Episode 54
What Makes Country Music So American?
This week we are donning our stetsons and grabbing a cold one, as we discuss the most rootin’ tootin’ American music genre of them all. From Dolly Parton to Taylor Swift with a little bit of Footloose, country has come to epitomise the US, but as the genre’s popularity booms internationally, does its Americanness still endure? So in this episode I’m asking… what makes country music so American?
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Special guest for this episode:
- John Collins, Head of Radio Operations at CountryLine Radio and, conveniently a huge fan of both country music and American culture.
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Highlights from this episode:
(03:10) A Brit and a Scot talking about country music...
(05:07) Breaking down the stigma
(08:41) Is country music still a white person genre?
(12:20) Earning your country chops
(15:43) US vs international appeal of country music
(20:06) Southern representations
(22:43) The biggest threat to the genre
(25:18) How to keep the country in country
(28:31) Women empowering women
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Additional Resources:
Cowboy Carter by Beyonce
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And if you like this episode, you might also love:
What Makes Country Music so American?
Are the Oscars Still Relevant?
Why Does Everyone Love Disney?
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Transcript
This week we are donning our Stetsons and grabbing a cold one, I apologise it doesn't sound right
Speaker:coming from such a British accent, as we discuss the most rootin tootin American music genre
Speaker:of them all. From Dolly Parton to Taylor Swift with a little bit of Footloose, country has
Speaker:come to epitomise the US, but as the genre's popularity booms internationally, does its
Speaker:American-ness still endure? In this episode I'm going to ask what makes country music so
Speaker:Ameri-
Speaker:Welcome to America, a history podcast. I'm Liam Heffernan and every week we answer a different
Speaker:question to understand the people, the places and the events that make the USA what it is
Speaker:today.
Speaker:To discuss this, I'm joined by a man with nearly 50 years of broadcasting on his CV, but he's
Speaker:also a huge country music fan, currently living the dream as head of radio operations at Countryline
Speaker:Radio, which is one of the biggest UK country music stations. So a big hello and howdy to
Speaker:John Collins. Hello. Do you know what, I wrote that script and it sounded much better on paper
Speaker:than it did actually reading it out. I'm fine, y'all.
Speaker:It's really, it's great to have you on the show, John. And, you know, I've been a listener of
Speaker:Country Line for many years and I love what you do, especially, you know, I'm going to
Speaker:say like versus some of the other competitors in the UK, you play a lot more of the classic
Speaker:stuff and I love that. Yeah, absolutely. There's a mixture really. We do a lot of the current
Speaker:stuff and we do a lot of the older stuff and we're prepared to go back into the late 80s,
Speaker:early 90s and before if necessary. Country music is such a broad church. You can't be a country
Speaker:station and just play a narrow subset of it, because we are a completely fan-led operation
Speaker:that hopes to make money, as opposed to a money-making opportunity that happens to play country music.
Speaker:And the two are quite distinct mindsets. It is that real sense that it's kind of fans playing
Speaker:the music they love that really is the appeal of Countryland. Yeah, and sometimes I think
Speaker:it can get a bit wearing. An old program director of mine once said, John, do you have to say
Speaker:you like every song you play? Yeah, occasionally. But I think it's nice for and by fans, we're
Speaker:all in this gang together and we can remember when country wasn't cool. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And on that note, probably not a huge giveaway that you're not American. Nope, central Scotland
Speaker:born and bred. So I'm just kind of wondering, you know, I'm here as an Englishman, you're
Speaker:sat there as a Scot, but we're both fans of country music. So when did you first find the
Speaker:genre? Kind of all my life I've been exposed to it. Scotland, like Ireland, has always had
Speaker:a bit of a love, you know, going back to Jim Reeves and that kind of era of stuff. So these
Speaker:guys were on my radar as I was growing up. And... I always wanted to work in radio, always, always.
Speaker:And in 1977, I was 14, a hospital radio station opened literally three miles up the road from
Speaker:where I lived then, and one mile from where I am now, Radio Royal. And I went through the
Speaker:process and became a presenter. And these were the days when you were told what the show was
Speaker:because they decided on the music for the audience as opposed to what would you like to play?
