True Country

What is country music? Dictionary.com defines it as:

Country Music:
~noun
a style and genre of largely string-accompanied American popular music having roots in the folk music of the Southeast and cowboy music of the West, usually vocalized, generally simple in form and harmony, and typified by romantic or melancholy ballads accompanied by acoustic or electric guitar, banjo, violin, and harmonica.

It has already been established that music is an integral part of my life and has been from the very beginning. I remember, as a child, hearing songs played on my daddy’s guitar. I never really thought of them as “Country” or “Rock-N-Roll”, I never considered if they were “Hardcore” or “Easy-listening.” To me it was all just wonderful. I recall the first time I heard Mommas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys on the radio. I was crushed. Honestly, until then, I truly believed my father had written that song (and many others that I eventually found out weren’t really his songs). I laugh now when I think of it. I bet he had a good laugh then.

Much like Eck’s father, my father too, towards the end of his years also became a bit of a country music purist. The first time I was in the car with him after having lived away for many years, I went to change the dial and immediately felt a feverous stinging on my hand. Shocked I turned to defend myself and stopped short when I noticed the determined annoyed look on his face. When questioned about the assault my father simply said, “Country is the only damn music on the radio worth listening to anymore!” I thought I would die! At the time I was busy absorbing things like Sublime, Ben Harper, and Bob Marley. Country! Could he possibly be serious? Oh and he was!

It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I realized just exactly how much of the music I spent my entire life enjoying had been rooted in country in some form or another. I started to notice how blurry the lines had actually become between many genres. Maybe there was an absence of the twangy twang that some of the true “Nashville sound” possesses still, the roots are not only apparent they are strong.

Personally I don’t believe music can be put in a box and constrained. I see music as an ever evolving platform of expression. I think to say that country music itself is “Anglo Celtic” and that it can only be defined as country if one looks and acts the part is distressingly short sighted. Ecks went on and on about the various styles of music belonging each to its own distinct ethnicity or race. While some sounds certainly may originate with each assorted culture the thread that weaves its way through the masses scream diversity.

Eck’s argument begins to fray when he mistakenly omits that ethnicity and race do not decide how a culture develops, the physical and social environment that a group of people are surrounded by and immersed in do. This acculturation is the breeding ground for new styles and formats of music throughout history. That having been said, it is my contention that he almost comes across as a bit prejudice. Now I don’t mean that he comes across as having a loathing for any one ethnicity, race, or sound in particular. More over that he separated everything so much that every nuance became something to find fault in.

I don’t agree with a vast majority of his opinion. It would have been more helpful wrap my brain around what he was saying if perhaps he had some sort of hard evidentiary information to back his claims. For instance some sort of music theory that has been established or a study that has been published in a peer reviewed journal. Any other sources would better establish his accreditation on the subject. Maybe if he himself was a country musician who has repeatedly sold hit “Country” albums. So far as I can see his article was no more than the mad ravings of one man’s opinion, and you know what they say about opinions! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

It appears as though the author’s rhetoric is illustrating how any deviation from the widely acclaimed Nashville sound is an abomination to country. He tries to persuade you to believe that country music is not only a white bread music but that it is a particular form of Americanized Celtic, I don’t know what. His purpose is somewhat obscure by his opinion and I am not sure that it got through for me. Meaning, I am not sure what he intended his audience to get out of it. It seems as though he was writing this for his father and others like him rather that for a broader more diversified audience.