Country Music

Country music developed mostly in the Southern states of the USA… born out of a mixture of Irish and Scottish and English folk music. The southern lands were settled by English, Scottish and Irish settlers, who brought their music with them.

They played fiddles, banjos, piano, tin whistles, mouth organs, even jugs and washboards.  The music was simple, with easy to learn lyrics and the melodies were also simple.  During the 1920s, the Carter family of Virginia, began to collect and record folk and country songs, and began to sing and perform publicly.   They broadcast from radio stations down near the Mexican border, and the music became better known and listened to all over the South and West.  Nashville became “Music City” where country singers and musicians moved to, in order to try their luck in the business.  In the 1950s a number of song writers came along, mostly young men who were particularly talented... and had striking voices, or who were very skilled at playing guitars, banjos etc.  Johnny Cash (1932-2003) was probably the best known, with numerous brilliant songs to his credit and a distinctive and wonderfully strong deep voice.  Other singers-song writers of the time were Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Junior and Merle Haggard... to name a very few.

During the 1960s, country singers, usually from conservative backgrounds, whose music spoke to the rural community, became more open to new ideas and their songs became more varied and raunchier…the demands of touring and the stress of performing often led to broken marriages, affairs and drinking and drug use.  Country singers were leading Rock and Roll lifestyles.  They began to have crossover hits which did well on the pop or rock charts…Most of the singers of the 1960s came from poor backgrounds and found that the sudden arrival of wealth in their lives and the particular strains of traveling and touring, led them to use drugs, or have affairs to cope with the loneliness and the stress.

I’ve always been a big country fan, and have visited Nashville. From childhood, I have listened to all the great singers, Johnny Cash in particular.  I read up about the history of country music and tried to go to concerts as much as I can. It is a lovely city and for someone who loves the music, a great place to be.  
So I wanted to write a story or 2 about people who work in the small bands, who are often trying to do the job they love and play the music that feels right for them, while trying to make a living. Its a hard life, living on tips and selling CDs and hoping that one of the established singers will like one of their songs and record it.  
There are the conflicts between keeping one’s musical integrity and trying to get taken on by a record label, or “make it big”. And the conflicts involved in marriages when the musicians are often away from home.  And that’s why I have taken to writing in the band “genre”..