Bob Soron wrote:
>>If they're not "alt country" or "alternative country" according to the
>>UT/No Depression revisionism, er, I mean yardstick, then, we're back to
>>the original problem being batted around back then (and when *did* this
>>start, btw? Bob Soron?) [...]
>
>I had *nothing* to do with it. Ask Gracey, who was there whenever
>something good happened. Or someone old, like Barry or Wyatt. <g>
I'm askin' you! <g>. Of course Gracey is the one to ask, as he goes back To
The Beginning of Time, what a maroon I am. It's just that back when I first
got on the Net, reading rec.music.country.western, I remember you as being
the one with the knowledge of all things Flatlanders. So I wanted to pick
your brains a bit about the search for a name for the music around the late
80s and early 90s. When I started seeking out like-minded twangsters, about
this time, through Twangin', and later the Internet, the search for a name
for the "what we mean when we point to it" music was already underway, and
it referred to people like Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock,
Nanci Griffith, Tish Hinojosa, Rosie Flores, Dave Alvin and other, uh, "pre
No Depression" musicians. Kevin Welch and Jimmie Dale Gilmore came up with
"western beat," which Welch used for an album (and which Billy Block had
been using for some time in L.A. for his showcases). That didn't take.
Didn't Gavin start up the Americana charts about this time? Or was that a
bit later? That name didn't stick either.
What I'm getting at is that before UT, before No Depression, folks were
wondering what to call this stuff. To my mind, if it doesn't make a
"genre," it makes a "scene"-- a gathering (virtual or in real-time) of
like-minded folks who want to play, discuss, find, write about a kind of
music that, while the borders may be vague and shift, is enough of a piece
for a group of like-minded people to want to play, discuss, find, and write
about it.
And even though (this to Jim Roll) bluegrass, old time, folk, rockabilly,
etc. existed as separate genres, the fans and musicians -- the far-flung
(with a hotbed in Austin) "scene" -- was a place where these generes
intersected. Not everybody liked every kind of music, but if you found
yourself in a gathering of fans and musicians of "this kind of music,"
you'd hear talk about all of them. This is why the "Big Tent" definition is
still popular -- bluegrass and rockabilly and folk were not "suddenly"
added to alternative country; they were there all along. This is why I
prefer thinking about it as "an alternative way of looking at country
music," because that was what was happening when I got hooked into the
loose network of country/roots music people. They were people who were
actively seeking out *all kinds* of different country and "roots" music.
And they were not all coming from punk backgrounds either; the age range,
and the range of experience, was wide.
Was, I said. Still is, I mean. That's the "alternative country" that IS
STILL FUCKIN' (sorry Tera) HERE and will be here forever and ever amen,
whether No Depression music disappears OR becomes the Next Big Thing. No
Depression-UT focused attention on the music, true; but it focuses
attention *away* from a large chunk of alternative country music as well.
It's being "disappeared" from country/rock history even as we speak.
Boy this is getting long. But another thing... <g>
This is how I came to be on Postcard2. I had started the Twangin' e-zine
(ascii plain text!) and as part of that, searched for mailing lists &
newsgroups of interest. So I'd sub to them for a while to see what they
were like before I listed them in Twangin'. I subbed to the rockabilly
list, I subbed to Country-L, I subbed to single-artist lists, I read
rec.music.country.western and, later, rec.music.country.old-time. (I'd
subbed to BGRASS-L the minute I found the Internet.) I subbed to Postcard
in the same spirit. As I wasn't terribly interested in UT/Wilco/Son Volt, I
would have unsubbed after sampling the list, except that the definition of
"bands like UT" kept widening. I was especially impressed by the wholesale
leap into old-time music by a fellow named Steve Gardner <g>. So I hung on
until the Great Crash, when Postcard went down and Laura started up
Postcard2 as an emergency back-up. When she decided to keep it going as the
place to talk about the "Bands Like UT" -- which by this time included
people like Merle Haggard and Doc Watson -- I stayed. And over time, this
list became a refuge for people who wanted to look at country music from
an alternative point of view, and were dissatisfied (to say the least) with
Country-L or r.m.c.w.
The thing is, Postcard, and then Postcard2, was the only place where you
could really get into ALL kinds of country music without seriously getting
off-topic. The country lists and newsgroups were (are?) openly antagonistic
towards older and non-charting country music. This list is open to
discussion of country music in all its forms, though sometimes that
discussion is heated. But if it were to become a UT-ND type list only, it
would be no more satisfying than r.m.c.w.'s hot new country focus.
The thing is, there's this... reservoir of "alternative country" that has
existed at least since bluegrass, the Original Alt.Country (TM) was
invented. But I'll talk about country-rock. What happens is, a wave of
people get interested in country music, whether as refugees from rock or
from top-40 country -- and they change it somewhat, usually mixing in the
rock aesthetic currently popular. So people in the 60s throw in rock
rebellion and "back to the country." Next up, the Outlaws throw in some
more rebellion -- with a slightly different sound. Then along comes punk,
and throws in, oh, edginess, irony, and of course, more rebellion. Later
still, a new post-punk alternative rock movement gets interested in
country, and throws in more of same. I simplify, of course, and these are
just some of the big waves -- there are also a lot of little ripples and
wavelets that move back and forth, individual artists who make a splash,
etc.
At the same time, all of these movements insist on country "authenticity,"
even while defining it to suit themselves. This means that a certain number
of musicians and fans will drift from the country-rock of the day to
country. All roads lead to Mother Maybelle, abandonning the water metaphor
for a sec.
So the "reservoir" of an alternative country music -- alternative to
whatever is currently unsatisfactory in mainstream country or in rock or in
society in general -- changes over time, but is also the place where you
can drink your fill of country's *history*.
Including all the country rock and "alternative" country movements that
went before.
On this list, we have people who went to that reservoir in the 50s; during
the "Folk Scare" of the 60s, from the 70s Outlaw movement, from 70s or 90s
punk, from the 80s New Traditionalist movement, and out of dissatisfaction
from Hot New Country, or the Urban Cowboy fad, or the Nashville Sound (some
people who disliked the slick sound of country music in the early 60s moved
to bluegrass!).
We jump into the reservoir, and some of us go all the way under water. Our
first question is:
Where can I find more music like the Byrds/Waylon Jennings/Jason & the
Scorchers/Uncle Tupelo?
Our second question is:
Where can I find Merle Haggard's tribute to Jimmie Rodgers?
--Cheryl Cline
