I guess I'm the other one!

I grew up with country music on my folks radios, so I naturally rejected it in favor of rock'n'roll. But then the advent of early seventies country-rock got me headed back that way as a teen, and by the late seventies I was even listening to lots of Haggard, Jones and Johnny Cash. I continued with it, plus a lot of rock too, through the eighties, but sometime after that (no, don't blame Garth) I started losing inteest in the new stuff I was hearing. It began to sound very stale and really not like country music at all. Today, I'd be hard pressed to think of any mainstream artist other than Alan Jackson and George Strait that is making consistently compelling COUNTRY music.

As for the sound quality of country music, I don't think I can go along with the generalization that it is better (or worse) than other popular music. I hear horrible sounding country recordings (Dwight Yoakums last few were criminally bad), and some that sound very, very good. Most though, to me, fall in the middle somewhere, ranging from OK to good.

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Am I the only Country music audiophile on the planet?

Hell no! Now I'd classify myself as a mostly Classical and Jazz type but my taste is quite varied and includes a good bit of country.

But then there's the question ... what is country? I would consider a good bit of the Stones output, at certain times in their career, to be country, at least heavily country influenced. Thus, being no expert, I'm inclined to seek a higher authority.

Which brings me to Kris Kristofferson ... in a preamble to a song on a greatest hit Columbia LP he speaks into the mic., "If it sounds Country man, then that's what it is, it's a Country song." As far as sound quality goes that LP is unreal! If I could only obtain a copy of Beethoven's Eroica that exhibits such stark realism!

BTW, on pop, isn't Country Rock part of the new pop, and a significant chunk of it?

Just for fun ... what song is this from (no Googling allowed!):

Don't cross him, don't boss him.
He's wild in his sorrow:
He's ridin' an' hidin his pain.
Don't fight him, don't spite him;
Just wait till tomorrow,
Maybe he'll ride on again.

Quote:

Quote:
Am I the only Country music audiophile on the planet?

Hell no! Now I'd classify myself as a mostly Classical and Jazz type but my taste is quite varied and includes a good bit of country.

But then there's the question ... what is country? I would consider a good bit of the Stones output, at certain times in their career, to be country, at least heavily country influenced. Thus, being no expert, I'm inclined to seek a higher authority.

Which brings me to Kris Kristofferson ... in a preamble to a song on a greatest hit Columbia LP he speaks into the mic., "If it sounds Country man, then that's what it is, it's a Country song." As far as sound quality goes that LP is unreal! If I could only obtain a copy of Beethoven's Eroica that exhibits such stark realism!

BTW, on pop, isn't Country Rock part of the new pop, and a significant chunk of it?

Just for fun ... what song is this from (no Googling allowed!):

Don't cross him, don't boss him.
He's wild in his sorrow:
He's ridin' an' hidin his pain.
Don't fight him, don't spite him;
Just wait till tomorrow,
Maybe he'll ride on again.

It's from the Red Headed Stranger album, by Willie Nelson. But to get the name of the song, I'll have to look at the CD, and that would be cheating. And as we all know, cheaters never win!

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Red Headed Stranger

Yee-ha! Hot diggity, dog! That be the one!

And I learned something to. I heard it on Willie And Family Live, the two LP set, where it appears as "Red Headed Stranger Medley", obviously a medley of tunes from Red Headed Stranger.

Interestingly the Willie And Family Live CD (it has 19 tracks, the double LP has 29) doesn't include the Medley. A real shame! Love those lyrics.

I hear ya. The only thing tougher is being a reggae audiophile!

The Ballad of the Red Headed Stranger. Willie Nelson did the hell out of it.