Music: Country & Western: What Is Western?

[F.U.Shakespeare]

I’ve always considered people like the Carter Family, Sam McGee and Roy Acuff as the pure, 200-proof country music, and that music mostly came from the Appalachian/Piedmont area. (The ancestry, while distant, seems to be mostly Celtic folk, in contrast with Hank Williams and Jimmy Rogers – they hailed from further south, and showed clear blues influences).

While I’m less familiar with what I consider ‘Western’ music, I would think of it as described in this thread – lots of cowboys yodeling, and hailing from Texas and Oklahoma.

At some level, it’s moot – if you’re talking about where the performers and audience come from, today’s ‘Country and Western’ music might be more accurately called ‘Suburban and Southern’.

[Rube_E.Tewesday]

@F. U. Shakespeare

At some level, it’s moot – if you’re talking about where the performers and audience come from, today’s ‘Country and Western’ music might be more accurately called ‘Suburban and Southern’.

Mmm…hmmm. And if you consider what they sing about, there’s not much about herding cattle, gunning down strangers over Mexican women, hunting for supper with a shotgun, or picking cotton. Everything I’ve heard for the past few years seems to be about what a great country America is, or how God loves everybody (except foreigners).

If, as mentioned earlier, it’s starting to be called “Americana”, that sounds about right.