I knew this was something special, and I confirmed it with friends who’d had a similar epiphany. I wanted to learn more about the force behind the best country album I’d heard in years - a low-budget CD released on an unknown label, homemade and visionary and raw with just enough varnish to brighten its inner darkness, like a modern-day William Blake singing bare-bones, hardcore country. But if that was even possible, Kitchens, as he was about to learn, would first have to save Campbell from himself.Ĭountry singer-songwriter Zane Campbell and his guitar at his home in Elkton, Md. To Kitchens, Campbell was the kind of artist who could save country music from what he felt it had become: heartland consumerism run amok. “I was thinking, ‘Here’s the best country singer in Maryland or anywhere else at a godd- nursing home in Cecil County.’ ” This wasn’t oldies nostalgia but a form of catharsis. But the music clearly meant just as much to Campbell himself. The familiar songs meant a lot to these folks. He included weepers like Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces,” a favorite with the audience that often spurred lonely hearts to do just that. He sounded like a mountain opera singer.”Ĭampbell played several sets that kept Kitchens and the residents - among them Campbell’s 90-year-old mother, Eva, and his Aunt Darthula - riveted. “I’d never heard anybody sing with that kind of command,” Kitchens says, “and with all the inflections and nuance in his voice tones and the crazy notes he was hitting, from a growl to a tremble. What he was hearing in Elkton weren’t just tasteful cover versions but masterful interpretations of the country-and-western canon that rivaled the originals. Kitchens had grown up with a Vietnam vet father playing classic country records around the house in Owensboro, Ky. Country music is still big business, selling millions of units per year.Beyond the sheer force of Campbell’s presence, there was also his remarkable vocal range. Contemporary country artists often use electric guitars, electric steel guitar, electric bass, keyboards (often synthesizers), and drum set. Mitch Ballard & The Western swing machine, “Ace in the hole”Ĭontemporary Country Music has become a mixture of rock rhythm sections and a singer singing with a country accent about many of the same topics that traditional country singers have used over the decades. One variation of this genre, Western swing, developed in Austin, Texas and other western cities and borrowed instruments from the dance band (saxophones, trombones, trumpets, piano, bass, and drums). Western Music refers to music composed about the Great American West, such as the cowboy songs heard in movies of the 1930s and 1940s by singers such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Duane Eddy’s combo ex- ample of the honky-tonk style shows a more modern variation of honky-tonk: Although the first use of the term “honky tonk” referred to a ragtime-like piano style, it later came to refer to a country combo style that became quite popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Honky-tonk music developed as Hillbilly music went west to entertain in saloons called “honky tonks.” Many of the songs dealt with subjects associated with honky tonks, such as infidelity and drinking. Country music became a source of big money for producers, song writers, and artists. Noticing an opportunity, record companies soon opened offices in Nashville. It was portrayed as wholesome and as the music of the “good old days.” Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry radio show became a very successful weekly network radio broad- cast heard nationwide. Hillbilly music was an alternative to the jazz and dance music of the 1920s. Listen to Ricky Skaggs and the Bluegrass Thunder perform via the link below. Some bluegrass songs are fast instrumental pieces featuring amazing technique by the performers. For example, bluegrass blends the Scottish/English ballad with blues inflections. Often associated with Appalachia, bluegrass combines many of the song forms that are common in the region’s Scottish/English musical heritage. Source: Wikimediaīluegrass music is a variation of country music that developed largely in the Appalachian region it features fiddle, guitar, mandolin, bass guitar, and the five-string banjo. \( \newcommand\): Hank Williams by WSM radio.
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