"...So, A Little Blacktop Every Now and Then Would Kill Ya?...."

Hey, baby, jump in the truck.

And let's take a ride down a familiar ol' dirt road.

With Collin Raye.



[Collin Raye, is an American country music singer. He made his solo debut in 1991 with the album All I Can Be, which was the first of four consecutive albums released by Raye to achieve platinum certification in the United States for sales of one million copies each.

Between 1991 and 2007, Raye charted 30 singles on the U.S. country charts;  Four of Raye's singles have reached Number One on the Billboard country music charts: 1992's "Love, Me" and "In This Life", 1994's "My Kind of Girl", and 1998's "I Can Still Feel You" ]



As a platinum-selling country music artist and, more importantly, a lifelong fan of the genre, I’d like to send out this heartfelt plea to the gatekeepers of the industry:

Enough already. 

 

I’d like to think that I am expressing what nearly every artist, musician and songwriter (with perhaps a few exceptions) is thinking when I contend that the Bro’ Country phenomenon must cease.

It has had its run for better or worse and it’s time for Nashville to get back to producing, and more importantly promoting, good singers singing real songs. It’s time for country music to find its identity again before it is lost forever.

I know, I run the risk of being labeled as a “has-been, carrying sour grapes” by speaking out.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I had my run from 1991 until 2002 and I’m quite thankful for that. 

I have more hits than I can possibly play in a single concert. I had my day and I do not begrudge anyone having theirs. 

But as someone who grew up loving and being forever affected by the true greats of country music, I simply have to offer up this plea to the Nashville country music industry to reclaim the identity and poetic greatness that once was our format. The well-written poetic word of the country song has disappeared. 

There appears to be not even the slightest attempt to “say” anything other than to repeat the tired, overused mantra of redneck party boy in his truck, partying in said truck, hoping to get lucky in the cab of said truck, and his greatest possible achievement in life is to continue to be physically and emotionally attached to the aforementioned truck as all things in life should and must take place in his, you guessed it...truck.

I didn’t mind the first two or three hundred versions of these gems but I think we can all agree by now that everything’s been said about a redneck and his truck, that can possibly be said. It is time to move on to the next subject. Any subject, anything at all. 

Willie Nelson once wrote in his early song, "Shotgun Willie," that “you can’t make a record if you ain’t got nothing to say.” Apparently, that’s not the case anymore. 

Disposable, forgettable music has been the order of the day for quite a while now and it’s time for that to stop. 

Our beautiful, time-honored genre, has devolved from lines like, “I’d trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday ... holding Bobby’s body next to mine,” and “a canvas covered cabin, in a crowded labor camp stand out in this memory I revive. Cause my Daddy raised a family there with two hard working hands….and tried to feed my Momma’s hungry eyes,” down to “Can I get a Yee Haw?”

And the aforementioned Truck! “Come on slide them jeans on up in my truck! Let’s get down and dirty in muh truck, doggone it I just get off riding in muh truck, I love ya honey, but not as much as muh truck!” Oh and we can’t leave out the beautiful prose about partying in a field or pasture. 

Now I’m not saying all songs should be somber ballads or about heavy, profound emotional subject matter. On the contrary, great fun, rockin’, party songs, describing the lifestyle of blue collar country folk have always been a staple of the genre. But compare for a minute the poetic, “middle American Shakespeare” infused lyrical prose of classics like Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” or Hank Jr’s “All My Rowdy friends are coming over tonight” or Garth Brooks’ “I’ve got friends in Low Places” or his “Ain’t going down till the sun comes up” to the likes of contemporary offerings like “That’s My Kinda Night,” or any of the other 300 plus songs from recent years that say the exact same thing in pretty much the exact same way. It’s like comparing a Rolls Royce to a ten speed. 

Finally, I’m not pointing a finger at the artists and especially not the songwriters. They’re simply doing what they have to do to make a living. 

It’s the major label execs, the movers and shakers, the folks who control what is shoved down radio’s throat, that I am calling out. They have the power and ability to make a commitment to make records that keep the legacy of country music alive, and reclaim a great genre’s identity. 

Who knows? Some of these Bro’ Country guys could actually be awesome singers with potential to be great artists! But we‘ll never know, as long as they’re encouraged by the industry to continue being redneck flavors of the day. 

It’s not fair to them or to anyone. 

Thankfully there are a handful of artists out there currently who are trying to keep integrity in the mainstream. Miranda Lambert is one of them. There are a few others but not nearly enough to rescue the terminally ill format. 

It must start with the gatekeepers. The true fans of country music deserve nothing less.

The artists of my era knew we weren’t as cool or great as the true greats of the past but we did try to hold to a standard that they had set, which built and sustained the Nashville industry and truly made country music an American art form. It needs to be that way once again. 

God Bless Hank Williams. God Bless George Jones.

We've been down this dirt road before.

 

And the debate between the "thens" and "nows" regarding the condition of contemporary country music flourishes like a well tended field blessed with an abundance of rain.....

 

...that makes corn that makes whiskey that makes......

 

Well, you know....

 

Couple of thoughts.

 

First, the debate is all very engaging, entertaining, even energizing if you like a spirited conversation with someone simply for the sake of a spirited conversation.

 

If, on the other hand, you're hoping, even looking, for a solution or resolution of some kind....

 

...well, you're crankin up the wrong truck, honey.

 

Ain't gonna happen.

 

Buying, for the moment, Collin Raye's gracious, albeit arguable, premise that it's the evil "suits" and not the "singers/songwriters" who are solely responsible for the decline and possible fall of the down home empire, let's not kid ourselves.

