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
A couple of things about the quoted Flippo passage, the first of which is
that this:
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,
Terry wrote:
To me, production is like makeup on women; when it draws attention to
itself,
then it's not working.
Actually I think most people view production not as makeup (which can
enhance if applied tastefully) but as a window -- a seemingly transparent
view of the performance on the other
A few points:
Believe it or not, but I never laid down a blanket rejection of "heavy
arrangements" -- strings, singers, etc. At least not this year g. What I
was saying was in the context of the Bare stuff from the 60s that Chet
Atkins produced. I just didn't think it worked very well, because
Terry mentions the outlaw movement... Don't recall a thread on
them, offhand. I loved these guys in a cultural sense but wasn't
real into the rhymthic feel (the "boom-chuck," rhythm as opp to a
swinging rhythm...). I never have understood that rhythm thing...
They were certainly an
To me, production is like makeup on women; when it draws attention to
itself,
then it's not working.
Terry
Wow!! What a great sentence, do you mind if I steal it? And while I'm not
the only one who agrees with its attention-getting flavor concerning
60's.pop.country.com (I'm pretty sure if
Terry Smith wrote:
A few points:
Believe it or not, but I never laid down a blanket rejection of "heavy
arrangements" -- strings, singers, etc. At least not this year g.
and
(When I discussed Dwight's record, "A Long Way
Home," last week, I wasn't criticizing the production -- I don't
On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, Joe Gracey wrote:
the RCA release with Waylon and Willie and Tompall and I forget who else
You forgot the gal: Jessie Colter. Now you're gonna have to watch out
for Cheryl Cline.
Will Miner
Denver, CO
On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, Terry A. Smith wrote:
Nobody's answered my earlier query, vis a vis, if Bobby Bare was thought
to be an inspiration for the early Outlaws -- Shaver and Waylon -- then
what exactly, if anything, was he thought to be an outlaw from? At what
point did he decide to hang
At 02:41 PM 2/24/99 -0500, Jon wrote:
Yes, thinking about how to sell records shapes the making of them,
but it generally does so in a more imprecise way; when you get in the
studio, you want to make the best record you can given existing constraints,
whether that's the lack of a piece of
Excerpts from internet.listserv.postcard2: 24-Feb-99 RE: Hyper produced
Bobby Bare by David [EMAIL PROTECTED]
this whole contemporary ability for an artist to deliberately make an
uncommericial record (I don't WANT lots of people to hear my records, and I
sure as hell don't want a lot
Terry wrote:
To me, production is like makeup on women; when it draws attention to
itself,
then it's not working.
Nice phrasing, but I don't buy it: I know what makeup is, but what
exactly is "production" in this sentence? Isn't it pretty much
everything on the recording?
Terry). In any event, if Bare was looked at as a model by Jennings or
others, that's news to me. I'd say that he got put in the outlaw category,
to the extent that he did, more because of, er, lifestyle choices, an
interest in doing material by some left-of-center writers like Guy Clark and
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
do, and they're usually the most interesting points made by anyone all day.
--david cantwell
PS: Mike Ireland finished tied for #241 on the Pazz
Terry says:
This also makes sense, though I'd add that there's a continuum on this
line -- how much do I compromise in order to get listened to -- that's a
matter of degree. Some people compromise everything; some less; some don't
have to. But you've gotta admit that there's a point that you
I picked up the Best of Bobby Bare, the poorly titled Razor and Tie/RCA
package of Bare's early to mid 1960s years with RCA, and mainly producer
Chet Adkins. On the whole, I was pretty disappointed. As a Bobby Bare fan
in his later years (Marie Lebeaux, Dropkick Me Jesus, that gorgeous duet
with
I like a lot of that sappy, pop-glopped production, myself, but I'm not
going to argue the point; de gustibus, etc. I will, however, point out to
Terry that he managed to get hold of the wrong Bare compilation for his
taste; the Essential Bobby Bare, on RCA, unlike the RT comp., includes 5
cuts
Now, Jon, let's talk. You mean to say that those jingle-singers coming in
dooby-doobying, or whatever, in the middle of the working-man's lament,
"Detroit City," don't bother you? To my ears, the dissonance between the
gritty lyrics and vocals, and the glossy uptown arrangements, is
Now, Jon, let's talk. You mean to say that those jingle-singers coming in
dooby-doobying, or whatever, in the middle of the working-man's lament,
"Detroit City," don't bother you?
Nope.
But that's the aesthetic problem -- a producer "managing"
a performer's sound to succeed in the market,
Yeah, I bet Bare just sits out there by his pool, wondering where to fly
to for dinner that night, and regrets those background singers were on
those hit records.
It the music Business. He can play those songs as gritty as he wants to
1000 times, and does, but the only way to get those songs
And another thing
My last message ended sort of abruptly, so I forget wherethe hell I was
going. I guess I'd just like to know whether you defenders of 60s
pop-country, the Nashville Sound, or whatever it was called, have ever
heard a song from that era -- or any era -- that was too heavily
Me again: OK, let's try this again. Pretend you're composing a sound
track
for a movie about a lonely rural guy from Kentucky or West Virginia,
who's
living in Detroit making a buck in the auto factories, and who spends
a
lot of time pining for his old home, and wondering just what the
At 02:54 PM 2/23/99 -0500, Terry wrote:
Uh, oh, the big guns are out now. David, Joe and Jon all weighed in, more
or less saying that whatever arrangement is chosen is A-OK as long as it
sells records.
Geez, did I say that? I don't think so. I said a contrast between lyrics
and sound is
And while I'm not saying that life in a factory is/was just a
life of grimness, I can't see how a stark and depressing arrangement
would appeal to a factory guy, even if he could identify with the song's
theme. No matter the artistic merits of such an arrangement. That's
evidently not
On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Terry A. Smith wrote:
I fet the feeling that Chet shoe-horned everybody
into his own poppy world, whether they belonged their or not.
FWIW, Terry, having grown up on that era of country music, I agree. I'm
reminded of a wonderful pic on the back of one of Waylon's LPs
Since Terry's playing "lightning rod" today:
Terry A. Smith wrote:
My last message ended sort of abruptly, so I forget wherethe hell I was
going. I guess I'd just like to know whether you defenders of 60s
pop-country, the Nashville Sound, or whatever it was called, have ever
heard a song
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.
Seems pretty sketchy to suggest that a stripped-down, bare-bones aesthetic is
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
David's point about context sounds fuckin' cool: I heard a panel
discussion on record production on the radio this weekend that
included Niles Rogers, the fuckin'-cool-sounding producer-guitar
player from Chic and, of course, of David Bowie's least-twee, funniest
At 5:10 PM -0600 on 2/23/99, David Cantwell served me up the perfect
opening:
I don't think anyone told you this. I can't imagine anyone on this list, in
fact, ever telling anyone this, not even me g. But: Please don't tell me
that the Nashville Sound was some kind of artistic decline in
At 07:52 PM 2/23/99 -0600, Bob, who is too smart to be anything to but
joking here, wrote:
I think you're both right. The Nashville Sound has little to do with
country music. It was a way for country musicians to stay employed. But
they weren't making country music. It was just *marketed* as
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