Re-reading those comments, it seems like I pinned most of the blame on the record execs at the time, and you've done a good job pointing out that it's more radio stations than record execs. Thus, I think I'd slightly amend that to mean that the record execs are doing what they do out of necessity, to get airplay on country radio.

WTA and rbtexan make some great points. But, there are still a few misguided souls on this thread.

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Aaron Watson is a master of Texas dancehall music, and a good guy to boot.

If you like Ray Price, Johnny Bush, Jody Nix, and the like, you'll like Aaron Watson. If western swing and traditional country aren't your thing, well, Aaron probably isn't going to suit your tastes.

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I agree. If I were putting together a list of overrated "Texas Musicians", I'd have hand cramps before I even considered Aaron Watson.

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Bingo. Randy Rogers did the same thing as Pat Green did. He isn't there yet, but he's getting there.

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I don't get this increasingly popular viewpoint. For one, Randy Rogers has talent. Pat Green does not. Pat was fun and catchy when he sang about drinking beer and eating Burrito's off the floor of his Bronco, but his songs had no real substance, and they still don't. I remember Cory Morrow talking about explaining to Pat what a bridge is, and it wasn't that long ago. He's forced to do what sells, because he's not talented enough to be creative. Randy Rogers is a good musician and songwriter. Pat Green was scheduling showcases for Mercury about the time most of you were buying his first album. Nashville came to Randy Rogers, not the other way around. He had songs recorded by others before he had a record deal. How many Pat Green songs have other people recorded?

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Anybody playing at the Hall.

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I saw Willie Nelson at the Hall a few years ago. He played for 3-1/2 hours without taking a break, then did 3 encores. It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen.

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I have to say that to me, "Love You" does NOT sound like the type of material that Jack normally puts out.

When I first heard that song, my first reaction was to think that it was exactly the type of song that he was making fun of with "Happy, Happy, Country, Country"

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This makes no sense to me. "Love You" is as much of a Jack Ingram type song as "Barbie Doll" or "Mustang Burn" or "Imitation of Love" or "I Won't go With Her", etc. How is it NOT a Jack Ingram song, other than the fact that he didn't write it?

WTA, did you really say all that a year or more ago? That's a good theory. No great actually.

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Nashville came to Randy Rogers, not the other way around. He had songs recorded by others before he had a record deal. How many Pat Green songs have other people recorded?

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This is a great point Worm. Randy is an awesome songwriter and has surrounded himself with talent as well IMO. I personally don't think Pat Green is all that bad of a writer, he's a hit or a miss and has written some quality songs, but it was no doubt his performance skills and his timing that got him where he is today.

Another band that comes to mind when thinking about RR, is Ragweed. Nashville came to them as well. Speaking of, that's one band who has always kept to there rock and roll type roots, but successfully makes the bridge between country and rock while not really "selling out" to anything or anyone.

Sorry, a few random thoughts I had to type out fast.

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Blame it on record executives who decided that the only way the country genre could survive was to make it a full-fledged extension of pop music. They brought in artists who had no other desire to be on country radio than that it was the fastest way to fame. To fit those artists and the new goal of country to be "secondary pop", the record labels' songwriting machines began to crank out nothing but glorified pop songs and sentimental crap that appeals to women.

But in a way, maybe we should also thank those record execs for saving country music. Some aspects of Nashville country had been toeing the gray area between pop and country since the 60's and 70's, so when the genre decided to go whole-hog into making pop music, a distinctive split occurred. When Willie and Waylon left Nashville for Austin, they started an underground movement. But at the turn of the millenium, that movement we know as "Texas country" or "alt country" became a full-fledged genre, and instead of getting scant airplay on stations in college towns and at night, it broke into the regular rotation on the big-time stations in the state (and even beyond). Heck, it's even got its own chart now, and it's in the process of slowly taking over the Billboard mainstream country chart. I don't think it's totally unreasonable to suggest that Nashville's inadvertent creation of the Texas country monster may lead to its own demise.

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WestTx,
Took me a while to digest your post (which are always well thought out, and kudos to you for that). Obviously my biggest exception to your points would be that radio is and has been more of a culprit than Nashville record companies, although we here in TN certainly aren't blameless in the matter. There are a lot of other contributing factors that played a part in the current state of affairs, and I'll try to briefly address what I can.

