8/8/2019 Welcome Back Home, Country Music

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Welcome Back Home, Country Music

 By Dale Short 

There was a time when my car radio pretty much stayed tuned to country stations.But then, something dreadful happened.

The development is best explained by my sister-in-law, who told me at the time, “Ireally like this new country music.” (Emphasis on “new.”)

“What do you like about it?” I asked her, cautiously.To which she responded, “Because it doesn't SOUND like country music.”I let this soak in.“What does country music sound like?” I asked her.“Oh, you know,” she said. “Nasal, whiny voices. Banjoes. That kind of stuff.”I set about thinking of an adequate reply. And I still am, some 15 years later.The “industry” had started replacing the music of my childhood—and the music

of the Grand Ol' Opry that my grandparents listened to on their old tube radio when theywere a young married couple—with something that sounded very vaguely like countrymusic, but not really.

The singers of the music, both males and females, were all young and beautifuland blow-dried, and it was easy to get them confused with one another. How manydifferent kinds of cowboy hats could they wear, after all?

Oddly (or maybe not), this music sold like hotcakes to a young, contemporary,largely urban audience who had never owned an album by the Stanley Brothers or George Jones or Kitty Wells, and never would.

The industry term was “crossover,” and to me it made about as much sense as

telling a seafood restaurant you wanted your catfish to taste more like pizza, or askingfor sushi at a barbecue joint.

I was called a purist. I've been called lots worse.But every once in a while, especially while on long car trips, I would scan the

radio stations hoping for new country music that sounded somewhat like the old goodstuff I grew up on. Or, heaven forbid, a station that played the great country music of the

 past. Either no luck, or so little it was not worth the trouble.Apparently the phenomenon that I called “bubble-gum country” had come to stay,

or at least on the mainstream radio stations.Then, just this past year, I was standing in line at the Dollar General and heard a

song on the PA system that tore my heart out. I consulted Google, and found that it wascalled “The House that Built Me,” and that it was written by Tom Douglas and AllenShamblin, and sung by a young woman named Miranda Lambert.

I tuned my radio station to Country Legends 88.5 and waited for another miracle.Lo and behold, I heard a new song called “If I Die Young,” by The Band Perry, with theamazing line, “Funny when you're dead, how people start listening.” And “Turn on theRadio,” by Reba McEntire. And, miracle of miracles, songs by George Jones and MerleHaggard and Loretta Lynn and a whole lot more I hadn't heard in years.

8/8/2019 Welcome Back Home, Country Music

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This week, the song that hit me in the head with a hammer was the song “Real,” by James Wesley. The title refers to the fact that reality shows are (surprise!) not real:

“Where I live, housewives don’t act like that / And the survivors are farmers inJohn Deere hats / Our Amazing Race is beating the check / Praying that the bank ain’trun it through yet...”

And it gets better and better.I don't know if the fake country ran its course, or if the “good stuff” eventually

rises through, like cream rising to the top of milk. (Real milk, like the kind from mygrandfolks' cows.)

Whatever, I'm delighted. Country music has come back home. Which serves toremind me how much I've missed it.

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(Dale Short is a native of Walker County. You can find more of his writing on his

 Facebook page, or you can e-mail him at cdshort@live.com. His new short-storycollection, Turbo's Very Life , and all his other books are available online at carrolldaleshort.com. For more information about his new informal spiritual fellowship,

 go to churchof11or1.com, or send an e-mail to churchof11or1@hotmail.com)