Country music

Country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, spirituals, and the blues.

The Nashville sound

During the 1960s, country music became a multimillion-dollar industry centered on Nashville, Tennessee. Under the direction of Chet Atkins, the Nashville sound brought country music to a diverse audience. Although country music has great stylistic diversity, this diversity was strangled somewhat by the formulaic approach of the record producers like Chet Atkins. They played safe to protect sales. Even today the variety of country music is not usually well reflected in radio airplay and the popular perception of country music is still influenced by the maudlin ballads and whining steel guitars that many people still associate with the genre.

Related Topics:
1960s - Nashville - Tennessee - Chet Atkins - Nashville sound

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Reaction to the Nashville sound

The "vanilla"-flavored sounds that emanated from Nashville under the influence of Chet Atkins and his fellow producers led to a reaction among musicians outside Nashville, who saw that there was more to the genre than "the same old tunes, fiddle and guitar..." (Waylon Jennings).

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California produced the Bakersfield sound, promoted by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard and based on the work of the legendary Maddox Brothers and Rose, whose wild eclectic mix of old time country, hillbilly swing and gospel in the 1940s and 1950s was a feature of honky-tonks and dance halls in the state.

Related Topics:
California - Bakersfield sound - Buck Owens - Merle Haggard - Maddox Brothers and Rose

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Texas produced rebels like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Jerry Jeff Walker and others who bucked the Nashville system and created outlaw country.

Related Topics:
Texas - Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Butch Hancock - Jerry Jeff Walker - Outlaw country

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Within Nashville in the 1980s, Randy Travis, Ricky Skaggs and others brought a return to the traditional values. Their musicianship, songwriting and producing skills helped to revive the genre momentarily. However, even they, and such long-time greats as Jones, Cash, and Haggard, fell from popularity as the record companies again imposed their formulas and refused to promote established artists. Capitol Records made an almost wholesale clearance of their country artists in the 1960s.

Related Topics:
1980 - Randy Travis - Ricky Skaggs - Capitol Records - 1960s

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