Speaker:And... I wasn't a particular country fan, but they gave me a show called The Country Clinic
Speaker:and it was 7.30 on a Thursday evening and I did that for several years. And it was great
Speaker:because it took me from being somebody who had Chris Kristofferson on my radar to actually
Speaker:bringing out a Chris Kristofferson album and selecting tracks from it and doing it the old
Speaker:fashioned way. And it was great. And I've been in and around radio for a long time and countries
Speaker:always cropped up. Obviously I've played your Top 40 music in the BBC and in commercial,
Speaker:but then I spent a long time producing Radio Scotland's country show and Ricky Ross started
Speaker:coming in as our presenter when Brian, who was the old presenter, went over to do a different
Speaker:show on the station. And that was what alerted me to the fact that there was a whole lot of
Speaker:us in the closet who really loved and understood country music. and all the subgenres within
Speaker:it. And it's kind of never gone away. And Witzel and Bauer, they did a country show, I was like
Speaker:the first guy in there with my hand up. MW No, I kind of I'm with you on that. I think that,
Speaker:so I was first kind of exposed to country music really young because my mum was a big fan.
Speaker:So I just remember Patsy, Clyde and Dolly Parton always playing in the background. But it wasn't
Speaker:until I guess kind of 10 years ago when Chris
Speaker:gained a bit of traction and it was picking up on my DAB signal down in the southeast of
Speaker:England and I thought I'd tune in and it was like Maron Morris and that sort of music and
Speaker:hearing my church play out and it was so modern and so it kind of really straddled the line
Speaker:with pop music versus what I was used to hearing and it's like, I think there's a stigma isn't
Speaker:there to country music?
Speaker:and some of it, there is a naff end to country music fandom as there is with every other kind
Speaker:of music. And some of the dressing up to me is maybe a wee bit egregious, I say that as
Speaker:a man who wears a snatching from time to time, but we didn't go out of our way to make ourselves
Speaker:seem accessible and of the mainstream, let's put it that way. And then Marin came along,
Speaker:Sam Hunt came along, and if you remember when Sam Hunt started releasing stuff, people thought
Speaker:he was the Antichrist of country music. Because here he was bringing huge R&B style sounds
Speaker:into the music. And now, well he won me over at whatever year it was, 2016, 2017 C2C. It
Speaker:was just extraordinary and that's when I got it, that's when I understood what he was doing.
Speaker:And I think the music has continued to evolve. As we were recording this, I was listening
Speaker:to Radio 4 earlier today and they were talking about Beyoncé being snubbed in the CMA Awards
Speaker:nomination now. I'm a CMA member, I didn't put Beyoncé down as any of my nominations, but
Speaker:nothing to do with anything other than I didn't rate the album particularly, I thought the
Speaker:single was good but we're now in a place where we can talk about Beyoncé legitimately and
Speaker:why we didn't consider her for a Country Music Award. That's amazing. Yeah and it's mad isn't
Speaker:it because even just a few years ago Justin Bieber sort of teaming up with Dan and Shea
Speaker:for 10,000 hours. That was a huge song and that really took people by surprise. You know, the
Speaker:fact that Bieber was doing country music. So for Beyonce to release a whole album, I mean,
Speaker:that was, that was, I had to do a double take when I saw the news because it just didn't
Speaker:seem like it just didn't marry up in my head. Well, you've got her, you've got Shaboosie,
Speaker:successfully straddling two genres. There's just loads of them. And I think that's really,
Speaker:Post Malone again, four or five nominations. It's just extraordinary. Yeah, the steps have
Speaker:been made. And as I said, again, Posty, real country fan who came out of the country closet.
Speaker:Yeah, and I guess let's just dive into something a bit heavier right now, because you've mentioned
Speaker:about the CMA nominations and we're recording this literally just after those nominations
Speaker:have been announced. But Beyonce, one of the biggest country albums of the year, probably
Speaker:of the decade in terms of its ability to sort of hit the mainstream, completely snubbed,
Speaker:and someone, I forget the name, there's another nominee who's He had four or five nominations
Speaker:last year and he's been nominated again this year. But he got in trouble a few years ago
Speaker:for Morgan Wallen. Yes. Morgan what? Seven nominations. Yes. So, you know, he's a prolific sort of
Speaker:CMA nominee and he's been in trouble in the past for saying things that were racially insensitive
Speaker:and then you've get the sort of snubbing of Beyonce. Is there a problem in country music
Speaker:that maybe it's still quite a white person genre? It's certainly improving. In the last five
Speaker:years, Chapel Heart, there were several artists of colour now really breaking through. I think
Speaker:they were always there, but it was difficult because the target market for the American
Speaker:record labels was typically on the southern half of America, and that has its own basket
Speaker:of insecurities. that will still take decades to finally wash out. And I think the minute
Speaker:the record companies looked up and thought, oh, hang on a minute, we've got a bit of a
Speaker:worldwide thing going on here. And Europe in particular is really quite integrated no matter
Speaker:what you think about the newspapers here. And they began to understand the other forms of
Speaker:country music, artists of colour.
