Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 13, 2012 - 09:06am PT
Driving down alt 93 in the silver state hiking my kings rope hat to scratch my bald spot, and the topic came up again. Now given that their pantheon includes country honk, dead flowers, the girl withe far away eyes et al. The argument can be made (I suppose ) that those are legitimately country songs and them Britts could be said to be able to 'do' country.
The counter argument is, that bands like the Dead, Dylan, the flying burrito brothers etc actually 'do' country as part of their oveuere, ( a word not often used in country, even if i cant spell) where as the closest the stones do is be the stones performing a song with the elements of country.
By all accounts those fellows put in a lot of time on the road listening to gospel music on the coloured radio station, never mind outfits with two kinds of music, country and western. So yes, they "did" country imo
Read 'LIFE', Keith Richard's autobiography. It gives a fascinating look into all aspects of the Stones' existence. He refers to his musical influences from the very start to the present, throughout the book.
Mick's voice just isn't country, and can't do country. No matter what the boys were playing behind him.
EDIT: I read Keif's autobio "Life" a year or so ago. It was ok, but didn't deserve all the hype and accolades it got IMO. I read Bill Wyman's a couple years before that and thought it was better.
Well, the way I heard it was that those songs were country enough that Buck Owens sued them (not sure if anything came of it) after they had stopped and visited him in Bakersfield and he thought that they had stolen the essentials of some of the songs he was working on. Anybody else hear this story, is it just an urban legend?
I did two tours with the stones in the 90s, rigging and lighting. On a few occasions I walked past the dressing rooms and heard them playing around with Woody Guthery and Hank sr stuff but never on stage. But when it comes down to it there are only two kinds of music: the good kind and all the rest.
It was actually Keith Richards who became fast friends of Graham Parsons, who is credited by some for inventing more or less "country rock". He was a huge influence on Richards and taught him the open string banjo tuning for guitar that Richards continued to use.
Parsons went on to discover for himself Joshua Tree and a little unknown gal named Emmy Lou Harris and influenced her music even to this day.
Somewhat... sweet Virginia comes to mind. Dead flowers played by townes van zant is another. As for them ' stealing' music I find that somewhat bogus. Of course they didn't create that style of music but they were moved by it enough to emulate it which to their credit turned on a whole generation of white bred kids in America to the African American blues coming from the porch es of country stores any one ever heard of John Jackson or John Cephas? Those guys were noticed by record scouts looking for the original sounds the Brits were playing. They found John Jackson( an incredible piedmont blues finger picker) on the porch of a country store in my Virginia home town. Look those guys up they're both dead but I was fortunate enough to see Cephas play and talk about all this. Once of the best shows I've ever seen
Dead Flowers is a pretty good song. A honky tonk weeper a la one of the Hanks, but about heroin. I used to play it a lot.
But El Cap is right, Keith couldn't do the vocals. He was well aware of the issue, which is probably one of the reasons they didn't do more of them. Not that the rest of the crew seemed to have any idea what to do either-- those songs were panned by critics at the time and for good reason. Just compare any of their attempts at honky tonk to their work with older country blues-- night and day.
That said, I often have either Dead Flowers or CH in a playlist.
Unlike any of the Gram Parsons. GP has to be the most overrated figure in recent music history. Sort of an emo parody of the Louvin Brothers. The best thing he ever did was help Emmy Lou get started.
That tuning he supposedly taught Keith as just another version of the Vastopol tuning popularized by Warbler's great grampa. Tough to imagine someone as well versed in early blues as Keith was, didn't already know it.
Prodigal Son from the Beggars Banquet album has a country feel to it, and I play that in Vastopol, or open d tuning. Easy to play, and has a real full, bluesy/country sound with super simple fingering.
Don't know for sure if it was played in open D on the album, but it sure sounds like it. Keith Richards had some fine acoustic guitars to work with on that album - great sound on lots of the cuts - Let it Bleed too.
You know, I was sitting there,
In my silk-upholstered chair,
talkin' to some rich folks that I know ...
and I realized -- great tune, but kinda crappy southern drawl on Mick's part
Country Honk is about as country as they get. And was written in Peru! Dead Flowers was written aboutNew York socialite Pana Graves (I may have spelled this wrong)who cultivated cOunterculture figures like the Stones, Burroughs etc during the '60s.
