Fox Adds New Country Music Awards Show; ‘Hee Haw’ Creator Passed Away; Merle Haggard Offers Advice

Hahahaaaa! Gotta love ol’ Hag. I bet the Vanity Fair interview is at least as entertaining as the Rolling Stone one from last year, where the author spent more time than perhaps he needed to in reminding us that Merle smokes the mean green.

Jaron Lowenstein, now what band was this guy in back around ’99 or 2000? One of those lame pop bands like the Vertical Horizons and Semisonics he mentions, who at the time were getting played on hard-rock radio. Man, THAT was a dark time! So no wonder when I first heard that “I’ll Pray For You” song, I thought, “Brother, you sound like you belong in one of those earnest, sensitive-guy alternative-rock bands.”

Fizz: Jaron was in a duo with his identical twin brother called Evan and Jaron who were basically one hit wonders with Crazy With The Girl.

As for Sugarland: LMAO at them for admitting something that everyone knows about them and that’s for their use of Auto-Tuning. Now we all know how they keep Kristian out of the picture and Jennifer vocally out in front.

They used autotuning in their latest song. They don’t admit to using it as a general rule.

That’st right, Lewis, I remember now. I smell the same stink of “novelty” on his new project, but regardless, the man does indeed speak the truth. It’s amazing how people don’t seem to realize it though, like, “If it’s on country radio, why, it must be country, right?”

The other day, that “Stars Tonight” song by Lady Antebellum came on the radio at work, and the ladies start talking among themselves, one says, “this sounds too much like heavy metal.” Turns to me, the token rocker in the room and says, “So I guess this is more your speed, huh?” Ah, no, that’d be a negative.

I find it lame that mainsteam country music is getting another awards show. I thought they already had too much as it is with CMA, ACM, CMT, not to mention Grammy and AMA. It being fan voted, only 5 artists have a chance of winning. Fox would have been wiser to just air an hour long Taylor Swift special instead. Being on FOX, expect a who’s who of C list celebrities as presenters, like Carrot Top or the guy from Joe Millionaire. Another oppourtunity for country music to embarrass itself trying to be cool for the mass audience. I think I’ll pass and wait for BET to announce their country awards.

Sugarland also said in that interview the Steampunk theme is purely visual and has nothing to do with the sound of their music. Now that makes more sense. When you announce the theme of an upcoming record, one assumes you are refering to the sound of it and not the visuals used on tour or promo shots.

I love that song by Gurf Morlix, which was originally written for legendary English keyboard player Ian McGlagan (of the bands Faces, Small Faces, and the Rolling Stones, as well as numberous sessions with Dylan, Chuck Berry, etc.) whose wife, Kim, was was killed in a 2006 automobile accident in Austin, Texas. Gurf Morlix’s recorded version of the song, which is on his 2009 album, Last Exit to Happyland, has Patty Griffin singing haunting background vocals on it.

Well seeing as it is on fox I don’t think anybody but Carrie will be the face of the award show. Not that I don’t mind seeing Carrie perform and win all the awards because I love Carrie but this is just to many shows! I don’t have time to vote for this crap.

And since it is on FOX I can’t see anybody but Carrie winning Artist of the Year.

I’ve NEVER heard Eminem on a rock station and more than likely never will. On pop stations, yes, but rock stations, not!

Yeah, Michelle, a few of the more alternative-leaning rock statinos jumped on Eminem when he first came out. Whynot? They played the Beastie BOys’ (non-rock) songs, and Tommy Lee’s horrid rap project, and they were white too, right? Luckily, it didn’t last too long. Like I say, those were bad times and about when I quit actively listening to rock radio and dove into the underground.

As for Lowenstein’s boiling it down to a few succinct sentences, he’s right, but I think it was the fans who headed for the country first, then the traditional pop-rock artists followed once they figured out where everybody went.

@Fizz Why do you (and a lot of other people) always want to talk about country music by talking about rock or pop or rap or something else? This is a country music blog and the subject is country music, so let’s talk about country music, shall we?