Speaker:comes out of a slightly different tradition, which doesn't sit well with us. It's in the
Speaker:same way as many of us look a little askance when you see an artist openly supporting Trump
Speaker:or loving their guns and so on, because that doesn't quite fit the British sensibility.
Speaker:But they just turn it down a notch. And I don't think we get the kind of full strength gun
Speaker:rack on the back of the pickup truck thing. There's this weird kind of image issue now,
Speaker:I think with country music, that maybe the fact that Beyonce didn't get nominated is actually
Speaker:playing exactly into the reason why she released a country album, right? Because it's taking
Speaker:it away from the white man and actually the fact that people weren't willing to embrace
Speaker:that, or certainly award givers weren't willing to embrace that, kind of makes a point, doesn't
Speaker:it? It absolutely makes a point. My problem with the Beyonce album was... bizarrely, my
Speaker:second favourite kind of music is R&B and I just felt it wasn't country enough. It was
Speaker:an experimental, country-tinged R&B album into which you put in some extraordinary performances
Speaker:and so on. But to me personally, I just felt there were stronger albums. So when I was selecting
Speaker:my favourite five albums of the year, it just didn't quite make the cut. We played Texas
Speaker:Hold'em when it came out. straight away, didn't mess about. And other people waited to see
Speaker:how it would settle. And particularly in America, a lot of stations didn't get onto it for maybe
Speaker:a month. And that's rare with an artist of that stature. Normally they would effectively debut
Speaker:on all radio stations. But she made her point, I think she's made her point very, very well.
Speaker:And as you say quite rightly, I think the morning after the night before, people are wondering
Speaker:is there a racial element to the Beyonce snub? Genuinely, in my case, it's not just didn't
Speaker:think the music was good enough, but my goodness, she's raised a flag. Yeah, and it kind of brings
Speaker:me on to this sort of struggle that I have as well in terms of what kind of defining what
Speaker:country music is because I feel like sometimes if a particular individual is associated with
Speaker:country music and seen as a country singer, it doesn't matter what sort of what they release.
Speaker:it's considered country. Because there are some, you know, Mara Morris, I think being an example,
Speaker:I don't think a lot of her stuff, particularly more recent stuff, is that country. But it's
Speaker:considered country. So kind of why does that differ from like what Beyonce's doing? M.M.
Speaker:Mara Morris, Casey Musgraves, arguably, another artist who I absolutely adore, but she's into
Speaker:that trippy-dippy thing much more than she's into twang and songs about biscuits. I wonder
Speaker:whether once you've earned your country chops, they slash we will keep letting you into our
Speaker:front room. Kane Brown seems to go release about R&B straight up country, R&B straight up country.
