Wow! This brings back memories. Makes me think of that oldie “Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.”
We could get a whole nother thread going on the novelty and humor songs that have lasted so well all these years.
I opened this thread to post the same thing. I heard this song for the first time last week. Absolutely love it!
Fine pick. Also on my list:
Whiskey River - Willie
Billy Austin - Steve Earle
London Homesick Blues - Jerry Jeff Walker
Mama Tried - Merle
Seven Year Ache - Roseanne Cash
Walk Away Joe - Trisha Yearwood
Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue - Crystal Gayle
Lonely Feeling - Robert Earl Keen
and many more
Just to clarify, New Grass Revival was around 30 years ago. They’ve all gone separate ways since then, with the occasional partial regrouping, but for my money they were at their best in NGR.
one that I always think of, even though I’m not a Garth Brooks fan, is Much to Young to Feel this Damn Old. Also Mark Chestnut’s I’ll Think of Something
Thanks for clarifying. Here’s more on Cowan: John Cowan - Wikipedia
God yes. Saw him sing it live, and his voice just resonated. My tummy was fluttering. That song is hawt!
Impossible to choose just one, but Hank Williams–YOur Cheatin’ Heart would have to be it.
If I were allowed to pick a few others, Patsy Cline–She’s Got You(Which was already named), George Jones–He Stopped Lovin’ Her Today(again, already mentioned), Carter Stanley–White Dove. Yeah, I know he was bluegrass, but when you hear his voice, you just died and went to heaven. Everyone today knows his brother Ralph. But Carter was the driving force at the start and the finest solo voice in country/bluegrass music in the early 1950’s. Chills.
Interesting side note. Hank Williams, George Jones, Carter Stanley–all had serious alcohol problems. Williams and Stanley died of it. George, almost(think riding a lawnmower eight miles to a liquor store because his wife took all the keys to all the cars). Hardcore.
Ira Louvin too. He was apparently shot in the back by one of his several wives, and regularly smashed his mandolin on stage in a drunken rage. Presumably inbetween singing gospel songs about the evils of drink… “Satan Is Real” is a stunning album, one of the few truly preachy gospel albums I can listen to.
Thank you for this. When I was a very little girl, I used to listen to the local country music station in the tiny town where I grew up. I quickly graduated to pop (we’re talking the early 1970s here) but there are a few songs from that era that I can remember so vividly! And The Sea of Heartbreak is one of them. I can remember begging my mother to let me call the radio station to request it.
My favorite country songs are by my favorite country singer of all time, Loretta Lynn. Coal Miner’s Daughter is so biographical and honest. When she gets to the part about getting shoes every winter “from a mail-order catalog/with money made by sellin’ a hog” I just get weepy.
And for #2, it’s Loretta’s Fist City. I can’t listen without laughing and envisioning a knock-down drag-out redneck woman brawl.
It’s been said that He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones is the most perfect country song ever written. I have to admit that George does that type of country music just about perfectly. I went from hating him to an ardent admirer. He takes kitsch to a high art and then turns it up to 11. You have to love that in your country music performer.
That all said, I have to say that Lyle Lovett is one of my favorite performers of all time. He has a song called Waltzing Fool which makes me cry — always a good thing for any artist to be able to do. But his sense of humor is what’s amazing. I think that’s why I like country music so much more than I used to. It’s more creative in many ways that other pop music.
Written by Steve Goodman and (perhaps) John Prine.
This would also be my first pick. I’m glad I’m not alone there. George Strait is the man.
I’d also go with Reba’s version of Cathy’s Clown. Breaks my heart every time.
These threads always seem odd to me, since it seems to me that “country” is at least two genres. I love folk country, but only barely tolerate pop country, and the only similarity I can see between the two is that the singers are likely to be wearing cowboy hats.
That said, since the OP said that any definition of “country” can apply, I’ll go with John Denver’s “Grandma’s Feather Bed”.
I think this is a product of your age, and growing up in urban Cleveland.
“Pop” country is little related to the country music I grew up with between 1955-1965 or so. Well, it’s related, but it reflects what people wanted to hear.
Just like “rock and roll” was the 50s, it changed(read=progressed) to what happened in the 1960s and later.
All music changes to reflect what people want to hear. Doesn’t make the old music bad, doesn’t make the newer music better. It just reflects societal norms.
“Folk Country” is really old time folk music, ballads which have their roots in the 1800s if not earlier. Scotch-Irish, many of them. It just got revived and updated with Bob Dylan and those who followed. Not bad, not good. Time marches on.
Country changed a lot when rock/pop was added.
Graham Parsons helped start the country / rock sound. Flying Burrito Brothers and Poco were very early rock / country groups from the late 1960’s. “Emmylou Harris and The Hot Band” continued the sound into the 70’s.
For The Good Times
Crazy
Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues
Randy Travis’ Forever And Ever, Amen
Emmylou Harris’ version of Pancho and Lefty. The version off of Luxury Liner is haunting.
For pop country, Mary Chapin Carpenter hits it out of the park with He Thinks He’ll Keep Her.
For sheer beauty there’s Suzy Bogguss’ Aces.
A favorite of mine was a big hit back in 1971. And of course it doesn’t hurt a bit that Olivia Newton-John was/is drop dead gorgeous. And so, here is “The Banks of the Ohio”.
Copperhead Road by Steve Earle
The Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks
Man in Black by Johnny Cash
Tell Me I Was Dreaming by Travis Tritt
El Paso by Marty Robbins
Things Change by Dwight Yoakam
I Told You So by Randy Travis
All These Years by Sawyer Brown
Fancy by Reba McEntire
And a bunch of other stuff, most of it purely nostalgic as I grew up on the pop country of the nineties but no longer listen to the genre except for a small handful of various artists.