Friday, July 02, 2010

Oh, I understand it perfectly.

I saw this comment at the 9513, regarding one Eric Church:

I don’t understand most of the hostility thrown toward this guy.
Well, for one, how about this? If you have to market yourself as an "outlaw" country singer as Church does, um, BY DEFINITION YOU ARE NOT AN OUTLAW. I realize it's an image as much as anything, but the thing about that is that people like Waylon, Willie, et al. did not market themselves as Outlaws. The term and its accompanying image, from what I read, have their origins with music journalist Hazel Smith. To the extent the '70s "outlaw" singers marketed themselves as outlaws, they did it mainly with their music and not with macho bravado posturing. Of course you know a lot of them also lived fast and high; Waylon's "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out Of Hand" was based on a true story, from what I recall. The closest Eric Church has gotten to that is insisting on real wine glasses when he's on tour, so that whole "outlaw" thing comes off as a bit fake, to say the least. And we haven't even gotten to the music itself. I've heard one song from Eric Church. I'll admit it. The name of the song was "Hell On The Heart," and he sounded like a Keith Urban clone in it so I pretty much wrote him off after that. So yeah, I totally get the hate.

Ooooh, the Derailers, at radiofreetexas.com: "I wanna go home to the Armadillo, good country music from Amarillo and Abilene..." The Gary P. Nunn original was the best, but the Derailers really nailed it on Viva Terlingua! Compadres, the tribute album to the legendary Viva Terlingua!, the live album recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker and friends in 1973.