Jim Nelson says:
> >>> Todd Larson writes:
>
> >Worth mentioning in all this is that "sparce" and "basic" and
> >"plain" are in many ways cuturally (and commercially)
> >contructed choices just like "pop," "lush," and "polished."
>
> Exactly.
Exactly.
> Except for the fact that those snazzy string arrangements and
> (totally unnecessary) background singers were NOT added for
> artistic reasons, nor were they added to grab the attention of
> the working class and rural audiences who already listened to
> country music. In every article/interview I've read about
> Atkins/Bradley, etc., they've made it very clear that those
> elements were added for one reason - to make country music more
> palatable to middle class urban and suburban audiences and by
> extension to broaden record sales. This tactic obviously met
> with some financial success (Chet Atkins became a vice president
> at RCA), provided a lot of work for groups like the Jordanaires
> and the Anita Kerr Singers, and helped to advance the careers of
> certain artists (Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves, etc.), but I'd bet a
> few other artists (and listeners) were resistant to the idea.
> Please don't tell me that the "Nashville sound" was some kind of
> artistic advancement in country music.
It was and it wasn't. It was certainly a development, probably inevitable,
and popular with a good many members - though as Jim points out, not all -
of the country music community, musicians and audience both. But it was
only one of a number of sounds at the time, just as there are a variety of
country and country-related sounds today. And in the early 1950s, too.
In any event, as I read interviews with Atkins, et.al. (there's an excellent
roundtable of studio musicians in a recent JCM that's relevant here), the
reason given above needs to be qualified on several grounds. I don't think
Atkins or many of the other folks involved would agree that they had
sacrificed musical quality to broaden record sales, which is where the value
jdugment comes in - and, I think, that's why so many of these guys express a
genuine fondness for what they've done that others have thought was too
sappy (e.g., Ray Price). And I also think that it wasn't only, or simply a
matter of appealing to new (middle class, urban, suburban) audiences; it was
also a matter of changing in response to changing tastes and needs among
members of the core audience - who were, after all, among those becoming
more urban and suburban if not more middle class, whatever that means.
Musically speaking, it's akin to the phenomenon of the honky-tonk driven
electrification of the 40s and 50s, the point being that it was also driven
by commercial considerations. Pointing out those considerations doesn't by
itself negate observations about the aesthetic ones.
Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
