Recommend some country
 

Because there is tons of good country and we never talk about it.

I like
Hank Williams Sr.
Patsy Cline
Johnny Cash

and some of the Mekons country type stuff is awesome, like their cover of Sin City

I also saw Calvin Johnson do an excellent cover of Woodie Guthrie's Hard Travelin

old waylon jennings
old willie nelson
some dolly parton
some mindy smith
later-era earth

if i wasn't so beat i'd mention more.

Webb Pierce

Jimmy Rodgers

All of the early Palace/Will Oldham stuff is great on the post-punk side of things. I'm also a big fan of the Violent Femmes second album Hallowed Ground, which is very country influenced (obviously most especially "Country Death Song") and considerably darker than anything else they did. Of course the first three or so Meat Puppets records are classic cow punk too.

I love old Dolly Parton songs (nothing after the '70s of course.)

Kenny Rogers first band Kenny Rogers and the New Edition were actually an awesome country psych rock band. Suprisingly heavy stuff.

Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys are great country swing from far enough back that it doesn't suck.

Ray Charles did some incredible blues/soul crossover stuff in the '60s.

Chet Atkins is deservedly considered one of the best guitarists in any genre.

that's what i meant, from hex on.

Hank Williams Sr is classic stuff!

How about Sweetheart of the Rodeo by the Byrds? Or something by the Flying Burrito Brothers? Those would have a bit of a rock edge.

Lorretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose es muy bein
Old Carter Family is also very good

Here are just a few of my faves:

Butch Hancock
Guy Clark
Townes Van Zandt
Joe Ely
Jerry Jeff Walker
Bill Monroe (early stuff)
Waylon Jennings
John Prine
Doc Watson
George Jones
Richard Dobson (early stuff)

Listen to this list!!! Especially Guy Clark. He's fucking awesome.

And, I'd like to plug my dad's music: www.myspace.com/stevenjacob

the carter family!!!! beautiful songs from the 30s 40s.
if anything can someone recomend old bluegrass instrumental stuff from the 20s 30s?

I'll step in and pretend to be Glice, I know he so loves this girl:



Miss Laura Cantrell

Doc Boggs.

 

Say what you like. No one does housewife-heartbreak like Reba McEntire.

thanks.

Jimmie Rodgers (some yodeling)
Hank Snow (some yodeling)
Hank Williams, Sr. (some yodeling)
Patsy Cline
Gene Autry
Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs (bluegrass & roots...I love them)
The Stanley Bros. (bluegrass)
Johnny Horton
Elvis Presley (at times)
Marty Robbins
Johnny Cash (also with The Carter Family, with Bob Dylan)
Willie Nelson
Dolly Parton
Merle Haggard
Waylon Jennings
John Prine
Gram Parsons
Tammy Wynette
Olivia Newton-John (her first records were straight-up country)
Del McCoury Band (bluegrass)

alt
Alison Krauss & Union Station
Steve Earle
Lucinda Williams
Uncle Tupelo
Son Volt
Whiskytown
Old 97's
Rhett Miller solo

country-tinged swamp boogie/ americana roots music (a few)
loosley now
Elvis Presley (at times)
The Rolling Stones (at times)
The Byrds (at times)
Creedence Clearwater Revival (at times)
Ry Cooder (at times)
ZZTop (loosley at times)
Stevie Ray Vaughan (loosley at times)
Camper Van Beethoven (loosley at times)
mid-Meat Puppets (loosley at times)
Chickasaw Mudd Puppies (at times)

No mention yet of Wanda Jackson, her first couple of albums had a good mix of country and rockabilly, but this is a great album for the country stuff:

Well, as you know, it isn't a party until someone mentions Wanda Jackson.:)

When I read that title I thought you were having holiday plans or thinking about emigrating... it's probably just me disliking most country to such an extend that I mentally blocked it out it and don't even associate the word with being a music genre. but i might give it another try sometime.

i've been meaning to check out some of that 20-30's bluegrass though, so i'll second fugazifan's request.

Amazing, you're actually clarifying rather than just contradicting.

Thing is, while the first album was more hardcore than country, and II met both genres half way, the country kernel really was there from the beginning ("Tumblin' Tumbleweeds" being the obvious track) even if it didn't pop quite as loud until later.

And, yeah, they weren't as "cow punk" by definition as say Rank and File, that's probably mostly because they didn't fit very neatly in any genre. Sure they came out of hardcore, but that hardly means they sounded much like the Germs or DOA either.

In the end, all I'm doing is saying that a Sonic Youth fan who wants to check out some country music, has a very probable chance of getting into the early Meat Puppets records - and the first one is likely included in that.

Oh sure, even the top names of the movement such as Black Flag, DK, and Bad Brains obviously sounded nothing alike. Let alone that groups like Flipper and the Sun City Girls were considered part of hardcore. Still, many of the best groups of the movement, from the Minutemen to NoMeansNo, got regularly spat on and bottles thrown at them from audience members pissed off that the bands didn't embrace the same cliches as them.

I like some straight up stuff to be sure. "Rise Above" will always be a classic rock song for me, and in the right mood I could listen to any Minor Threat tune and totally love it.

However, I tend to like artists who break out of whatever genre most. The Sun City Girls going in front of a hardcore audience and not even bringing instruments along for the set - that's fucking genius (of course because they had the raw talent as well as balls to pull it off.)

That said, the odd thing about country, is that it tends to be the opposite of that - there really is some sort of "purity" that makes the best stuff be the most country. As in as far from the glittery pop shit on the cable networks as possible. The reason we look to Hank Williams as the best is not that he was the first, he really wasn't, just that he was the most pure. I know there's something to that in punk and garage rock too, and I can totally get into Dead Moon or the like on a similar level. Still my favorite punk or hardcore stuff tends to be pretty damn experimental - as in pushing outside the boundaries of what defines it in the genre to begin with. Experimental country isn't even a bad idea - it's not an idea at all.

actually all of the butthole surfers lived in athens. apparently they moved there so they could be nearby, and make fun of REM (at least thats what Our Band Could be Your Life said...)

"factory girl" by the rolling stones on flashpoint

this is a good thread, we indeed never discuss country. i have no one to add that hasnt been mentioned, but people always think of the early punk rockers to be a buncha sid vicious maniacal junkies. but the early punks had nothin on the early country dudes, merle, hank, johnny, those guys gobbled up more drugs in one sitting than most of us could think of doing in our entire lives!

i don't think anyone's mentioned Johnny Paycheck yet.

I've not much of merit to add to this thread [did anyone mention Gene Autry?], but it's a curious phenomenon that I can think of only one country artist who didn't, at some point, churn out dross. That's Hank Williams, whose Luke the Drifter era stands just slightly under the Fall in my estimations of the pinnacle of Western (pop-)art in the 20th-Century.

Dolly has done a handful of pretty good albums after the 70s, by the by. She has done some crippling drivel, but there are glimpses of former glories.

I think the early Sun-era Elvis country sides get unfairly passed over in favour of his 'black' sides.

lambchop.

Everybody's about covered the artists...
But I can reccomend the albums Harvest Moon by Neil Young
and Snow by Curt Kirkwood (yes, it is that curt kirkwood)