 

Country music is a business, baby.

 

And businesses are in business to make profits, baby.

 

And contemporary country music might be considered "disposable and forgettable", but disposable and forgettable are selling like hotcakes.

 

Actually, Pancake Pantry pancakes, but only real Nashvillians can crack that code.

 

And if, God forbid, somebody in Music City were to record, for laughs or by accident, a song about a family of beer drinkin', honky tonk hangin', truck drivin' pygmies, played and sung in Swahili, using accordions, zithers, aerosol air horns, screaming hyenas and sprinkled percussively with a smattering of armpit farts and such song were to be accidentally released to the public and downloaded a couple of million times, then, bet the farm at the end of the ol' dirt road, baby, the next day the writers rooms and studios of Music Row would be an anthill of activity as writers, producers, musicians and singers worked long, hard hours coming up with their own version of a song about a family of beer drinkin', honky tonk hangin', truck drivin' pygmies, played and sung in Swahili, using accordions, zithers, aerosol air horns, screaming hyenas and sprinkled percussively with a smattering of armpit farts.

 

Again, none of this is breaking news.

 

And the debate, just like the miles and miles and miles of dirt road, will go on and on and on and on....

 

...forever.....or.....

 

...right up to the nano second that  a song about a family of beer drinkin', honky tonk hangin', truck drivin' pygmies, played and sung in Swahili, using accordions, zithers, aerosol air horns, screaming hyenas and sprinkled percussively with a smattering of armpit farts is accidentally released to the public and downloaded a couple of million times, then, bet the farm at the end of the ol' dirt road, baby, the next day the writers rooms and studios of Music Row would be an anthill of activity as writers, producers, musicians and singers worked long, hard hours coming up with their own version of a song about a family of beer drinkin', honky tonk hangin', truck drivin' pygmies, played and sung in Swahili, using accordions, zithers, aerosol air horns, screaming hyenas and sprinkled percussively with a smattering of armpit farts.

 

So, the debate is a waste of time.

 

Cause what sells is what will continue to be produced.

 

And if an occasional classy, timeless work of artistic integrity happen to inadvertently come off the assembly line, then they'll be gravy.

 

The kind of gravy you can only find on Mama's table Sunday after church in the house at the end of the ol' dirt road.

 

Don't count on it, though.

 

Because integrity, at least in the artistic sense, is like filet mignon.

 

Everybody agrees on its status as an exquisite meal offering.

 

But the line at the finer steak houses of the world ain't got nothin on the drive thru at Mickey D's.

 

Again, nothing new here.

 

Here's a thing, though.

 

The, for the most part, unspoken, even unrealized, result of the continued, even enthusiastically engaged in, dumbing down of country music.

 

Perpetuation.

 

Perpetuation that comes in the form of keeping alive and well, through their words and music, the stereotype that people who live, laugh, love and die in the southern states of the United States are , to a man, woman and child,uneducated, unsophisticated, beer swillin', truck drivin', ass slappin', tractor lovin', bumpkins who wouldn't know a Hemingway from a Hemi, a Picasso from a velvet Elvis, a John Steinbeck from a John Deere, an F-16 from an F-150, the Bard of Avon from a badonkadonk in Amarillo or knight to king three from a queen of the silver dollar.

 

Country folk, by their nature, tend to keep things simple.

 

Simple, basic values.

 

Simple basic beliefs.

 

So, here are two simple things.

 

Stupid is as stupid does.

 

And stupid is as stupid sings.

 

People who live, laugh, love and die in the Southern states of the United States are, as a whole, not automatically or necessarily uneducated and/or unsophisticated.

 

Just as black people are, as a whole, not automatically or necessarily, living a life primarily focused on bling, bitches and cheerfully addressing each other as "niggah".

 

Despite what conclusions can be drawn given the tone and texture of current hip hop music.

 

But just as that hip hop perpetuates that cultural conclusion, so, too, does the continued proliferation of beer drinkin', truck drivin' party animals in country music perpetuate the conclusion that all Southerners are beer drinkin, truck drivin' party animals.

 

Look, nobody begrudges anybody a little down home fun.

 

Yee haw is a perfectly acceptable, even ingratiating, form of greeting.

 

But, seriously, greedy, tunnel visioned label execs (and the singers/songwriters who allow themselves to be pimped), do you really think that an occasional lyrical ride in the Camry down a nice paved street to an intimate bistro for a glass of Chablis set to a memorable melody would cause the wheels to come off the profit wagon?

 

Or F-150, as the case may be?

 

Fifty years ago, they took Amos and Andy off television because of accusations of racial stereotyping, ridiculing caricaturing and perpetuation of the perception that blacks were shiftless, aimless, uneducated and unsophisticated.

 

Meanwhile, on any country music station across the country, feel free to tune in at any time, day or night to hear perpetuation of the stereotype that people who live, laugh, love and die in the southern states of the United States are , to a man, woman and child,uneducated, unsophisticated, beer swillin', truck drivin', ass slappin', tractor lovin', bumpkins who wouldn't know a Hemingway from a Hemi, a Picasso from a velvet Elvis, a John Steinbeck from a John Deere, an F-16 from an F-150, the Bard of Avon from a badonkadonk in Amarillo or knight to king three from a queen of the silver dollar.

 

You'd think somebody in Nashville would have made the connection by now.

 

Must be hard to see things clearly.

 

What with all them trucks kickin' up all that dirt.