The Stones Was/is a stright up country band. Leaving aside the question of whether Mick can pull off an authentic southern drawl or not, he's trying to.
Flying Burritos were the first to record their song Wild Horses. If you watch 'Fallen Angel" you'll see that Gram Parsons and Keith Richards hung out a bunch- probably where they got a bunch of their 'country' ideas. BTW, I hate Mick Jagger's southern accent. And- 'coulored radio' ??? What, are you from the 50's?
BTW, I hate Mick Jagger's southern accent. And- 'coulored radio' ??? What, are you from the 50's?
Now, remember this is the team the brought us the calculatedly abrasive, 'Some Girls,' 'Under my Thumb,'' 'brown Sugar,' etc. I think the things you bring up are absolutely intentional. And, a playfully snide backhand at US culture. ;)
I dunno if they ever did total country or not but let me tell you put on some Link Wray and you most assuredly will hear the Stones before the stones were even out of diapers. And that is cross breeding applaachia, gospel, delta blues, straight out of the fifties.
I'll see if i can dig some up.
OK listen to this and tell me the Stones were not influenced strongly by Link Wray ( as were most blues rockers)
Building on the overdriven, distorted electric guitar sound of early electric blues records, his 1958 instrumental hit "Rumble" by Link Wray and his Ray Men introduced "the power chord, the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists,"[1] making possible "punk and heavy rock."[2] Rolling Stone placed Wray at number 45 of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.[3]
Sorry to go on about Link instead of the stones but when i think of the Stones I think of Link Wray, and when i think of Link Wray i think of the stones. Wether or not thats country I don't know.
KLK- Graham Parson overrated? Shite. Take another listen!
heh
that took awhile
yeah, just another rich hippy emo. he was as country as "shite." (sorry, couldnt resist.)
"grievous angel" is a great song-- but he didnt write it. "sin city" and "hickory wind" are good songs. let's push it a bit and say that "wild horses" is a good song. i don't think so, but i won't fight. that's three decent country songs. that's enough to make him a minor, forgotten song writer.
musically speaking, his rep rests almost entirely on his partying with the stones and the byrds and his partnership with emmylou. their duet on "love hurts" is cool, but it also (in hindsight) pointed the way toward that easy-listening destruction of honyky tonk in the late seventies.
i did like his nudie suit, though.
and back to the ot: "brown sugar" is the most country song the stones ever did.
That 's it. I 'm adding Rumble to the facelift jerk er I mean jam off. Link cut a country record prior to The Wraymen.
Edit. Gene Clark did as much as GP to create hippy country but gets no credit. He wrote most of the Byrd 's classics and made several good records post FBB.
The Gram Parsons debate is interesting. I saw the documentary awhile ago and came away with the feeling that he was a spoiled, rich boy with no soul. Then I hear songs like A Song For You or Sin City and I think they're great, not good, songs. I mentioned this to Ed and he said, "then where did the soul come from?"
He rarely finished projects he started, he was unreliable as a band-mate and had a way of distorting facts when relating them (basically he lied a lot; depending on his need at the time).
Take his life circumstances and see how well you would have faired in those times. Many people might not have succumbed to his fate; but a lot would have. His life was a tragedy by the time he was 16 or 17.
On the other hand he was extremely talented, he worked hard in his early years and he knew music. Country, Gospel, Folk, Rock'n'Roll. He achieved more before he was 16 than most musicians do in a lifetime. He knew how to sing, he knew what he wanted; he just didn't quite get there. He took the Byrds to places they never would have gotten without him, same with the Stones.
If you really want to get an understanding of him, read Twenty Thousand Roads by David Meyer. The documentary sheds little light on the person.
Thanks Tobia. Just ordered Twenty Thousand Roads. Looks like a great read. I really like reading about lives like that, how they were influenced and what motivated them. I appreciate the reference.
the meyers book is less a bio of parsons than a hagiography. he essentially claims that exile on main street was a gp project.
if we set aside the question of whether or not one personally likes the way parsons changed vocal aesthetics for country and gospel-- eliminating the twang, grit and regional accents in favor of a honeyed, layered sound that owed more to commercial folk music --and look at his actual accomplishments, the GP vita is remarkably slim. Three or possibly four good songs, a strong role in shaping emmylou harris, and partying with the stones. and persuading the byrds to record their least successful album.
