Is Country & Western Music a Uniquely (North) American Phenomenon?

[HeyHomie]

The pop charts have never been immune to foreign influence. Witness the British Invasion of the 60's, the whole New Wave of the 80's, and so on. Current pop charts are not free of music from other countries, and I understand that European techno-pop is quite popular in clubhouses around the U.S.

But what about Country music? Is C&W imported to other countries the way our rock/pop is? Are there local country acts on radio stations throughout the world? (BTW, Mrs. Rastahomie (a big country fan) claims that there's an Australian country act currently hitting the charts, but she can't name names)

Thanks.

[hawthorne]

There certainly is country music in Australia, though I couldn't tell you to which group you are refer.

Surprise! It is most popular in the bush.

Real surprise: for many decades a good part of the industry has been black. For some reason (lots of sad songs being a candidate) Australians of Aboriginal descent took to country music in a big way in the early part of the 20th century and remain a large part of the industry which is centred around the town of Tamworth.

picmr

[irish_bill]

We have country singers of our own, and the eradication program is not working as well as the government here would like.
Did someone mention Cane Toads?

[DVous Means]

Tamworth is the Australian equivalent of Nashville.

Yes, C&W is very much alive and well here, and often just as mediocre as it is in the US. It one aspect of exported American culture that I will never thank you for.

BTW, do you know what happens when you play a C&W record backwards? You get your wife back, you get your farm back, your horse come home again....

[magdalene]

This may sound crazy, but Czechs and Slovaks went nuts for American country music and have created their own cowboy songs. It's pretty surreal to hear a bunch of drunk Czech factory workers singing about life on the open range.

[Steve-o]

I seem to remember Garth Brooks giving (read: selling) a concert in Japan a few years back. I could be Miss Taken, but then again, I don't wear drag.

[SwimmingRiddles]

Well, Steve, I'd be happy to call you Miss Taken, but that would be silly, as you are correct. The Japanese are wild for anything American, and really love country music. I seem to recall Urban Cowboy making oodles of money in Japan as opposed to its gross here.

I hate, hate, hate modern pop-country. But I love rockabilly/country tinged rock (Beck's Mutations, or Cake) and Johnny Cash, and can tolerate Patsy Cline. Not to mention what that the early folk artists (Woody Guthrie, etc.) leaned heavily on country, and rock emerged as a fusion of jazz and folk. Bob Dylan wouldn't be Bob if Woody wasn't around, and he is arguably the most influential songwriter of the last century. So while I hate modern country with a passion, the oldschool folk/country does have its place in music history.

Now, then. Australian country? Do you guys have honkey-tonks and stuff? oooh, is there a song about "Me car broke down, me wife left me, and a dingo ate my baby?" :D What IS the correlation between wide open spaces and country music?

[Coldfire]

FWIW, The Netherlands doesn't have wide open places to speak of. I can't think of any village that's more than 10 kilometers away from the next. Yet, country is popular here as well, albeit slightly more in the rural areas.

As a matter of fact, one of the rising stars of Women Country Music is Ilse de Lange, a Dutch girl. A very pretty voice, and I hear from the experts that her compositions are quite talented, too. Has she left some sort of impression in the US already?

Personally, I'm not a huge country fan, although I do like a few classics. Oh, and Johnny Cash, of course. But he's elevated above any genre of music: the man is a hero.

[mrblue92]

Oh, and Johnny Cash, of course.You do realize that Cash is the gateway artist for country music, don't you? Yep, pretty soon you'll be snorting Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and Hank Williams Sr. Then suddenly you're free-basing Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson. Eventually you'll be main-lining Billy Ray Cyrus, and your decent into madness will be complete! :D

[mrblue92]

"descent", that is... My kingdom for an edit feature...

[Selmer]

I think the Australian country singer making his way up the country charts in the US is Keith Urban.