What eveyone has to keep in perspective is that the music business is just that...a business...and like any business, the object is to make money, ideally as much money as you can. Chet Atkins said on many occasions that they came up with the Nashville Sound of the 60s & 70s for no other reason than to try to be viable. In those days, country music flat didn't sell. Oh sure, it was played on the radio a lot, but record companies don't make one dime from radio play, and for years a very successful country album might sell 50,000 copies or so. Even when I moved to Nashville in the early 80s, there was an Earl Thomas Conley album that had 5 #1 singles on it, and it barely sold 100,000 units. Compare those numbers to the sales of pop and/or rock acts from the same time frame, and you can see why Nashville had what I refer to as "L.A. envy". In Chet's case, he worked for RCA Records, and his numbers had to impress the bean counters in the home office, accountants who didn't take in to consideration the differences in the country market and rock or pop.

So basically you have record execs who have families to feed, and to do that they need to keep their jobs. In my experience, when you are constantly worried about getting fired (and the turnover in the music industry is unbelieveable), you tend to play it safe rather than take chances. And what is safe? Safe is what has proven to work. That's why after Garth Brooks hit, you saw so many look-alike/sound-alike acts get signed. If you look at it from that perspective, it's easy to see why most of the cutting edge acts are indies, and why most of the major label stuff has a large degree of 'sameness' to it.

I wish it wasn't such a broken system, and as I said in previous posts, it's something we here in Nashville b*tch about constantly. Unfortunately the combination of art and commerce has never been seamless and seldom pretty.

One last footnote regarding commerce stifling creativity. A very famous songwriter once complained that "I am paid too much for what I do and too little for what I COULD do". That songwriter was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

See, it's nothing new.

[This message has been edited by rbtexan (edited 6/26/2008 5:21p).]

I heard a song this morning that is typical of what drives me crazy about Nashville. The surprising part is that it was Kevin Fowler.

I never was his biggest fan, but what the hell happened there?

Worm,
Don't know what song you're referring to, but why exactly is what Kevin Fowler does Nashville's fault?

GD, I had it all typed up and lost it. I'll try again.

Maybe it's not "Nashville's" fault, but Country Radio. Either way. I just heard Fowler's new one, "Best Mistake I Ever Made", and it's a classic example of stupid song writing. It's simple, cheesy, and generic. Kevin Fowler made a good living playing bars and festivals around Texas and Okie, not because of his singing, but because he's a perfomer. His songs were upbeat, funny, and sometime dirty. Then he started getting some attention and had a few songs recorded, and got a better deal. This is the first I've heard from in awhile, and it sucks. I've never been his biggest fan, but I KNOW he's got better songs than this, but this is one getting all the airplay. Because it's stupid, and people can understand it without having to actually listen.

Alot of the popular songs these days just have no imagination or "soul". It's like they were written by a computer, which some of the probably were. The first one that REALLY stands out is "You Had Me at Hello" by Kenny Chesney. I don't know who wrote that, so maybe he is talented. But, I will be the first to admit I have zero muscial ability, and if someone came to me and asked me to write a song called "You had me at hello", I could've written that song in about 5 minutes. It's like a formula. Take some words that rhyme, time some music that somewhat matches the lyrics, put in the machine and see what comes out. It's just so simple.

Since then I've heard songs like, "I Breathe In, I breathe out", "She Said Yes", "Don't ask me how I know", "Chicks Dig It", that dumbass song about the kid saying "I wanna be like you, I'm your buckaroo". Really? I swear there are times I can't tell the difference between satire and real songs. Awhile back there was one that started "I wear a greasy ball cap, I wear my t-shirt tight", I thought it was a freaking Rodney Carrington song until I found out it was serious. Just zero imagination.

The shame of it is, I know there are better songs than that. I know there are writers who still tell a story or come up with imaginative songs, but you have to go out and find these songs, because it's not what is being played on radio.

Even the Texas acts have fallen into this trap. I hear people prop up certain Texas Artists all the time, but all I hear from them is songs about drinking beer by the river or taking a road trip to Mexico.

It just drives me nuts. but I'll end my rant anyway.

But since Kevin wrote that song himself, doesn't that sort of invalidate the rant?

I'm really good friends with a band in the Texas scene, They have slowly worked their way up to a respectable level and they have done it by making the music they wanted to make, producing their own albums and releasing it independently. Their music doesn't quite fit the Texas mold, which is a good thing, but that is where they are marketing. It puts them in a tricky situation, but I think the people that listen to Texas country mostly listen to it because of that label. I think if you force good music into the Texas scene, people like Chris Knight, Hayes Carll, Ryan Bingham, Max Stalling, to name a few, people would prefer it to the guys like Eli Young, Randy Rodgers, Pat Green, etc. I just wish that the guys I mentioned above who seem to be in it for the music, and who are writing and producing legit music will prevail over the guys looking to be the next Pat Green.

