This post was originally published on coreyscottnaas.wordpress.com on 10 September 2020.
Whelp, I’ve done it. I’ve gone and made a “country music” playlist. The times surely are a changin’. What’s next, cowboy boots and belt buckles?? (well…)
I have a bad habit of becoming super interested in something and spending the next two weeks or so obsessively interested learning everything I can about said thing. Last week, it was flying, thanks to the release of Microsoft Flight Sim 2020. This week, it’s country music.
I decided that I finally needed to get a little bit closer in my quest of listening to all the music in the world and add some country music to my collection. I’ve added one or two Dolly Parton and George Strait song in my collection over the years, but have never taken a serious deep dive into country music as a whole.
Earlier this year, I listened to the podcast Dolly Parton’s America and added some of her stuff to my collection. For country music in general, a few weeks ago I found out that Ken Burns released a 16-hour documentary last year. How convenient! It took more than a few days to get through, because as much as I love music and documentaries, I can only take so much “narrated slideshow” before getting distracted by something else. The documentary covers the beginning of the genre all the way up to 1996 or so. For more contemporary country music, I found Grady Smith’s subgenre primer video to be a pretty helpful jumping-off point.
Some of my current favorite new discoveries are “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show, “Down in the Arkansas” by Jimmy Driftwood, “A Life Where We Work Out” by Flatland Cavalry, “Biscuits” by Kacey Musgraves, and “Coal Miner’s Daughter” by Loretta Lynn.
As always, recommendations and suggestions are much appreciated. Cover image is “The Music Man” by Norman Rockwell.