Re: OT Country music was Re: Help, Child porn in my email!!!!!

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 02:37:18 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.true-crime
Size: 3,787 bytes

"formica63" <email-address-deleted> wrote in
news:wRNKa.1831$email-address-deleted:
> Bart:
>> > > I have yet to download my first movie, have snagged a few mp3s
> however,
>> > > mostly old public domain country music from my youth
>
> Form:
>> > Any recommendations?
>> >
>> > In the mood for some new tunes,
>> >
>
> Boo:
>> Oh yuck! I really had a better opinion of the both of you. Every
>> country song I've ever heard sounds like some tale about a guy
>> convincing his girlfriend or wife that he was really just helping that
>> pig over the fence...
>>
>> Bo Raxo
>> Note: exception for Johhny Cash. His music speaks of and to the
> downtrodden.
>
> Well Bo, let me tell you a little story. Until I was about 30 or so, I
> too detested "country music." My exposure to it was confined to Olivia
> Newton-John and Kenny Rogers, pretty much, and I thought it was some
> kind of joke. My ear had been tuned to classical music and c1977 punk &
> after-style music, and while I could happily listen over and over to
> pretty challenging stuff, I couldn't stand the country caterwauling.
>
> I was very, very wrong. It wasn't until I moved in with someone who was
> a great fan of country that I learnt that this was really the music of
> the Gods, in my opinion one of the only venues for sheer vocal
> virtuosity and feelingful musicality, at the same time speaking of and
> to the downtrodden, as you say. Johnny Cash, God bless him, remains a
> spokesman for a huge repetoire of musical genuises, as do some other
> contemporary artists. Forget Billy Ray Cyrus, Reba MacIntyre, and the
> rest of it. Tune your ear to the Louvin Bros., Merle Haggard, Dwight
> Yoakam, Dolly Parton (early and late, not necessarily middle period),
> Loretta Lynn, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, The Carter Family, Jimmy
> Rogers, Willie Nelson, Iris Dement. I could go on, but you get the idea.
> We're not talking line dancing.
>
> In my twenties there were two kinds of music I found unbearable: country
> and opera. They are now my favourite listening (along with some others,
> but not previously detested by me), and I'll go so far as to say that if
> I were ever to believe in God it would be because something really BIG
> is needed to explain the virtuosity, beauty and "movingness" of the
> human voice in these traditions. Truly.
>
> Passionately fond of things,
>
> Form.
>
>
My favorite musical form is the soul music of the 50's, 60's, 70's. The most
important figure in soul music is Ray Charles, who himself recorded several
country albums. His "Modern Sounds of Country Music" recordings are hallmarks
in music history, and one of his biggest hits, "Busted" was written by Howard
Harlin, one of country's premier writers. But then, Ray Charles can sing
almost anything. It's unfortunate that so many young people today associate
him with Pepsi commercials.
I don't have many opera CD's and I have only seen it performed live in a
college auditorium, but I am probably the only member of my family who likes
opera. I've enjoyed it since I was about five. For some reason, one of the
stations we got back in the late '50's carried opera, and for several weeks I
would sit in front of the TV enthralled by the music, while my mother,
grandmother, uncle and sisters grumbled in the background. I don't remember
any of the operas, except that one was an English version of Hansel & Gretel
(probably an adaptation of Englebert Humperdinck's opera--not the pop singer
either!). I think I also saw Moretti's "Amahl & the Night Visitors" during
this period as well. Unfortunately my exposure to high culture lasted only a
few weeks, but for a while opera joined the Mickey Mouse Club, the Lone
Ranger, Roy Rogers and Zorro as favorite TV shows.