[Selmer]

Actually country music has been a fairly important influence on music in a number of countries. The Germans have their own little country music industry to go along with the cowboy and Indian theme parks that they seem to love so much. I have a couple of CDs of German truck-driving songs that are a hoot. The Japanese have their own version of the Grand Ole Opry as well. The Australians, as has been mentioned earlier, have a huge country music industry. The most popular, or best-selling which is not quite the same thing, Autrailian country singer is Slim Dusty, who just released his 100th record.

Country was also an important, if slightly hidden influence, on English rock. The OP mentioned the British invasions of the 60s and 80s. The Beatles show quite a few country influences, particularly George's guitar picking. They also covered a Buck Owens song, "Act Naturally". Two of the most British musicians of the New Wave era were huge country fans. Elvis Costello played in a bluegrass band before he recorded "My Aim is True," and later went to Nashville to record an LP of country covers. He also recorded a duet with George Jones. Nick Lowe has also recorded a number of country songs. He also married Carlene Carter, who is the daughter of June Carter and Carl Smith and step daughter of Johnny Cash, and you can't get any more country than that.

[funneefarmer]

Of all the great things this country makes you've decided to import COUNTRY MUSIC ?!

I'll allow that I'm not totally averse to the occasional Rockabilly or Country-Blues song but for the most part I am a dairy farmer who dislikes C&W music. I know, I know... Many consider this almost un-American in my neck of the woods but there is no way I'm going to listen to the same basic song over and over again...
"My wife took the kids, peed on the carpet, and shot my horse. That's how things went from better to bad to worse."
-Thanks to John Wayne's 'Texas Funeral'.

[oldscratch]

Yeah, I'll venture that you reaaly haven't lived until you've heard a Japanese country band doing a cover of Folsom Prison Blues (in Japanese).

[KevinB]

I remember walking around Kyoto one night and hearing a Willie Nelson recording blasting out of the (very crowded) Rawhide Pub Bar. Something incongruous about Japanese salarymen wearing business suits and cowboy hats, but if that's what they like, more power to them.

[aramis]

Once while in Germany, I attended a perfoprmance of German folk music, specifically some songs from a mining region. These songs reminded me very much of American country music. One of the singers even threw in an occasional "yee-ha!".

This leads me to questions whether country music is all that uniquely American. Much of its style probably came from elsewhere -- like most things American -- and was adopted and spread here. In support, it's often said that Jazz is the only uniquely American music form.

[Spoke]

This leads me to questions whether country music is all that uniquely American. Much of its style probably came from elsewhere -- like most things American -- and was adopted and spread here. In support, it's often said that Jazz is the only uniquely American music form.

Well.....

Country music, like rock and roll, has several parentages. First, and maybe most obvious, were English and Irish folk music, which were brought to the Southern U.S. by English, Scotch-Irish and Irish immigrants. American variants on the themes of these old ballads soon emerged.

Then throw into the mix the banjo, brought from Africa by slaves.

Result: By the very early part of this century, a genre known (and often derided) as "mountain music" or "hillbilly music". It had largely the same instrumentation as today's bluegrass, but without the rollicking rythms (more on which later).

Mountain music (Appalachian mountains, by the way) was quite popular in the South, and parts of the West, but never in the North. (The occasional square dance north of the Mason-Dixon line notwithstanding.)

Then along came Jimmie Rodgers ("the Singing Brakeman"), today widely regarded as the father of Country Music. In the 20's and 30's, Rodgers took country music, for the first time, into the mainstream, gaining popularity nationwide. Ironically, muuch of what Rodgers was doing was actually just the blues. Twelve bar blues, to be specific, the same form utilized by the black blues masters of the day, including the legendary Robert Johnson. Jimmie Rodgers basically took the form of the blues, and merged it with the lyrical themes of the English and Irish ballads. Rodgers also introduced some of what became standard themes in Country music: train songs, prison songs, my-woman-done-left-me songs.

Meanwhile, "folk music" was developing along a largely parallel course, also borrowing from English, Irish and African influences, though the African influence in folk music was perhaps more muted. Folk music, Country music and the Blues, along with the Gospel songs of the rural South have continued cross-pollinating each other to this day.

