Tomorrow night is country music’s time to shine. It’s the 39th annual Country Music Awards Show live from New York City, even though much of country music is produced in Nashville, TN.
I haven’t kept track of how many annual shows I’ve seen, but I’d bet it’s at least half of them. I was into country music when, as Barbara Mandrell sang, “Country wasn’t cool.” I was into country music before acoustic gave way to electric. Before Garth Brooks brought theatrics to performances. Before crossover artists made it difficult to know if something was or was not country.
My son, Keith, and his partner recently gave me a five-CD set of twentieth-century country music from the fifties through the eighties. As I listen to it, it brings back memories of other parts of my life. But it also reminds me how far country music has come. And how mainstream it is today. My son said he and his partner also bought the same CDs for themselves, and whenever Keith listens to one he has the same feelings I do. He remembers my listening to this kind of music as he was growing up. It’s probably not his first choice today, but for sentimental reasons he pops a country CD into his life once in a while.
What kind of songs were these? They were story songs, unrequited love songs, prison songs; anything at all songs. What attracted me to country music in the first place was that the artists sang about anything. Your washing machine broke down? There’s a song there. You love two men at the same time? Another song. You just got out of prison and you don’t know if your girl if waiting? Sing about it. Who can forget about the yellow ribbons on the old oak tree?
So tomorrow night I’ll be glued to the tube, even though today’s artists don’t appeal to me like Loretta and Conway and Tammy and Dolly did. At the same time, maybe someone will sing about a refrigerator on the loose and I’ll be hooked.
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