Speaker:And we let them do that. Whereas it may be harder for somebody outside who's got an established
Speaker:career to break their way in. Post Malone and Beyonce being two exemplary artists have done
Speaker:that thing. Post Malone's album is straight up the middle, that's a country album that's
Speaker:dripping with country references. Yeah, I think it's no longer uncool to do country though,
Speaker:is it? No, no, not at all. And that's the thing that amazes me every day. I get up early in
Speaker:the morning and look at the overnight emails that are coming in, whatever, and it is like,
Speaker:this is not a niche interest anymore. No, it's not. And I think Chris Country, now Countryline,
Speaker:where it was sort of... the first radio station to really play country music, sort of dedicated
Speaker:country music, at the sort of scale that you did in the UK. And then, you know, a lot of
Speaker:big players have come along since, you know, is it Global that own Absolute? Global or Smooth,
Speaker:Absolute or Bower. But yeah, and I'll tell you now, both are very good radio stations. They
Speaker:do what they do. But Chris did the proof of concept. Now, it's a great story. He went to
Speaker:the States. to work. He's a jingle producer, musician, and he went to the States to do that,
Speaker:grew to love country music by listening to it on the radio. And then when he came back to
Speaker:the UK to work, because it's very easy now to set up an online radio station, he set up an
Speaker:online radio station and it was playing on a computer in his bedroom. And it sounded huge
Speaker:because Chris knows what he's doing. But there we were with the UK's country station and we
Speaker:had that ground to ourselves for a long time. Yeah, I remember, you were really the only
Speaker:station in the UK for a while that I could tune into, and I'm sure a lot of others that were
Speaker:just country music, and then suddenly everyone loved country music again. What do you think
Speaker:it is that's caused this resurgence internationally in country? There's a newness to it outside
Speaker:the States. There's a slightly old-fashioned vibe in that it's singles with recognisable
Speaker:pop structures that sound like they're being played on real instruments and they've got
Speaker:a beginning, a middle eight and chorus. They tend to end, which is a thing that wasn't happening
Speaker:before. And I think people buy into the stories and there's a bit of a love of the lifestyle
Speaker:goes on. My daughters are 30 and 34 and when I started doing the stuff at Chris Country,
Speaker:they hated it. And now both of them pay money to go to gigs. You know, and it's their go-to
Speaker:genre. And Gillian in particular says, it's the songs, it's about the music. And some of
Speaker:the artists are easy on the eye. I mean, you touched on this sort of, there's an almost
Speaker:lifestyle aspiration to the genre that it promotes, but do you think the same music and the sort
Speaker:of the same look and feel of country music is the same internationally as it is in the US
Speaker:in terms of what sells? It seems to be. It's interesting because I tend to follow, not slavishly,
Speaker:but I tend to follow what the American Airplay Chart is doing and be aware of that. And if
Speaker:we take a flyer on a stripe, because I think it's great and I just want to get it on the
Speaker:radio, you tend to find that it'll work over there. So it may be that I've become Stockholm
Speaker:Syndrome and I'm doing it the, you know, I'm following the Americans without even realising
Speaker:I'm doing it. But the Australians are the same, there's a growing scene in Australia, there's
Speaker:a growing scene in South Africa, and interestingly we're all playing much the same stuff. Now
Speaker:the Country Music Association, CMA, has international task forces and they bring together broadcasters,
Speaker:bookers, the UK one is quarterly, well European one is quarterly, and I'll be there with colleagues
Speaker:from Radio 2. Global, Bauer, blah blah. Because we're all fans, ultimately, and we're able
Speaker:to say okay this is going well, that's going well, and we'll get insights into the speed
Speaker:that the genre is growing at. The number of streams of country music has grown by 82% in
Speaker:12 months. Now, interestingly, that's not translated into linear radio listening. I would love to
Speaker:have grown my radio audience by 82%. But I think a lot of people are, because you can be quite
Speaker:geeky in country music, are curating or finding their own playlists and doing it that way.
Speaker:So the consumption model is different. This is not people that grew up with different DJs
Speaker:on Radio 1 or their local radio station. This is people who've made a choice to go to a slightly
Speaker:more niche. I think we're the sixth biggest genre in Britain just now. But your people
Speaker:have said, I like this music, I'm going to find out more. I wonder what that appeal is like
Speaker:at its core, because this is, as you say, this isn't people who routinely love listening to
Speaker:and discovering music. They're hunting out country music because they've decided they like country
Speaker:music. So what is the appeal about it? I'm thinking. I think the appeal is in. The pop songs, the
Speaker:relatable stories, the structure of it, the cultural wrap around of country music is different
Speaker:to the cultural wrap around of urban music styles. I mean, you know, it's interesting, guns do
Speaker:pop up in country music, but you tend to use them for shooting deer during deer hunting
Speaker:season. And in other genres of music, the use case is different. Yeah. There's something
Speaker:unique, there's something open about country music, and it's also happily willing to plunder
Speaker:other genres these days, which I think is great. And it draws people in. And people like Shaboosie
Speaker:are like the gateway drug. And they'll come in, because Tipsy's a great song, and they'll
Speaker:come in and they'll love Tipsy and then suddenly they're into Cain Brown, then you're into Sam
Speaker:Hunt. and you've got the old Webb Pierce, There Stands the Glass song on the front of one of
Speaker:his tracks and there's people going all the way back to 1955 just like that and I love
Speaker:that. I think that's fantastic when that happens because a journey is possible and there's a
Speaker:deep history. And I just I wonder if over time the genre has become a little bit of a caricature
Speaker:of itself in just in the way that it's sort of promoting America and the South because
Speaker:you're right, there's something that's very deep South about country music and I think
Speaker:with that there's this sort of glamorous appeal to the kind of ideals that it's promoting.