Among the offspring: Rhythm & Blues, Rock & Roll, Bluegrass (combining the instrumentation of hillbilly music with an up-tempo beat borrowed from jazz and swing).

And since you mention it, why would jazz be considered any more uniquely American than Country or Rock and Roll? All three borrowed, at least initially, from older traditions. You can trace jazz back along the line from modern jazz to New Orleans jazz, to blues and ragtime, through minstrel tunes and work songs and on back to Africa, in the same way you can trace the ancestry of Country and Rock.

[Tomcat]

Originally posted by magdalene
This may sound crazy, but Czechs and Slovaks went nuts for American country music and have created their own cowboy songs. It's pretty surreal to hear a bunch of drunk Czech factory workers singing about life on the open range.

I concur fully...

Pretty strange thing to live here and find C&W groups holding swing dances on a Saturday night!

"Grab yer Slechno,
hold her tight,
swing her round the
Charles Bridge lights!"

They even have a saddle shop here that specializes in western type (as opposed to english) riding saddles. Weird I tell you. Just weird.

What makes this worse is that to make a cover song, they have to change the lyrics sometimes (well, sometimes they just change the lyrics and call it their own- a singer here named Lucie Bila got famous off of a plagerized rip of 'Kiss', and everyone thinks that she wrote it) to make it sound right with the rhythm. So translating a Willie Nelson song becomes a bit ridiculous: "On vacation again, I just can't wait to go on vacation again..." :)

-T

[manhattan]

J'ai tiré un homme en Reno juste pour l'observer mourir...

[magdalene]

Tomcat, is Lucie Bila still in that fab production of Jesus Christ Superstar?

"Den ma na kahanku
Prisla chvili spanku
Denni vonnou masti trit..."

Looks dirty, don't it? It isn't....

[Coldfire]

Manny: you'll LOVE the German version.

"Ich habe ein Mann in Reno erschossen, nur um ihn sterben zu sehen!"

[magdalene]

Zastrel jsem cloveku v Reno, abych se ho dival umrit.

[mipsman]

Last May, I was driving around in Turkey and came across a station playing US country music. After two weeks there, I had become a little tired of tonal progressions that are foreign to the Western ear, cultural allusions which I could not understand or relate to, and somewhat alien-sounding intonations in the melodies, so I switched over to the BBC.

[Spoke]

Last May, I was driving around in Turkey and came across a station playing US country music.

I had a similar experience. I was driving to Avila, Spain, late at night, and came across a station playing a Conway Twitty marathon. It was pretty surreal.

[Osakadave]

As mentioned above, country music is known over here in Japan. It's not that popular, but there certainly is a hard core following, mostly based in the Kyoto are.

[Osakadave]

::ahem:: ..mostly based in Kyoto. Stop. Period. End.

[LonesomePolecat]

I understand that country music is popular
in Nigeria because it sounds very similar
to the local folk music.

[jayron 32]

Swiddles said:
I hate, hate, hate modern pop-country.

Excerpted from "Let's Go Burn Ol' Nashville Down" by Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra, from the album Prairie Home Invasion All rights reserved. Not availible in WA, PQ, NSW. Shake Well Before Using.


Let's go burn ol' Nashville down
Set it all aflame
Barbecue the greedheads that
Made country weak and tame
Burn Burn Nash Vegas
Char it's rancid soul
Burn Burn Branson too
Make it as big black hole

Country Music is killing itself
Tryin' to be what it ain't
Garth's as big as Manilow
Lee Greenwood is a saint


I thought you might like this little ditty. It keeps on going like that. Great song.

There is also an L.A. based country-punk band named The Knitters that plays rockabilly. John Doe and Exene Cervenka from the band "X" are in it. John Doe's debut solo album "Meet John Doe" also has some great country-roots music on it. There IS still good country & western music being made, just not the crap they play on country and western stations.