Old Country Etc Thread Genre

Been listening to a lot of stuff like Guy Clark and Doug Sahm recently and thought I'd make a thread devoted to discussing country and country-adjacent music that isn't so recent. As it has evolved with the site, the Official Country thread has understandably focused on new releases and newer artists, so I thought it might be cool to have a separate place to discuss the rich history of the genre, if there's any interest in that (we'll see).

Post about records/songs you enjoy, ask for recommendations if you're interested in getting into this kind of stuff, share old live videos, do whatever. I'm hoping other posters will be more help, but I'm at least a dedicated dabbler in every era and niche of the genre from Hank Williams up to records that have come out in 2020. While my knowledge is far from encyclopedic I hope I can at least point folks who ask for recs in the right direction.

At the outset I'd say I'm not interested in this being a thread with a strict definition of "country music," as I put the etc in the title for a reason. Adjacent genres like roots rock, americana, folk, bluegrass and the like are welcome and expected. Of the songs I'm gonna post below to get us started only one or two is probably universally defined as "country," although the others are usually included in the "outlaw" canon whatever that means. And "old" really just means not from the last decade or so, feel free to post whatever basically.

edit: cc @cshadows2887 @jdr2187 @Craig Manning @phaynes12, idk if yall or anyone else is interested, feel free to ignore if not

 

Okay here's five songs that I've enjoyed or rediscovered recently, if you clicked on this thread you almost certainly already know the first three:

 

Nice thread. My knowledge of older country artists is all over the place. Some guys I’ve really dug into and then there are others I’ve completely ignored even though they are some of the biggest names out there.

Guy Clark is an all time favorite for me and I consider Old No. 1, The Dark, and Cold Dog Soup to be pretty much classics.

As for Joe Ely, Honky Tonk Masquerade is incredible but I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever listened to another one of his albums all the way through. What other albums would you recommend?

 

Townes and Gene Clark are the GOATs imo. all respect to willie who also rules.

but, like, WOWEE

 

Yeah Townes is up there for me as well. Live At The Old Quarter is one of the best live albums of all time.

 

gram is the biggest of all the homies

 

Love this thread already. Here are some of my favs. "I've Found Someone Of My Own" is one of my favorite songs ever.

YouTube

 

Srsly listen to "The Bridge" by Dolly Parton. So surprisingly dark.

Obviously you're all familiar with Dolly but I feel like it's pretty unknown? Could be completely wrong though.

 

Hell yeah, meant to @ you too truth be told don't take offense haha

I don't think I've heard that Dolly song before actually wow you ain't kidding

 

Old No. 1 is one of the greatest albums ever made and certainly one of the greatest debuts

I'm the exact same way with older country artists so I'm hoping this thread will help me fill in the gaps.

So yeah Honky Tonk Masquerade and then his self-titled debut are the two older albums that get held up for Ely but I really think his later work is some of his best stuff. I heard Letter to Laredo (from 1995) before hearing his older stuff and that's what got me into him so I'd recommend that

 

Love it. Wanted to throw a Townes track in the OP too but didn't wanna have more than five

If yall have never heard Steve Earle's double album tribute to Townes it's also an all-time fav

 

yeah that's actually how I got into townes in the first place haha

 

Love it. He also put out an album of Guy Clark covers last year I think which I haven't checked out and absolutely should

 

Going to use this thread to again talk about probably my all time favorite artist, John Prine. I know he may be considered more folk, but he wrote some of the best country songs of all time and his debut album is one of the only albums I consider an absolutely perfect album front to back. I recently tried to rank my favorite Prine songs and found it was a near impossible task. I’ll post the playlist below if anybody is interested or id nothing else than to provide a starting point for anybody who is unfamiliar with his work.

JP’s Best, a playlist by jdr2187 on Spotify

I also recently began digging into Steve Goodman more as a result of his connection to Prine and became particularly fond of this tune. Going to try to spend some time with some of his albums when I get a chance.

 

Thanks for sharing that; I'll check out the playlist later and am excited to see how much of it I agree with. Prine is 100% the kind of thing I had in mind when I made this thread, also

Never heard of Steve Goodman, cool!

 

Actually if other folks are down we could put together some kind of spotify playlist to accompany this thread, or even multiple by decades or subgenres/"scenes" if people are so inclined and have the time. Could be cool

 

Goodman came up in the Chicago folk scene around the same time as Prine and they were close friends and writing buddies. The most well known tunes they wrote together were probably Souvenirs and She Never Even Called Me By My Name, the latter of which Prine refused credit for bc he was embarrassed by it. It was later made famous by David Allen Coe.

Unfortunately Goodman passed at the age of 36 from Leukemia.

 

great idea

 

two more faves:

 

Wow I've already been exposed to several artists I'd never listened to before this rules

 

Have to toss Lee Hazelwood’s name out there. So under appreciated.

 

the crazy thing about blaze foley is that townes van zandt was his super famous friend in the industry lol

 

Two of the best songs ever written honestly.

Interestingly enough, Michael Cera has an awesome bon iver-ish cover of Clay Pigeons.

 

yeah i saw that one a few years ago and was pleasantly surprised