folks can differ on whether they personally like honky tonk with the edges polished off. it doesn't matter. even if you do, it's a slim vita if you try and compare it it with those of folks from the same period doing similar musical innovation-- bob dylan, johnny cash, willie nelson, billy joe shaver, tony joe white. willie nelson's first demo collection had more great-- and musically important --songs on it than we could ever claim for GP. if you want him to be in the pantheon, you have to run him against folks at that level. and he didn't run at that level.
it's fine to like the way he sang and arranged. lots of folks do. but it's the jfk phenomenon. folks identifiy libidinally with whatever it is they think he stood for, and then, since he was young, rich, good-looking and died young, we can project whatever we want.
the real problem with the "country" and "rock" discussion is that it is generated entirely by marketing labels developed by the music and radio industries as they became corporate oligopolies. the labels didn't even exist prior to the emergence of corporate radio. you had to have the emergence of all those segregated consumer niches for them even to make sense-- the black musicians became r&b or soul or blues; the white guys playing r&b became rock, whites with southern accents and no drums became "country."
and then in the mid-sixties, the labels became politicized-- "country" meant butch wax, sexual repression, loathing of marijuana, and support for the war in vietnam; "rock" meant long hair, sexual freedom, smoking dope, and opposing the war.
so then it suddenly became a big deal to "mix" "rock" and "country." sociologically, it was a big deal. but musically, it wasn't.
klk - some pretty insightful comments. I like reading what you have to say. sociologically, it was a big deal. but musically, it wasn't. I think that's true. I don't think that Gram Parsons really shaped the future or direction of country music.
But 3 or 4 good songs? He clearly wasted a lot of time and had no work ethic. They can't all be Bruce Springsteen I guess. But he certainly had talent and wrote more than 3 good songs. I sort of like Johnny Cash but as a song writer I think he's way overrated. GP has more good songs on one album than Johnny Cash wrote in his career. And, perhaps like GP, Johnny Cash didn't write his best song. I don't think GP has as many good songs as Townes, or Steve Earle, but they came later.
I think for me GP's songs have staying power. I still like them after all these years. For whatever reason, I don't feel that way about Willie Nelson's songs, or Johnny Cash's songs, or the Doors for that matter. And I'm still interested in what motivated him, at least in his early years.
GP has more good songs on one album than Johnny Cash wrote in his career.
Ranking songs is difficult because popular musics are so personal and there aren't good criteria for evaluation, aside from commercial success. But that is one, and not irrelevant because it is popular music after all, or else is supposed to be if you're recording songs to be played commercially.
Then there are things like, does the song become a standard for live performers? Does it get covered by other performers? Is it musically influential or innovative? THose may or may not be easily measured, but if we use them we can get beyond the "i personally like this or that." and that's worth doing. for instance, i personally don't like bob dylan. i don't like many of the songs, i hate his voice, and what he did to the harmonica should be frickin illegal. but there's no way i would try to argue that he should get pushed down into the second or third tier of musical figures of the period.
johnny cash's first album (he was 23) featured rock island line, cry, cry, cry, wreck of the old 97, folsom prison blues, and i walk the line. he had already written-- or was writing --get rhythm, mean eyed cat, hey porter, big river. whether we like jc or not, almost every one of those songs was a commercial success, was endlessly covered by other performers on and off record, and established one of the most distinctive and (at the time) novel sounds in american music.
gp never ever had a hit. sin city, hickory wind and wild horses all got (and do get) covered. and emmylou recorded ooh las vegas (i actually like that song, but wouldnt make a big case for it.
doesn't mean folks shouldn't like gp. three really good songs is really good. and he certainly was a strong influence on emmylou and to some extent, the stones. but no, i don't see a case for putting him up in that top tier of folks.
but popular music is pretty personal, which is one of the reasons that it tends to generate fairly poor history. most band and star bios tend to be fan chronicles. so in fairness to meyers, i have to say that it's really not an easy genre to write in.
as for the soul question, it's not one i ask. lots of shallow as#@&%es make really amazing art. in fact, most of the most amazing art seems to get made by really damaged people. hey, narcissists suffer, too. and some of them are good at turning it into art. or athletic performance.
I like reading the biographies also; at least the well written ones. I have read good ones about The Band, Neil Young etc.
KLK, I was addressing the statement of whether or not the man had "soul"; not the level of impact he had on the evolution of music.