So what you want to keep in mind is that country music was constructed as a genre by an emerging industry that yoked together a variety of kinds of music under a set of names that eventually, over a period of years, got centered on “country music.” There was no single sound, and no single element which all of those kinds of music had in common to begin with, and it’s only gotten more diverse over the years (as indeed always happens with genres). So sound is not a very reliable or historically justified way to decide what gets put into the category.

Although it’s less satisfying, it’s more sensible to categorize as country music that which – and I freely confess this is sloppily put, because I’m making a blog post, not writing an article for publication – is produced for and accepted by the country music industry and audience as country music. And while mainstream country radio (i.e., the stations reporting to Billboard and other major industry charts) is only one part of the country music industry (and a narrow one at that), it is an important one. Country music extends far beyond what mainstream country radio is willing to play, but if you’re going to argue that what it plays is *not* country music, you’d better have a pretty strong and historically grounded case.

If you were interviewing Merle Haggard could you get past:
OMG you’re Merle Haggard. O! M! G!

Yeesh, that Haggard interview really is awful – I’m surprised he didn’t hang up on the dude, who was evidently far most interested in asking questions that he thought would impress Haggard (or the reader) than in asking questions that would actually elicit some insight into Haggard as a person, much less as a musician.

By the way, the secret to interviewing musicians of any kind and of any degree of fame (or of any degree of admiration) is to deal with them as musicians, concerned first and foremost with how they make their music.

If you’re going to argue that what country radio plays IS country music then you had better have a strong and grounded case, if that’s the case. I know if I was blindfolded, and doing a taste test, I’d be able to tell which was beef and which was chicken. If what I’m hearing doesn’t sound like country music then it’s not country, to me. Why bother having generes? Why not just call it music?

As superficial as it was, Haggard still sucked it up and played along and made it somewhat entertaining. But consider the magazine. Vanity Fair readers probably don’t really care about what made Haggard include a sax solo in the outro of “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink.”

Jon: so then if all these divergent styles fall under teh umbrella of “country music,” which is indeed true, then what makes them all uniformly country? Again, with Lady Antebellum as the example. Is it because there’s some mandolin? Is it because they have corny greeting-card lyrics? Or is it just another one of your finger-jabbing “it is not yours to question” trips?

As for including other styles of music in the discussion, I’m not seeing country music existing in this parallel universe where the “rules,” if you will, of other forms of music don’t apply. Business is business.

DUH!!!!

With all these sub-genres, I don’t think there should be a problem talking about rock, pop, rap, or whatever on a country music blog.

I usually think it’s so stupid when artists have excessively auto-tuned vocals on their songs – it’s one of the most overused studio tools of the hip-hop world. When Fast Ryde used it in “Top Down,” I just thought it sounded ridiculous.

With that in mind, I should have been appalled to hear Sugarland using it in “Stuck Like Glue.” But since “Stuck Like Glue” was already a riot on its own, I guess that was the right song to do it on! I actually thought it sounded cute and funny, and I didn’t mind it at all. But at least they only auto-tuned the background vocals at the end of the song. If the auto-tune had been used on the main vocal track throughout song, it probably would have driven me crazy.

“Musical breakdown” is probably a good way to describe “Stuck Like Glue.” It’s the kind of song that only Sugarland could get away with! Talking about it made me want to bring up iTunes and listen to it!

Hey, Fizz, I’m sorry for saying, “DUH,” to you. I just read it and it sounded very rude. I should have told you that that’s what I was getting at instead. Sorry!

@Brady — good call, dude.

I officially want Jaron Lowenstein gone from my radio now. I was never a huge fan of the single, but I hope he now rides off into the sunset the same way he did after “Crazy For This Girl”. Co-opting a genre that I love dearly, for your own personal gain, makes me ill. As John Pinette says: “You go now!”

UNICHS IN A WHOREHOUSE!! :) Love it!!

No big deal, Michel.e, I figured that was what you meant.

Nope, you don’t have to sing or write songs or play an instrument to criticize music. Your name just has to be Jon, apparently.

My guess it’s just parody.