On Mon, 25 Jan 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Guilty as charged. I've never heard of the guy. But, if we really want
> to get into it, I think there's something pretty unfair about this
> comment, Don. After all, I suspect Hazeldine would call themselves a
> rock band first. Therefore, we apply *rock* knowledge to such an
> assessment of their work. And I for one have never heard of this effin'
> guy and, as an rock critic, am confident enough in my own depth of
> knowledge of country music to feel okay with such ignorance.
And that may be OK for you, and I'm sure you could do a fine review of the
Hazeldine album without knowing a thing about John Anderson (after all,
that apparently didn't stop the group from doing an OK job of recording
the song<g>). Still, I just don't consider John Anderson to be terribly
obscure. Along with Ricky Skaggs and George Strait, he was one of the
folks who paved the way for the New Traditionalist movement of the '80s.
He had a string of great country singles from the late 70s to the mid 80s
(of which, "Wild and Blue" is one of the very best), and then had a
resurgence in the early 90s, thanks to a strong comeback album that
contained at least two monster country hits that'll stand the test of
time: "Straight Tequila Night" and "Seminole Wind" (the album's title
song). Since then, his career's tailed off a bit, but I bet your average
country fan would easily recognize him. I'm sorry if my comment bugged
you, but just to put this in perspective, I'm sure you would've scoffed
just as much if some country music reviewer had called "Purple Rain" a
LeAnn Rimes song.--don
