By odd chance, I got turned onto Sturgill last month and I’ve had all the albums on repeat since. I had always liked the odd bluegrass or folk song, but never had a real in with country before this. Excited to check out the rest of this list!
Fingers crossed that one of these are still touring.
I’ll say this, it’s one of the most beautiful states as far as nature goes. Going white-water rafting in the fall when the leaves are changing in the New River Gorge was spectacular. But everything else about the state… yeah. I traveled quite extensively there when I financially audited a coal company. It’s honestly just hopeless how poor and uneducated the people are, and how they vote against their own interests every single time, only making their situation more desperate.
100% this. I live like 4 miles from wv and have spent My whole life traveling through and doing industrial contractor work through every part of that state. The only parts that aren’t absolutely trash are the places people can’t live. We should just exterminate it and turn it into a national park…mother fuckers from there can’t even drive once they cross the line, they are always the ones that are going 10mph under the speed limit because they are confused by roads that aren’t shit.
Steve Goodman and John Prine are said to have written the “perfect” country song. Incorporating as it does trucks, trains, the rain, mama, drinkin’ and prison.
“Well, I was drunk the day my mama got out of prison And I went to pick her up in the rain But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck She got run over by a damned old train…”
If you haven’t seen it, I implore you to watch the Studio Ghibli film Whisper of the Heart. This song features heavily. It’s my favorite Ghibli film, heck it’s possibly my favorite film period.
Just saw it for the first time a couple days ago. Beautiful film. Been keeping a running list of what age I should show Ghibli movies to my niece. I put this one at 13. She turns 4 soon, which I think is a good age to start her with Ponyo.
“So I thought about it and I said well the guys going home to West Virginia He’s going through Virginia and he’s passing the Blue ridge mountains in the Shenandoah River”. Bill Danoff -cowriter
You mean the home of the battle of Blair Mountain, union history making, miner rights fighting for, West Virginia!? You probably need to listen to more country music. Or read
Today’s “country” is pop with a southern accent. Long live Lefty Frizzell, Marty Robbins, Roger Miller, Buck Owens, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton, Jeannie C. Reily, Hank Sr, Charlie Pride, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Porter Wagoner…
The list of amazing old country music is long as fuck if given a chance. The list of today’s good country artists? Charley Crockett, Sturgil Simpson, Hank III, John Moreland, American Aquarium. That’s about it, few more I’m forgetting I’m sure.
Honestly, even some of the more pop stuff pre-2000s was good. I do love me some Dwight Yoakam. But I can’t handle any of the stuff they play on country stations these days. All the songs sound the same and are almost all about the same exact things. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just have AI coming up these songs at this point.
For sure, not one of the artists I mentioned from today ever gets radio play (…I think).
Tbf a lot of Lefty Frizzell’s songs are about wantin’ yer lady back and bein’ sorry you done her wrong, as are many other country artists, there’s for sure common themes throuought the various ages, but still, I don’t really mind that when they’re all good as fuck! There’s no twang today, and no soul, no feeling behind the words or chords, that’s my main issue.
For most of my life I haven’t been interested in country music because the contemporary popular stuff tend to be terrible. I’m currently discovering some of the old(er) good stuff for the first time (also watching that Ken Burns documentary a few years ago really ignited my appreciation). Currently (as in this minute as I type this), listening to some old Steven Earle songs for the first time and wondering why I didn’t know about this.
Steve Earle fucking rules. Everyone knows Copperhead Road but tbh like everything else he wrote is even better.
I kinda grew up with Steve Earle, Johnny Cash, and some of the other southern rock-y stuff like The Marshall Tucker band, then I found American Aquarium in like '06, but I really only got into country/western around the time Fallout New Vegas came out, I just couldn’t get enough of it.
Today’s POPULAR country is that way. There are still great country artists, they just don’t get as big. Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, Charlie Crockett, Margo Price, Sarah Jarosz
You’ll see I also mentioned Charley Crockett! I surely know there is some good out there, I mentioned a few others myself. Forgot Billy Strings though thanks. Also I’m both unfortunately and fortunately unfamilliar with Tuttle, Price, and Jarosz, fortunate because now I get to go check out some new (to me) shit I’ll probably like, so thanks!
They’re not straight country. More Americana/roots. There’s a Canadian fellow called Daniel Romano who made some really good straight country, but sadly only a couple albums then went to other genres. His album Come Cry With Me is the closest I’ve found to that 60s/70s sound and lyricism.
And probably still a lot more I haven’t found yet.
Absolutely. Og country has more in common with punk than modern Ford truck month country.
Happy you mentioned modern ones. It ain’t my jam, but people often lament how it’s all shit now when there are almost always artists keeping it alive. Just have to look a little harder.
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