Country Music Saved My Life

 by Country Music Saved My Life I will admit that I'm a sucker for parent-to-child-themed songs.   Many country artists have recorded songs about children, some autobiographical, others not. George Strait ( Love Without End, Amen ), Tracy Adkins ( Then They Do ), Reba McEntire ( You're Gonna Be ), Brad Paisley ( Anything Like Me ), Conway Twitt ( That's My Job ), and, more recently, Alan Jackson's  You'll Always Be My Baby  are some of the immediate examples that come to mind. Outside the country universe, some good songs also deal with the parenthood theme: Neil Young's  Here For You  (for his daughter Amber Jean), John Lennon's  Beautiful Boy  (for his son Sean Lennon), Kurt Vile's  Too Hard  (for his daughter Awilda Vile), Bob Dylan's  Forever Young  (for his son Jakob Dylan), Thom Yorke's  Sail To The Moon  (for his son Noah Yorke), Keith Richards'  Wild Horses  (for his son Marlon Richards), and Lo...

by Country Music Saved My Life When it comes to country music, Nashville stands out as its most important nerve center and has long been a hub of the genre for decades. It's there that the offices of country music's most influential (in a commercial sense) labels and publishers, modern studios, and extremely talented and skillful sessions musicians are concentrated. Nashville also has a bunch of clubs, venues, and all kinds of places for showcasing talents, and hosts a series of songwriring and on-stage performance contests and original music festivals. This city's ability to discover new talent is trully impressive and one of its charms. So it is no accident that Nashville is called the Music City. Although East Tennessee is considered the birthplace of country music, from the '50s Nashville began to prevail in the genre, when some visionary producers aiming to compete with traditional pop music and rock (that had then gained national traction and become predominant) i...

             by Country Music Saved My Life   In The Night  made a huge impact on me at the first listen, and my first impression was confirmed all the times I've come back to it since then. Charley Crockett engages audiences with his one-of-a-kind raspy but still very sweet voice and a sound that blends old-fashioned country music, Electric Texas blues, Cajun accordion, vintage country blues, ragtime and funky Southern soul music all in one package. But he doesn't seem academic. With such a personal fusion, he creates Americana musical art that looks to the past while staunchly remaining in the twentieth century. His authenticity is so powerful to the point of reminds you why you became a fan of Americana music in the first place. Released on June 6, 2016, before the artist landed on the public's radar,  In The Night  is a stellar collection from the San Benito, Texas native artist, filled with so many good old-school sounds that ...

 by Country Music Saved My Life A  famous son of Maynardville, Tennessee - as well as Roy Acuff - Carl Smith was one of the most popular and consistent hitmakers in the '50s and '60s, landing 93 songs on the country singles chart. Five were No. 1 hit, including  Hey Joe . By blending soft and warm vocals with upbeat arrangements, Carl Smith updated the old-timey gutbucket honky-tonk of his predecessors, taking inspiration from high-energy rock 'n' roll riffs. His electric guitar-driven "revival" (update) of honky-tonk somehow would create sort of a blend style that helped keep country audiences close, at a time when the genre was being challenged by the amplified electric guitars and the backbeat of rock 'n' roll, originated during the late 1940s and early 1950s. As the popularity of rock 'n' roll grew in the fifties, the process of hybridization of country music took place, given that some artists started to incorporate its stylistic elements....

 by Country Music Saved My Life   Influential '50s master of sturdy honky-tonk, Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Carl Smith was born March 15, 1927, in Maynardville, Tennessee (also the hometown of another country titan and one of Smith's inspirations, Roy Acuff). Known either as "Mr. Country" or "Mr. Country Gentleman", Carl Smith was a huge star throughout the '50s, a consistent presence in the country charts, and one of the most popular and best-known country singers of his era, notching up country hits for almost twenty-five years. He recorded several classics, appeared regularly on variety hours and live television programs (ABC's  Jubilee USA  and NBC's  Five Star Jubilee ), played in a handful of B-movies (including  Buffalo Guns  and  The Badge of Marshal Brennan),  and hosted a weekly show over Grand Ole Opry's WSM and a television show of his own for about five years (Canadian  Carl Smith's Country Music Hall ...