losthighway wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:11 pm I love some of Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell's records, in terms of pretty big name contemporary people who don't play stupid Nu country.

I don't know who Jason Isbell is, but I listened to 10 seconds of a Sturgill Simpson song, and it sounded like fucking MUSE to me. Like some of the other old people on this thread, I'm struggling to hear anything remotely related to actual Country Music here. I think Gram Parsons is about as long-hair as I'm willing to take this genre. Otherwise sticking with established material like Tompall Glaser, Townes van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tom T Hall, Johnny Cash, Bobby Bare, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, Marty Robbins, George Jones...and about a billion others who all made at least some gut-wrenchingly beautiful stuff.

https://www.bear-family.com/bear-family/country-series/
https://www.bear-family.com/bear-family ... t/country/

These should keep you busy for the rest of your life. [/old_coot]

Interesting. He definitely has branched out with some psychedelic stuff, and some bluegrass more recently, but I'd say a song like this can only be written and sung by someone who has very carefully studied the work of Waylon Jennings.

He's not pure country, more a country inflected rocker/folkie, but I love me some James McMurtry. He's been making records for 30 years now and his new stuff is just as good as the oldies, maybe better.

I wouldn’t recommend their older music, some of which sounded to my ears like goop for montage sequences in TV dramas, but Lord Huron’s Long Lost is an excellent, ethereal take on Western music.

Okay okay ya purists, here's something that might make you happy

One of the campiest things I love. It's some old Hollywood shit, but aren't many cowboys?

Couple few faves this week

akosinski wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 2:30 pm Kacy and Clayton are pretty much the only band making music right now that i care about

Oh cool, big fan here, too!

That Marlon WIlliams collab album from 2020 (Plastic Bouqet) is an absolute classic. WIlliams traveled from Australia to Saskatchewan to record it with them after running into them on tour in Europe. Kacy and Clayon are second cousins from Nowhere, Saskatchewan (actually a town of 60 people called Glentworth close to the US border, not far from where Wallace Stegner grew up).

This is one of the prettiest tracks in the world:



An old friend from Edmonton, Shuyler Jansen, has been playing bass with them in recent years (also has produced their albums). Shuyler stoked my appreciation for bands like Giant Sand and Uncle Tupelo in the 90s. He was later in a band called Old Reliable that struck up a fast friendship with Howe Gelb and the Giant Sand boys. Gelb seemed to be trying to court my roommate (who was also my best friend's girlfriend) whenever he was in town. If I remember he made her recordings and stuff but she kept him at bay. Around this time Richard Buckner moved to Edmonton. Was a very alt-country time to be alive.

Shuyler on vox w Old Reliable:

Accounting for that country music is "If you went forward past DAC and Bocephus, you already screwed up..." to me?

The band Blanche. It's obviously "Bit...", but they were always completely game face when it came to the bit.

They were also one of the all-time great bands when it came to covers.