I would have to disagree about the tone of the book Twenty Thousand Roads. It does anything but glorify Parsons; just the opposite. He pays credence to the chapters of Parson's life that deserve it; however he doesn't hold back any criticism of his shortcomings. He dispels a lot of the myth and idol worship of Parsons.
ever since i first heard the stones, they were/ae are a major like, due to the whole 'sound-mix' that they had, beat and all, and, in the list of music that i like (though my list is very versitile and branching into lot of stuff, and not a certain era, etc, only) they still are tops, there... i always could hear all kinds of variety/texture, so to speak, which i figured had been gleaned over the years from sooo many folks, as all musicians do when they are learning to put together what THEY love and how they want to be, as to who they WILL be... but:
but wow--i did not know that the stones did country :O ... but then,
i just considered them as 'good ol' rock and roll' (a mixture of many sounds)
perhaps wrongly?, though, but... i just figured country was like, well, the old country stuff--well, you know, simple 'down home foot stompin' stuff' so common before electric-growth and changes...
thanks for all the shares... learnling lots of stuff here at the ol' taco...
the links that i could do, i enjoyed, too, thanks so much...
oh, yes, and: did hear a 'stones' type voice-sound, and beat-sound, etc, too--the type that i liked...
course, that's me, and i sure don't know my music stuff like you all do, :)) ...
At a session one day, using a pencil, Wray punched holes in the speaker of his amplifier, and thereby invented what guitar players know today as fuzz-tone
while driving from Laramie to SLC we listened to the albums:
Beggars Banquet
Let it Bleed
Some Girls
Sticky Fingers
the next day Jaybro woke up with the Stone's playing in his head...
As we made our way Southwest from Ely to Tonapah I played the 10 versions of Willin' including the original by Little Feat and the earlier Byrd's (who I think recorded it before Little Feat) and a whole bunch of folk since then...
...at some point the issue of the Stones ever doing country came up...
now I put the Stones' country influence at the feet of Ry Cooder, who was a session musician with them in 1968 and 69, including Let it Bleed and Sticky Fingers... and interestingly played with Lowell George on the original version of Willin' (how's that for full circle!)
My thought is that Country Honk is the only original Stones country song, both Dear Doctor and Far Away Eyes are parodies of country songs... in my opinion.
How about this Jagger solo effort with Cooder on slide guitar
an alternate take:
and by the way, the original album release of Let it Bleed credited the Robert Johnson song Love in Vain to Jagger and Richards...
I never thought of Ry Cooder as "country". It would be hard not to associate him with country music; since he plays the mandolin and he has either dabbled in or worked extensively in every other genre of music.
He, as well as Lowell George, were preeminent slide guitar players of the day. Both were in high demand as session players and other roles in the music industry. In those days the community of musicians was much smaller; especially the one centered in southern California. Lowell George spent more time in recording studios than he did playing.
Lowell George, as a band mate of Frank Zappa, crossed paths with Ry Cooder in the studio and as well in association with the good Captain Beefheart. Both also played with Richie Haywood, the drummer for Little Feat. Others would include Jack Nitzsche, Roy Estrada, Van Dyke Parks or anybody else hanging out in Laurel Canyon.
Willin' was a song written by Lowell George and Richie Haywood. Cooder's role in the original recording of Willin' is due to their friendship and the fact that Lowell George butchered his hand and was incapable of playing slide. The song was recorded in Lowell George's home with the aid of Russ Titelman on piano and Gene Parsons (Byrds) on the drums; but it was pared down for the album to Lowell George's vocals, acoustic guitar and Ry Cooder's slide guitar. The first release of the song was on Little Feat's debut album, Little Feat (sometimes referred to as the Hamburger Midnight album). At the time of it's release it was being covered by many bands; especially those playing in the L.A. venues.
One of my favorite Stones stories is the one from the start of Keith Richards' Life. He talks about "Southern hospitality" and reflects on rednecks. Country Honk's their best attempt, if you will call it such, at country.
You guys might could try reading Life to get the low down on some country types who played with them on occasion. Bobby Keys is from Texas, as always a good place to be "from."
There's too many country groups who are way better than the old fossils, so who really would care if they put out a Sweetheart of the Rodeo of their own? Keith can do pretty much anything he wants and it's OK by me.
