Said."

 

[BVS]

Jacksonville Skyline one of my favorite songs of all time...

I actually love a lot of country music, everything noted here

Country music, is a weird genre in the sense that ever since probably 1985 there hasn't been any good country music to go mainstream. All genres have their Nickelbacks and Puff Daddys, but there's always some good rap, rock, pop that will slip through the cracks and make it to the mainstream.

 

[lazarus]

Steve Earle has a few great albums, including Transcendental Blues, El Corazon, and Jerusalem. The title track from the latter is just a great piece of songwriting. He's pretty close to rock, but technically still country, I guess.

YouTube - Steve Earle Jerusalem

Also, listen to Cori; she speaks the truth re: Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Lyle Lovett, among others.

 

[phillyfan26]

(Waiting for GAF to bring up Taylor Swift.)

 

[corianderstem]

I hope not. I mean, the pop thread is thataway.

 

[Imperor]

Unfortunately, I'm much more well versed in country music that is not listenable by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[lazarus]

 

[thatsnotmypuppy]

Ah fuck it.

Here was the video for Carrie Underwood's 'So Small' but youtube isn't letting me "embed" it. Pffft.

 

[corianderstem]

I will admit to enjoying the heck out of Before He Cheats, and I have a copy of her first album, but only because I have a good handful of CDs by American Idol spawn.

She's too much the "pop country" genre for my country tastes, though.

 

[VintagePunk]

Great lists, everyone.

Loretta Lynn's another one worth mentioning in here, I think. She may be more twangy and genuinely county than many of the females listed in here, but she was a ground-breaker, and surprisingly feminist for her time and for someone of her background.

A lot of the old timers are really great. It's what my parents listened to when I was a kid in the 70s, but it wasn't till I reached adulthood that I began to appreciate a lot of it.

 

[corianderstem]

Yes to Loretta Lynn! The Van Lear Rose album is really great, and she kicked ass back in the day as well.

 

[RedRocksU2]

This is just about all I can stand from Country music;

YouTube - Shania Twain - Forever And For Always: Green Edit Version

 

[corianderstem]

You're veering into pop-country territory there.

(I do like a few Shania songs. )

 

[U2isthebest]

I love Johnny Cash, old school George Jones, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, some Willie Nelson and Hank Williams. The only modern country that I think is still consistently really good is the Dixie Chicks. Their last album had more of a pop flair, but I still loved it, plus I love that they didn't back down to the backwards rednecks that keep modern country alive. And I love Taylor Swift, huge guilty pleasure. She's not so country, but she's fun.

 

[agentorange]

Speaking of Ryan Adams and Wilco, anyone here into Whiskeytown and/or Uncle Tupelo?

Yeah, I decided to finally check out Uncle Tupelo a few years ago after spending years obsessing over Son Volt and Wilco. And UT is absolutely worth checking into. There is not a bad album in their catalog, although the "March 16-20, 1992" album is entirely acoustic and maybe not as representative of their work and sound.

Anyway, they took country/rock music and mixed in a healthy dose of punk aesthetic. It's also interesting to note that while the albums are fairly cohesive as a whole, the songwriting personalities of Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy can seem as distinct as oil and water. But that opinion's colored with a lot of hindsight into their falling out. Regardless, UT represents the nascent work of two of the best songwriters of my generation. The UT material does not approach the best work of either Wilco or Son Volt, but it gives glimpses of the music that shaped them and the creative output that would come in a few years.

Unfortunately, quality Uncle Tupelo material is hard to find on you tube, but here's a sampler.

YouTube - No Depression

YouTube - Uncle Tupelo - Graveyard Shift

YouTube - Uncle Tupelo 2/91 - Gun

 

[Salome]

Lucinda Williams and The Jayhawks (mostly their awesome Tomorrow The Green Grass album) have not been mentioned yet

 

[corianderstem]

Lucinda Williams and The Jayhawks (mostly their awesome Tomorrow The Green Grass album) have not been mentioned yet

He mentioned wanting to check out Lucinda Williams in the first post, but completely agree about that Jayhawks album - that's my favorite of theirs.

I appreciate a lot about Lucinda Williams, but sometimes the sound of her voice just makes me want to claw my ears out. A little of her voice goes a very long way.

YouTube - Lucinda Williams - Drunken Angel

YouTube - The Jayhawks, live on Jon Stewart, Blue

 

[LemonMelon]

Ha, I really dig Lucinda's voice. Doesn't quite have that twangy country hiccup, and her harsher songs, like the one you just posted, are really sold by it.

Lots of great suggestions so far, excited to dig into these further.

 

[lazarus]

The Jayhawks aren't country (a lot of rockin' electric guitar on Tomorrow the Green Grass, including a Grand Funk Railroad cover), but their old stuff is amazing. Hollywood Town Hall is a great one.

 

[corianderstem]

I'd put the Jayhawks (at least most of their stuff) into the alt-country genre. Everything seems so intermingled now, you're bound to find something that one person considers "x" and another considers "y."

 

[VintagePunk]

Anyway, they took country/rock music and mixed in a healthy dose of punk aesthetic.

That's a really good point, something a lot of these artists have in common, and I've frequently thought that about the older ones, too, they have the whole anti-establishment, punk ethos going on. I always think of Buddy Holly as the very first proto-punk.

Someone else I wanted to mention is Blue Rodeo, a Canadian band. They've been around since the mid 80's, around the same time that kd lang was breaking out (who, btw, started out heavily in the cowpunk genre), and they actually began as a punk band. Their basis is country rock, but they've explore a lot of genres, including blues, pop, crooner-type country, jazzy sounds - they're kind of all over the board. They have two different lead vocalists with very different voices that suit the songs very well.



YouTube - BLUE RODEO - Diamond Mine


This is the only album version of this song I could find, the video and single versions cut off the guitar solo at the end, which is an abomination, it's one of my favourite guitar solos of all time.
YouTube - Blue Rodeo - Five Days In May


YouTube - BLUE RODEO - Hasn't Hit Me Yet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wye2XkLbBk

YouTube - BLUE RODEO - Trust Yourself

YouTube - VH: Try - Blue Rodeo

 

[lazarus]

I'd put the Jayhawks (at least most of their stuff) into the alt-country genre. Everything seems so intermingled now, you're bound to find something that one person considers "x" and another considers "y."

I consider you "y", what do you think of that?

I know some would classify the The Jayhawks as alt-country but I don't really buy it. You can also see them listed under folk rock. I mean, if you're going to throw everything that has roots elements, then is Bob Dylan or Neil Young alt-country as well? I'd rather just throw it all under the Americana label or roots rock.

Plus, they're from Minneapolis. That's pretty far from Nashville.

Their breakout hit (and arguably their biggest song) in no way sounds country to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUMyKcNL-Vs

Also, after Marc Olson left (only halfway into the band's discography, I might add), the band drifted into even more unclassifiable material, incorporating more psychedelic sounds.

 

[corianderstem]

Does all country need to be from Nashville? (That's a serious question - I wasn't sure if you were making a joke, or if that's some signifier for the "alt-country" tag.)

The lines blur a lot for me personally between country, alt-country, roots rock, folk and that Americana stuff, so I totally understand why I might think of something as "country" and someone else might think I'm insane.

Point taken about the Jayhawks, though.

 

[lazarus]

It was a joke.

BTW, I probably saw The Jayhawks about four times between the Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow the Green Grass albums, and one of my fondest concertgoing memories was seeing them at Milwaukeefest, where I heard Blue for the first time.