I’m trying to cut back on my hyperbole, so I’ll understate matters and call this only one of the most awesomely coolest things ever:
Which Country Song Best Describes Your Life?
Creator Madlynn Priester e-mailed me and requested I shared the link, which I have done, but only after starting at the thing in wonder and awe for a good ten minutes.
In the modern era of country music, you have to move a lot of units to be considered a legitimate superstar. The first act to do so on a regular basis was Alabama, who had eight consecutive multi-platinum albums in a row in the first half of the eighties.
Since then, there have been a multitude of country artists who’ve accomplished the same feat, but despite the fact that it was a band that broke down the barrier, only one male band since Alabama has achieved similar success: Rascal Flatts.
Family connections helped this power trio get their start. Lead singer Gary LeVox and his cousin, Jay DeMarcus, each had a desire to be country musicians, but it was DeMarcus who went to Nashville first. After a stint in Christian band East Meets West, DeMarcus convinced LeVox to join him in Nashville.
The entire story of recorded country music can be traced back to a fiddle player named Eck Robertson, “World’s Champion Fiddler.”
Robertson was the son of a Confederate soldier, born in Arkansas in 1887 and raised in Texas. His father made a living as a farmer and a preacher, but also taught his son how to play the fiddle. Robertson carried on the family tradition of playing fiddle, learning the instrument at the age of five years old. Once grown, he joined the traveling band of a medicine show.
Robertson married his wife Nettie, also a musician, in 1906. He became a piano tuner by trade, but Eck and Nettie would still perform in the Texas area, competing in fiddling contests and providing the musical accompaniment in silent movie theaters. It was in 1916, while playing at an Old Confederate Soldiers reunion, that he met Henry C. Gilliland, a veteran fiddler in his mid-seventies. The two became a powerful team, touring similar reunions across the south, with Robertson serving as lead fiddler and Gilliland playing second fiddle.
Three years ago, Country Universe counted down the 100 Greatest Women. Ever since that list, we’ve been asked the question, “What about the men?”
Finally, we have an answer. Over the next few weeks, we’ll count down the 100 Greatest Men of country music. The story of country music has been one primarily realized by its male artists. Since the first hillbilly tracks were put down on 78 records nearly ninety years ago, it has been the men who have dominated the genre, and have been most closely identified with it.
Four generous hits collections were released in 2010, each one chronicling the entire career of a contemporary country music star. Individually, each double-disc set serve as the most expansive and thorough compilation for each artist. Taken together, they tell the story of country music over the last twenty years.
Alan Jackson
34 Number Ones
In the late eighties, Randy Travis did something that no other country star had done before. He became the top-selling country artist by a wide margin without making any musical concessions to pop or rock. In doing so, he tore up the old playbook. Suddenly, you could be a multi-platinum country artists without the added benefit of top 40 radio or accolades from the rock and roll press.
2010 brought two big steps for Country Universe writers Dan Milliken and Tara Seetharam!
Dan’s musings on country music are now being published at CMT.com. Check out his awesome rundown of this year’s reissues: The Greatest Greatest Hits of 2010. He also contributed to features on Toby Keith and Tim McGraw, selecting “Who’s That Man” as a prime Keith cut, and “Just to See You Smile” as prime McGraw.
Meanwhile, Tara has launched her own blog – TaraSeetharam.com – which features her musings on pop culture and has me secretly wishing to do guest posts on the non-country artists who populate my iPod.
Both writers are so amazing that expanded horizons are inevitable. We’re proud to have recognized their talent early on!
Earlier this year, a discussion with a colleague of mine revealed a mutual affinity for country music. It was a typical conversation that I have with fans that are around my age. We fell in love with the music about twenty years ago, don’t think it’s quite as good as it once was, but can find a lot of things to like from just about any era, including the current one.
So in the 2010 version of making a mix tape, I offered to load up her iPod with a whole bunch of country music. A week later, she took me to dinner as a thank you. We started talking about the music that I’d passed on to her, and she told me that she was listening to the iPod while mowing the lawn. Suddenly, a song came on that made her cry. Full-out cry, mind you, not just a tear or two.
So I ask if it was “Love, Me”, or maybe “Where’ve You Been”, or something similarly tragic. She was almost embarrassed as she told me that it was the old Anne Murray hit, “You Needed Me.”
End-of-year lists abound, and we still have another on the way. But what about the best albums of 2011?
We’re in that super cool period of anticipation, where we wonder what the albums we know about will sound like, and hope that the albums that we don’t know about will be from artists who we can’t get enough of.
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