Real Music is Alive And Well and Has a Twang

I grew up in a fairly small town isolated by miles of open road from anything that could conceivably be called a big city. As a result, my choices in radio listening have always been limited.

Throughout the 60's and 70's when summer days and winter evenings were spent with a radio constantly providing the background noise to my raising, there were three basic formats being used by the local radio stations.

The first was the "popular" music format, which included top-40 rock & roll songs exclusively. The quality of local rock & roll programming has seemed to degenerate steadily from a high point when I was in about the 7th grade. Still, this was the radio format I listened to religiously from the time I learned to tune the radio dial until I got old enough to realize there was equally good music that never even got played on the radio.

The second popular local radio format was the "easy listening" or "beautiful music" format that no self-respecting 13-year-old would have been caught dead listening to back then. Elevator music. Who would have thought Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and lounge music would be so hip now, forty years later?

The third format, which had an impact on me beginning the summer we moved outside the city limits. In those days, in the conservative part of the country where I lived, in the middle of the Vietnam War, there was a certain, large segment of the local population who distrusted anything remotely associated with "hippies" or rock & roll. They leaned more toward the cowboy lifestyle although most never went near any livestock larger than an Irish Setter.

Suddenly, after moving 3 miles outside of town, I found myself surrounded by kids who sided more often than not with the "cowboys" anytime there was a "cowboys -vs- hippies" controversy in school. I still listened to rock & roll, but was getting to the age when I began to tire of hearing the same dozen songs played repeatedly all day long.

I began to dip my toe into the waters of country music, the third major format available on local radio. I liked most of what I heard, but over the years have grown to hate the direction Nashville has taken towards slick over-produced songs that sound more like top-40 than anything remotely resembling country music.

Over the years since I first discovered it, I've listened to country music off and on in situations where the only music available was from a local radio station. During the 80's, I became a fan of several artists included in the first wave of alternative country, which was also called "progressive country", including Joe Ely, Jerry Jeff Walker and Butch Hancock. And while I've followed their careers and continued to buy their albums in the years since, I've divided my listening time to all sorts of music, including blues, jazz, reggae, world-beat, ambient and whatever else seemed to be on the cutting edge at the time.

Then, a couple of years ago, I learned of the growing resurgence of alternative country, or whatever you want to call it this year. I began by listening online to a radio station from Freedom, California called KPIG. They play alternative country artists alongside blues, folk and rock & roll in a format that's hard to pigeonhole. Later, when I got access to XM Satellite Radio, I began listening to the excellent "X Country" station and have a now-growing list of artists that I can't seem to get enough of.

Lucinda Williams tops my list, and the list of many other people. She has been called one of the best living songwriters by many people, and is well deserving of the praise. She has so many excellent songs and recorded performances that it's difficult to tell someone who isn't familiar with her work where to start. Many people feel that Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, released in 1998 is one of her best efforts.





The followup, which was released in 2001 is entitled Essence, and certainly stands up well too. The most recent studio album is entitled World Without Tears, and is one of my personal favorites. Earlier this year, Lucinda released Live at The Fillmore, a two-disk set that contains many of her best songs captured in stunning performances at the Fillmore in San Francisco in early 2004. Word is that Lucinda Williams has 20-something new songs and will be working on a studio album later this year. For those of us who relish every word she sings, its release can't come soon enough.

Another artist that I heard for the first time on KPIG is another who receives well-deserved praise for his songwriting ability. James McMurtry sings about real people in real situations and the quiet desperation that sometimes pervades their lives. My personal pick from James McMurtry's discography is Saint Mary of the Woods, one of my favorite albums of all time. His live album, entitled Live in Aught-Three is also an excellent introduction to his music. McMurtry will release a new studio album in September 2005 entitled Childish Things, and you can count me among the growing list of people who are eagerly awaiting it.

There are so many other alt-country artists that I love hearing that I haven't mentioned yet and may explore in future writings, including Billy Joe Shaver and Mary Gauthier among others. If you want to read more about the alternative country music movement, No Depression magazine is an excellent place to start. There is also a book of writings collected from the magazine available, entitled No Depression: An Introduction To Alternative Country Music, Whatever That Is.