Speaker:It's wholesome though. There are, they do exist, Sunday Morning Coming Down, one of them, but
Speaker:there's very few songs that don't have the hint of redemption about them. it's okay to have
Speaker:a few drinks on Friday and go to church on Sunday, which is not the prevailing view in just about
Speaker:any other genre of music. And in a lot of ways, it's maybe closer, not to our exact real lives,
Speaker:but it's maybe closer to, you know, the way normal people live their lives. Yeah, it's
Speaker:almost like you've got this, this sort of this typical country singer, certainly the typical
Speaker:male country singer, like... tends to have this image of, as you say, this sort of religious
Speaker:kind of beer drinking, pick-up truck driving, you know, little bit rough around the edges,
Speaker:kind of anti-hero, right? Correct. And Morgan Wallen's egregious behaviour in the past would
Speaker:be ten a penny in many other genres of music, but in country music, it didn't get away with
Speaker:it. And he had to come grovelling back to his record company. Do you think though that part
Speaker:of the popular appeal of people like that is the fact that they do play into the good and
Speaker:the bad of what we kind of expect from, you know, the South? Yeah, I think so. Now, I don't
Speaker:actually think Kip Moore's From the Deep South will get proven wrong the minute I've said
Speaker:that, but if you think about it, he typifies that kind of trope of the tattooed gun loving...
Speaker:wrapping himself up in the flag thing, but he still loves God and his mum. And I think that
Speaker:is really interesting and really powerful because in many ways it's not as aggressive as other
Speaker:kinds of music. Eventually, who was it? Toby Keith. All the drunk Americans end up down
Speaker:in the pub together, doesn't matter who they love. And I think there's that, it's almost
Speaker:as if you're joining a community.
Speaker:to country music that other genres don't provide, I think. And absolutely, yeah. And I find that
Speaker:actually amongst country broadcasters, behind the scenes, we're pretty much all friends.
Speaker:Yeah, and I wonder if there's a bit of a catch-22, though, with the genre in that it's sort of
Speaker:sold on the sort of the lifestyle and the ideals that sort of underlie country music, you know,
Speaker:and the themes around it. But as the genre gets more international and as it grows and more
Speaker:people from more countries start to emerge as, you know, popular country singers, does that?
Speaker:fundamental sort of values sort of that underpin the genre and use to. Does that get a bit lost?
Speaker:I think so. I think that is going to be a challenge. I get to hear quite a lot of German and Scandinavian
Speaker:country music and with the honorable exception of Texas Lightning and the Common Linets, a
Speaker:lot of it sounds just slightly left field of country. Now, the only nation that's managed
Speaker:to put together a country scene that sounds uniquely all of its own, and it's easy to approve
Speaker:of, is Ireland. That whole Irish scene, some of it, is absolutely wonderful. Other bits
Speaker:of it are not my cup of tea. But my goodness, Ireland has developed its own take on country
Speaker:music and managed to make something of it. But it doesn't trouble the US, does it? Similarly,
Speaker:the European and Scandinavian stuff, I think we're going to have the same picture with that.
Speaker:It still seems to be that if you want to make it big, you're going to have to end up in Tennessee
Speaker:and you'll get into that system. Yeah, it does still feel like Nashville is the, not even
Speaker:just the spiritual home, but the very kind of physical home of country music. And it does
Speaker:make me wonder that, you know, it kind of comes back to this sort of definition problem of
Speaker:is no longer American, then what is it? It is American, but it's American for the world.
Speaker:In the same way as I would find it difficult to construct an argument that said prog rock
Speaker:is, you know, Australian. It's not. It's a British thing that is popular around the world. And
Speaker:there are fantastic bands in the state doing that dead... great work in that genre, but
Speaker:then they ended up wearing spandex and playing that kind of pop rock thing. It's still different.
