---

  HOME CD SHOP LIST YOUR GIGS & PROFILES WEB RADIO VIDEOS JOIN US CONTACT

---

Traditional Country Music can be many things and the sheer variety contained within the term 'country music' is truly amazing and yet the public at large remains largely ignorant of the genre's wider boundaries outside of 'Stand By Your Man' and 'Ring Of Fire'. Even the Oxford Compact English Dictionary continues to dismiss country music as: 'rural or cowboy songs originating in the U.S and usually accompanied by a guitar etc'. So that's alright, then!

Many of us within the industry believe that country, as we knew it, began to lose its rootsy identity during the 1970s and the ensuing decades saw it reduced to little more than heavily diluted rock and pop, with just the occasional steel guitar and banjo lick thrown in to assuage traditionalists. Throughout the 1990s, in particular, it was apparent to many that main-stream country composers had finally lost the will to craft good story songs of the calibre of 'El Paso', 'Miller's Cave', 'The Year That Clayton Delaney Died' and 'Ode To Billy Joe', and resorting instead to the 9-to-5 conveyor-belt system demanded by Music City accountants. Ace songwriters like Tom T' Hall, Harlan Howard and Bill Anderson, who were all adept at encapsulating a strong story-line into an acceptably characteristic 'country' ballad must have baulked at Nashville's gradual but decisive rejection of rural country music. Superstars of the calibre of Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson suddenly found themselves out in the cold and unable to sustain major recording contracts or continue to enjoy radio exposure.

In spite of Nashville's ruthless stance against traditional country music and radio's refusal to programme authentic sounds and play recordings by any artist older than thirty, an undercurrent of resistence began to manifest itself. A number of older stars wealthy enough to indulge themselves began to adopt a 'screw you' attitude towards major labels and radio stations and Dolly Parton, in particular, has returned to her roots with great success and one of her Bluegrass-based albums 'Halos & Horns' received a 5-star rating in the Daily Mail. The late Johnny Cash also went back to basics in his final years and achieved enormous acclaim for a series of largely acoustic albums produced by Rick Rubin.

MASSIVE RESURGENCE

Once upon a time the likes of Bill Monroe, Hank Snow and Ernest Tubb were signed to life contracts with record labels but no such privilege exists today; accountants and marketing men have seen to that. Even the great Hank Snow failed to make the half-century with RCA and he remained bitter to the end.

Country music, as defined by the media, might be as dead as a dodo here but in the United States Bluegrass and other acoustic forms are enjoying a massive resurgence following the surprising and exceptionally low-key success of the George Clooney movie 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'. Such is the magnitude of the new appreciation for Bluegrass and all things acoustic that the mighty Billboard journal now features a Bluegrass chart.

Traditional country music sounds have been totally eclipsed in recent decades by multi-layered backing tracks, vocal enhancement and all the over-production techniques usually associated with the pop culture. We need to remind ourselves what real country music is all about and how it evolved. Country can actually be anything from the haunting strains of a Louisiana Cajun song, a delicious hillbilly hoedown, majestic Texas-Oklahoma jazz-influenced Western-Swing romp, or scincillating fiddle and banjo breakdown played by a Bluegrass or old-timey ensemble. Equally country music can project the more sophisticated up-town sounds of modern Nashville, or the simplistic nostalgia of the fabled Grand Ole Opry.

RUNNING THE GAMUT

Interest in old-style country music is increasing all the while and we thought it only fitting to compile a CD reflecting the various facets of 'America's favourite music'. With 'Sounds Like Country' we are running the gamut of instrumental sounds and vocal nuances that set aside country music from mainstream popular music so many generations ago. It might be argued by some that the likes of 'Wolverton Mountain', 'Big Bad John' and 'Distant Drums' were little more than heavily diluted pop songs but at least they retained vestiges of an indentifiable country music 'sound', unlike much of what now passes for country in 2008.

This particular collection is intended to be an object lesson in musical diversity and aimed specifically at those who see country music as a one-trick pony, with one country song sounding like another. All we ask is that you take time out to re-discover the enormous variety of instruments, tempos and vocal styles sheltering beneath the somewhat erroneous umbrella of 'country' music or, heaven forbid, 'country 'n' western', and re-evaluate a musical genre that's become something of an endangered species in the United Kingdom.

The roots of country music run deep and stretch out to encompass British folk balladry, German lieder, Negro blues and Spanish and French influences. In recent years the educated singer-songwriter has emerged in the form of Tom Russell, Iris DeMent, Gillian Welch, John Prine and Nanci Griffith and succeeded in pushing away the absurd 'yee-har' image that once afflicted a great swathe of country-based artists from Nashville to Austin. The aforementioned writers and artists are akin to born-again Woody Guthries with a penchant for reflecting the true nature of their nation's musical heritage. Guthrie was always deemed to be a folk singer and itinerant balladeer and yet much of his recorded repertoire has been absorbed into country music, in much the same way that the ancient songs of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers' memorable Blue Yodels have come to personify the very foundations of true American country music.