"Allways speak the truth and you will never have to remember what you said before..." Sam Houston Texans, "We say Grace, We Say Mam, If You Don't Like it, We Don't Give a Damn!"
I'm not much on yodeling, but when it comes to singing pure country, Slim was pretty good. Hank Thompson was one of my favorite artists. Leroy ain't bad either. Any of them are better than today's singers.
I'm not much on yodeling, but when it comes to singing pure country, Slim was pretty good. Hank Thompson was one of my favorite artists. Leroy ain't bad either. Any of them are better than today's singers.
I actually only became aware of 'ol Slim when I was working in the U.K. Some of the folks I worked with just luv'd 'ol Slim's music. Very popular there.
It's you and the bullet, and all the rest is secondary.
Lots of ways to cut the cake. To me when music production became digitized and ability to re-record, compress, auto tune vocals, inability to actually play and sing in one take w very basic edits. To me, those cats changed Appalachian music to “country music” for the masses. Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Lefty, Ernest Tubbs.
And the great names just keep coming. Today's country isn't country at all. It's mostly hip hop, cowboy rap, soft rock bullshit. No steel, no fiddle, no honky tonk piano, not country. Jackson Handy, Jamey Johnson has a great voice and dose'nt mumble talk through songs, i think your thinking of Sturgil Simpson.
Eddy Arnold gets defaulted because he was a New Yorker that found a way to make money without the ability to be Frank Sinatra or a pop flavor of the time.
To his credit, some of the softer voices that followed (like Ray Price) were just doing what Eddy already had done.
The one country artist in my list that I omitted shamefully (and everyone else as well) is Elvis.
Conway followed what Elvis laid down, though his country appeal turned into something else, Elvis has been copied in country music as much as Jimmie, Hank, Lefty and Ernest.
I look at Top Ten strictly by who's copying who.
Some copied early, like George Jones (Hank Williams), but created their own unique style. Merle, as much as I like many of his songs, was basically Lefty Frizzell.
I'm a Johnny Cash fan, probably because you can go back to Jimmie and the Carter Family in Bristol, all the way up to the present and no one ever created a musical sound or sounded like Johnny Cash before or since. Willie is the same way. His voice is like a Telecaster, like it or not, and cuts through everything else. Vern sounded like Jones, Haggard sounded like Lefty, Coe sounded like Haggard.
Loretta was basically Kitty Wells. There wasn't any voice like hers before Patsy.
Everyone has their favorites, but to me there's really only about 12 acts that make up what everyone else in country music have either refined with imitation or just plain copied.
Country music is simplistic, like heavy metal roots. Its either the Led Zepplin lane or the Black Sabbath lane....
Eddy Arnold gets defaulted because he was a New Yorker that found a way to make money without the ability to be Frank Sinatra or a pop flavor of the time.
To his credit, some of the softer voices that followed (like Ray Price) were just doing what Eddy already had done.
You’re wrong about Eddie Arnold. Arnold was born on May 15, 1918, on a farm near Henderson, Tennessee. His father, a sharecropper, played the fiddle, while his mother played guitar. Arnold's father died when he was just 11, forcing him to leave school and begin helping on the family farm. This led to him later gaining his nickname, the Tennessee Plowboy
And Ray Price was also a farm boy. Born on a farm in E TX. Most folks don’t know that Ray Price was Hank Williams roommate when he died. He and Hank Sr roomed together in Nashville when Hank & Audrie divorced. He also managed and sang with Hank’s Drifting Cowboys Band for a few years after Hank died
Both were two of the smoothest voices ever in Country Music. I got to meet Ray Price when I was a small child of 6 or 7. He even let me hold his guitar. And showed me a chord on it. Heck of a nice guy, too.
"Allways speak the truth and you will never have to remember what you said before..." Sam Houston Texans, "We say Grace, We Say Mam, If You Don't Like it, We Don't Give a Damn!"
It’s amazing how little people know about country music. Only one musician, a Hall of Famer, stayed on the charts for 21 weeks at number 1. No one in any form of music, including The Beatles, accomplished that.
Undoubtedly deserving a top ten spot over many so far named, Hank Snow…
Charley Daniels Hank Williams Jr. Conway Twitty Ricky Skaggs Alan Jackson Travis Tritt Dolly Parton Loretta Lynn Alabama John Anderson
Charlie Daniels is another good one that nobody mentioned. He started out playing Rock & Roll. He played fiddle on most of The Marshall Tucker Band’s Albums. Also recorded on 3 Bob Dylan Albums. He even wrote a song that Elvis Recorded. He was a long time Nashville sessions musician before he hit it big on the Country Charts.
Last edited by chlinstructor; 06/23/22.
"Allways speak the truth and you will never have to remember what you said before..." Sam Houston Texans, "We say Grace, We Say Mam, If You Don't Like it, We Don't Give a Damn!"
It’s amazing how little people know about country music. Only one musician, a Hall of Famer, stayed on the charts for 21 weeks at number 1. No one in any form of music, including The Beatles, accomplished that.
Undoubtedly deserving a top ten spot over many so far named, Hank Snow…
Yep. Good one Shrap!
"Allways speak the truth and you will never have to remember what you said before..." Sam Houston Texans, "We say Grace, We Say Mam, If You Don't Like it, We Don't Give a Damn!"