Speaker:So I think it's okay. We're not in a bad place yet. I don't think the people who are all over
Speaker:country music would allow it to lose its soul. It's a sort of difficult balancing act because
Speaker:as we touched on before, the issues around Beyonce and some of these sorts of stigmas are almost
Speaker:a little bit self-inflicted from from the country music industry. How does it kind of break down
Speaker:those barriers whilst retaining kind of the core that sort of people come to expect from
Speaker:the genre? Oh, I think there's so much bread in the offering right across country music
Speaker:that I don't think country music breaks down the barriers. The listeners, the people that
Speaker:enjoy the music do the barrier breaking. If you look at, I mentioned him earlier, Jason
Speaker:Isbell for example, we don't play him. I don't think Smooth or Absolute play him, but he can
Speaker:do a sold out tour of the UK. And that Americana scene is doing well because people have searched
Speaker:it out. The UK country scene is in rude health. I probably get more correspondence from listeners
Speaker:around Homegrown, the UK show we do, than I do from... from any other part of the station.
Speaker:The rest of it is people looking for shout outs. The other one is, oh who was that artist that
Speaker:Tim played at 25 past 7 and go and look it out and send the website details to them and whatever.
Speaker:So I think the country listeners, from what we were saying earlier about the voyage of
Speaker:discovery, I think country listeners are prepared to do a wee bit more heavy lifting than somebody
Speaker:who just sticks on the radio in the background. Yeah, and I'm gonna just fact check something
Speaker:here before I explain why I'm asking. And Lady A are British, are they not? No, Nashville
Speaker:based. Okay, so I think either way, it would have been more interesting if they were British,
Speaker:perhaps a little bit more worrying actually that they're American, but they obviously had
Speaker:a very kind of public rebranding of their name because they were Lady Antebellum and they
Speaker:became Lady A. they kind of passed it off as, you know, they didn't really understand the
Speaker:connotations and the meaning behind their name, but there's, there is a slightly problematic
Speaker:base to country music isn't there, that's kind of represented by names like that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And it goes back, you know, pretty much all the way. It's been difficult for artists of
Speaker:colour to get picked up and played. And other people would buy into, you know, right, we
Speaker:need a nice southern name. And, you know, if you're, you can be an accidental racist and
Speaker:you don't get the connotations, you're maybe short of sophistication. And think, oh, that
Speaker:sounds like a great name, we'll go with that, I wish you hadn't done that. You know, it's,
Speaker:and I think because country as a genre has become more accepting of... Gosh, seven or eight years
Speaker:ago it was difficult to get women on country radio. Consultants were saying that the people
Speaker:that listened to country radio weren't here guys. And they were wrong of course, but this
Speaker:was the way it was working. So I think as the world modernises so does the genre and our
Speaker:listeners, especially the ones coming in now, expect us to reflect the real world and not
Speaker:this made up mom's apple pie America. Yeah, and I do think though, and you might completely
Speaker:disagree with me here, but I feel like female country singers used to still sing to men in
Speaker:what they were singing about and how they were singing. Whereas you look at sort of more modern
Speaker:country music, you know, things like, you know, Kelsey Ballerini, Hole in the Bottle, for instance.
Speaker:I mean, that is a song that is very much a song by a woman for a woman. And oh, I can't even
Speaker:think of the song now. But is it Diane? I want to say Diane. She's talking about accidentally
Speaker:sleeping with her, with somebody's husband. Yeah, and it's kind of like, that is very much
Speaker:a song, you know, by a woman, you know, for women. Yes. That didn't used to really happen.