I noticed the Coors can also. When that photo was taken you couldn't buy Coors anywhere east of the Mississippi or a line farther west. BITD, when living in New Orleans people would go snow skiing at Christmas and return with a trunk load of Coors. Being a rare commodity they would sell it for a premium and pay for the trip.
You were pretty hip if you had Coors in your icebox. I preferred the taste of Dixie to Coors; the toxins in the water down there added a certain bite to the brew. I forget how many un-kown toxins there were in the Mighty Mississippi at the time; but the # 193 sticks in my mind.
At least the photo proves the Stones were in-country.
As much as I hate to admit it, I used to bootleg stashes of colors from Wyoming back to California, during the embargo days. Have to be careful though, too much colors and you turn respooblikan, one of the reasons I had to quit drinking.....
Did Bushwacker ever do Mick Jagger? In any event I hope the taste was to everbody's liking. Oh yeah and praise Jesus and Neebee and Jack Daniels. Special thanks to AayCeeDeeCee
Stones are great, and Dead flowers is a great tune. Country? Maybe?
Girl with Faraway Eyes is embarrassing, unless they are trying to make fun of country.
GP wrote some good tunes, but weren't the Dead doing "country rock" before Grievous Angel?
Anyway, if you go back far enough, rock and roll is just country like Carl Perkins and Chet Atkins, and if you go farther back than that, country music is a form of Irish and English music that came to America. If you count Texas swing, then you get to include Spanish and German oompa stuff.
So did the Stones play country? Not well, and not often, but if they play rock and roll than in that sense they do play country.
It's confusing so I decided along time ago, I'm going to like what I like, and not like what I don't like.
Wild horses, in the right hands, iscountry. Not that those stones still, ever did country!
Sitting here in rural Utah listening to KZMU, rock that when you're at Moab, the creek, mofo's! btw!
not only various country coverslip .WH but a bit from a new Stones release (almost wrote "LP" !) which seemed to rock!
Just finished Twenty Thousand Roads. Really interesting and detailed. I enjoyed the book and learned some things. I don't think I like the author. He was all too eager to express his own personal feelings about people and other bands (why the intense hate-fest for the Eagles?).
I came to the conclusion that GP did in fact have soul. The scene that really brought it home to me was the funeral for Clarence White, where Gram interrupted the preacher and this sterile Catholic service at the gravesite and started singing. It sounds like many of the musicians at the service wanted something with more soul, but it took Gram to make it happen. And one by one they joined in with him.
No doubt that Parsons produced a pretty slim amount of, well anything relative to his talent. But the early death of both parents, his drug use, and his wealth sure explains a lot. I really appreciate the reference. It was a fun read.
Mike,
Glad you enjoyed the book. I agree about belittling other musicians; I think his attitude is that the Eagles, took the ball and ran; although they atered it some make it more mainstream. I like some of the early Eagles material and some of the later as well. They simply "FMed" it. I have ever thought much of Don Henley; he is a little too proud of himself.
If you haven't already, read Shakey by JImmy McDonough, Neil Young's biography.
I thought the Don Felder/Joe Walsh era Eagles were pretty good, but the early Eagles with Bernie Leadon were great. Desperado is still a great record from start to finish. It has a mood, or feeling to it that is hard to find..."21 and strong as i can be..." There's great three-part harmony, decent playing, and well-crafted songs. What's not to like?
I realize that this is blasphemy, but I think The Big Lebowski is by far the worst movie the Coen Brothers ever made (and I really like the Coen brother's movies). I actually walked out the first time I tried to watch it. When it achieved cult status, I rented it and suffered through the whole thing. Never again. Inane and pointless.
Take Bakersfield and write a song and call it country. Everyday thing. What gives? You would think that the first would be ironic. It's not. It's still country because IT SOUNDS COUNTRY. Labels are stupid. There should be a labelizer in our head which labels things for us automatically. I think there is. It's run by the Bush family. They're the labelizers. Or if you wanta go country, call 'em the STampers. Never give a inch. Pure country.
The Stampers, soon to become The Stamper.
You can take the city kid and make him country. You can take a country boy and turn him into some Rhinestone Cowboy.
Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in town
Sometimes I haves a great notion
To jump into the river an’ drown
I like Gram's idea. Rich as hell and still gotta be something else.
Barrow Gang
Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in town
Sometimes I haves a great notion
To jump into the river an’ drown
Here's a snapshot of the real CW and his peer group. Too much Haiku.
Let us know!