Musical influences

["L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>]

> > There's still a folk tradition in the US, and it's not related to 
>country
>
>True. But that doesn't mean Country didn't come from Folk. Listen to some 
>Roy Acuff sometime. Johnny Cash's earliest music can easily be called Folk 
>(although I usually call it Punk Country), and he certainly did some 
>traditional Folk songs (like Long Black Veil).

I spent some time last week checking out roots-type country music and I have 
some ideas now about origins.  I'd like to pronounce it Irish music with a 
touch of gospel.

I picked up some NPR shows where Irish and Bluegrass played back to back, 
and the similarities of technique and chord structure are obvious.  Check 
out Bill Monroe for some old-time Irish/Bluegrass sound.  White gospel has 
similar chord progressions, but not the same musical technique, as it's 
hymns.  It's slower with no banjo, and it introduced harmony and the sort of 
whiny interpretation that "singing cowboy" and crying-in-your-beer country 
has.  After that, country music picked up elements of sound from other 
popular music of the various time periods.  Some of it has a ragtime or 
bluesy sound, and now, of course, it has picked up elements of rock.

Interestingly, Willie Nelson seems to be placed in a "country blues" 
category, which explains what he was doing on B.B. King's DEUCES WILD album. 
  I would never have thought he was playing blues.  Maybe it's the Irish 
tenor that threw me off.

;)
keets

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