Speaker:So I feel like that's reflective of the new audience where more women are engaging with
Speaker:country music. Way back at the start of Chris Country slash Countryline, Maddie and T's Girl
Speaker:in a Country song is... all about that whole image of girls who are meant to wear short
Speaker:shorts, have their tartan blouse tied in a bow and lean against the pickup truck and look
Speaker:sexy. And the whole song is effectively a rant against that idea. And I was convinced they
Speaker:wouldn't get picked up for anything else, but it turns out Maddie and Tate are brilliant
Speaker:and they just make great music. So they've survived. I think a lot of men my age in America that
Speaker:have worked in country radio since the 70s and 80s have had to take a bit of a long hard look
Speaker:at themselves and incorporate other artists. Marin Morris, you know, she addresses gender
Speaker:fluidity and all sorts of things. That's really great and really important. BD Yeah, and I
Speaker:think, you know, certainly, and this is partly the credit, you know, of stations like Countryline
Speaker:who are, you know, making it mainstream in countries. beyond America, but the genre definitely feels
Speaker:like it's changing. I can't remember a time when it's not been changing, though. I'm quite
Speaker:boring in real life in that I will go back and listen to old stuff. And when you see how far
Speaker:it's come over the years, it's had a fairly rapid trajectory since the second half of the
Speaker:60s. Really when it starts being Bluegrass and Jim Reeves. You've got that kind of slightly
Speaker:more orchestral 90s vibe going on. You've got Garth Brooks arriving and turning it into a
Speaker:stadium genre. Brooks and Dunn and so on. The clever artists, the Dollies, the Kennys, etc.
Speaker:grew with it. Loretta Lynn doing an album with Jack White. I mean, whatever next? But all
Speaker:of that stuff, these were the people that were moving country on from back then. where it
Speaker:gets to be now. And I'll tell you for free that the more thoughtful of today's artists, because
Speaker:there still is a singer-songwriter writing songs in the bus on the road, thinkers are in country
Speaker:music. They respect the past but don't want to live in it. MW Yeah, that's a really interesting
Speaker:way of looking at it actually. And I think there is still so much history and tradition in country
Speaker:music, not just in the music itself, but in how it's performed and the sort of values that
Speaker:it... it kind of presents. And I think that's why it feels so American to me is because you
Speaker:just can't disassociate the sort of that from the genre. I couldn't agree more. And I am
Speaker:that guy who enjoys American sports and follows American politics closely and all of that business.
Speaker:So perhaps I don't get caught on the American-ness of it because I spend a lot of time in my head
Speaker:in that world. Yeah, well, I'm with you there. But, uh, Before we sort of wrap up, I do have
Speaker:one question I want to ask you, because country music, you've spent a lot of years playing
Speaker:country music and talking about it. If there was one country music artist, dead or alive,
Speaker:that you could meet and chat to, who would it be? I would love to sit down and have a pint
Speaker:with Charlie Pride. Fascinating artist, amazing voice. He came to the fore in an era. when
Speaker:African American country artists really didn't exist. And they would used to drive around
Speaker:the radio stations and the owners would be, all right, and they would try not to be racist
Speaker:to his face. I think he'd be a fascinating guy from a really interesting era of country music
Speaker:when it was beginning to change into something, you know, more akin to where we are now, of
Speaker:the ones I've met, I was starstruck meeting Brad Paisley earlier in the year and to the
Speaker:point where you sometimes you do a quick interview and they are often very quick interviews with
Speaker:a star and it's just like boom key points and you hit the bullet points. Paisley stops, considers
Speaker:his answer and gives you an answer that's good and he rewards you for doing a bit of research.
Speaker:If you're prepared to demonstrate that you've done a bit of research you'll get a better
Speaker:answer and I thought you're blooming clever man and just you know to interact with it on
Speaker:that level because you didn't particularly see the wheels turning but you knew he was engaging
Speaker:himself and I really like that. I also like to meet Dolly, if ever I go disappearing for
Speaker:a couple of days it's because Dolly Parton's made herself available. I mean that's fair.
Speaker:I mean I think everyone would like to meet Dolly right? Yeah absolutely. But yeah on that note
Speaker:I think we should probably wrap up this episode because I do feel like I could talk to you
Speaker:about country music all day long, John. I could talk to anybody about it all day long. But
Speaker:yeah, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. And for anyone listening as well,
Speaker:we're going to put some useful links in the show notes of some of the stuff that we've
Speaker:been chatting about. And if you want to go listen to Country Line and make it as easy as possible
Speaker:for you, just follow the links. But John, if anyone wants to connect with you, where can
Speaker:they do that? Probably easiest either on X. I'm at John Cogeo, HNCO. or drop me an email,
Speaker:john at countryline.radio. Awesome. And you can find me if you want to on X as well via
Speaker:This Is The Hef and on LinkedIn, just search for my name. And if you enjoy listening to
Speaker:this podcast, do just take 10 seconds out your day to leave us a quick rating and review wherever
Speaker:you're listening to this and give us a follow because then all future episodes will drop
Speaker:straight into your feed. Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.