Kevin Fowler! I can't believe I left him off my list on the first page. That guy is terrible but some people think he is great

The Randy Rogers Band is about as far from a "sell-out" as can be. Just because you get signed and start playing bigger venues doesn't mean you have sold out.

Randy's new album is entirely made up of songs he and the band wrote (except one, written by a close friend, and POSSIBLY one more before it is over.)

The actual band plays on the records...it is not studio musicians. They all share equally in the thing.

And Represent830, your whole rant on Randy SELLING a song to Kenny is just 100% false. Randy has nothing to do with that, and didn't sell anything to him. Randy has a publishing deal, and Kenny cut the song. Randy made a little bit of the mechanicals, but not a bunch.

Point is, that song was cut and on the record regardless of what Randy said.

If you don't like them, great. But that doesn't make them sell-outs.

If you are going to base your dislike on a specific point, try to make it a factual one.

Randy STILL makes fun of some aspects of Nashville.

The whole Anti-Nashville thing is ridiculous for a number of reasons. One of which is that when an artist stands up and spouts off about Nashville, the fans take it way out of context. That is a mistake in my opinion because the general fan base will make you regret that in the end.

Take Ragweed's song, "Leaving Tennessee." People LOVE to scream F Nashville when they play that song, and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with anti-Nashville sentiment.

I don't really even consider Pat selling out. Did he grow up, and mature? Yes. Does that change your style? Yes.

People always throw out this stupid "Beer and Texas" song argument when speaking about Texas Music. The truth is, many of the bigger artists in this scene don't sing about "Beer and Texas." Some made a career of it, but not all. And the ones doing it now suck anyway.

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Kevin Fowler made a good living playing bars and festivals around Texas and Okie, not because of his singing, but because he's a perfomer. His songs were upbeat, funny, and sometime dirty. Then he started getting some attention and had a few songs recorded, and got a better deal. This is the first I've heard from in awhile, and it sucks.

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So you're saying a guy whose break out hit was "Beer, Bait & Ammo" is just now losing his artistic integrity?

[This message has been edited by Diggity (edited 6/27/2008 2:59p).]

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People always throw out this stupid "Beer and Texas" song argument when speaking about Texas Music. The truth is, many of the bigger artists in this scene don't sing about "Beer and Texas." Some made a career of it, but not all. And the ones doing it now suck anyway.

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Never moving beyond "Beer and Texas" and party songs is one of the best ways that an act can become overrated in my book. The best Texas artists can and do sing about those subjects, but they're storytellers first and foremost. And whether it's Guy Clark, Hank Williams III, Merle Haggard, Johnny Horton, or Robert Earl Keen that's what good music is about, storytelling.

Robert Earl's career, and its effects on the genre, are a study on this topic. His most popular and well-known song, "The Road Goes On Forever", is a party song (and in fact, it's the quintessential Texas party song), but it's also a story song. Because of that song's success, countless other "party songs" have been recorded by younger Texas artists trying to re-create Robert Earl's success. However, their songs don't measure up in any way to the greatness of Robert Earl's, and not only that, but they never mature beyond party songs. While "The Road" is a great, fun song, it's only one piece of Robert Earl's collection. He's as good of a storyteller as there is in country/folk/Americana today.

Rbtexan, great post yesterday afternoon. I don't have time to respond right now, but I plan to at some point in the next couple of days.

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He's as good of a storyteller as there is in country/folk/Americana today.

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Agreed.

Anyone wanting to know how to write a good storytelling song should check out the "Road to No Return" trilogy on "Walking Distance".

Excellent point on REK.

And it seems that everytime he puts out a new album, many on this site claim it sucks - generally because his cd cuts seem to be more subdued and "folky".

IMO, an REK album and an REK show can be quite a ways apart - which is part of his greatness.

My favorite thing about Robert Earl is that he doesn't seem to worry about fitting into anyone else's idea of what his music is about. He tries different things, explores new musical directions, etc. I believe he basically follows whatever path a particular song idea takes him, as opposed to trying to make it work within the restraints of formula. That takes guts, and that's what makes him special.

You're absolutely right. The difference in "The Road Goes on Forever" and other attempted party songs is the story. It's easy to write a song about driving to San Marcos and drinking beer while going to see Jerry Jeff, because we've all done it. How many of us have ever moved to Miami, hooked up with some crooked Cubans, be accused of shooting a cop, ended up on death row, while our girl lived happily ever after on the loot she grabbed in the rucus? That's more of a movie script than a song.

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So you're saying a guy whose break out hit was "Beer, Bait & Ammo" is just now losing his artistic integrity?

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