>
> Hey Terry, no matter how far down I scrolled on your last post, I couldn't
> find your usual PS. Did you forget? No one packs more into a PS than you
>
Thanks, David, I don't know why I have that tendency. Maybe it's a
reaction against inverted pyramid style. But I will try to be careful
about being consistent with my PS's.
Here's an excerpt from Chet Flippo's chapter in "Country: The Music and
the Musicians." He was writing about the early 70s' Outlaw Revolution:
After discussing why Nashville was losing track of its audiences, and not
doing so well, Flippo writes:
"During this time (the late 60s, early 70s) there were many factors that
came to change country music drastically and forever. I would like to
concentrate on one that was basically fostered by singers caught up in the
Nashville Sound. There came to be a broad-based revolution spawned by the
non-power brokers -- the writers and singers -- that was as much
influenced by the Beatles as Bob Bylan, as much by the Vietnam War as by
country star Johnny Cash... It was called the "Outlaw" movement, a glib
publicity term, but it came to represent a genuine watershed in country
music history.
"It sprang from a back-alley rendezvous in Nashville between kindred
spirits who liked to stay up late and carouse around town before getting
down to business with some music. But it came to represent a real
determination by a handful of artists to bring country music into line
with the rest of the musical world -- artistically as well as financially.
By the time it ran its course, the Outlaw movement had changed the face
of country music forever. The producer as king -- that fuedal notion was
shattered. Country artists gained control over their own record sessions,
their own booking, their record production, everything else related
to their careers, including the right to make their own mistakes..."
This doesn't prove anything, vis a vis Nashville sound = good or bad. But
I guess it does at least back up the notion that the Nashville sound was
mainly a producer/label-driven thing, and listening in hindsight, that
factor makes it harder for (me) to appreciate it, especially when it's
hitched to street-level, gritty tunes whose lyrics demand atmospherics of
a less sweet and "managed" sort. At least for me. Part of my problem is
the chasm between 1) how much the lyrics of Streets of Baltimore and
Detroit City and Five Hundred Miles from Home really grab me, give me
goosebumps almost, put me in the place of that lonely warehouse or factory
worker, a long way from home (me in L.A. in 1978-80), and then the 2)
deliberate management of the sound, to make it appeal to as many people as
possible at that time, which, in so doing, snaps its fingers and
transports me away from that factory and that loneliness. It pisses me
off. Though I'll confess, I need to move on. After arguing about this, I
think I've copped a worse attitude about the Nashville Sound than I
really need to have. -- Terry Smith
ps You know, Vince Gill singing "Forever on My Mind" at the Grammy's, with
full orchestral backing and the Vienna Boys Choir singing background (g)
was the highlight of the show. Really. Oh, yeah, when Shania came on in
her dominatrix get-up, I started hooting, and whining, and bitching, and
my kids said something like, "Shut up, dad, you sound like some old
grandmother complaining about Elvis." Of course, I beat them severely.
