The Golden Age Of American Rock’n'Roll - Special Country Edition

The Golden Age Of American Rock’n'Roll - Special Country Edition
Customer Review: How Country Music lived with Rock n’ Roll.
In the mid ’50s, Country Music was in real danger of going out of business. Its niche markets were overwhelmed by the new raw sounds of Rock n’ Roll demanded by of all things, by teenagers.

The first track on this superb compilation, White Lightnin’ by George Jones captures the way Country Music blended the new sound into a distinct beat, keeping the lyrics distinctly Country. That sound just about kept Country alive long enough for the tunes and melodies to grow back, and the successive tracks are distinctive in that they have something to say, and a memorable sound that could catch the ear on radio or get a quarter into a jukebox.

What the songs said wasn’t new, but it was now more evocative because the songs linked in with things like urbanisation, and the loss of rural roots. Detroit City echoes the loss with its great line “by day I make the cars, and by night I make the Bars”, even El Paso, with it’s Mexican sounds hints of the old lost West.

Also crowding in were songs that spoke of unrequited love or adultery. Heavy stuff. Wrapped up in a great arrangement is the classic Walk on By, not the Dionne Warwick bit of fluff, but the darker Leroy Van Dyke track of adulterous love.

Whatever the theme, and they weave around the usual mix, the arrangement, tempo and delivery matches. Jim Reeves on the telephone with He’ll Have To Go, and the frenetic Flowers On the Wall with the Statlers one step ahead of descending into a nervous breakdown caused by the loss of a woman.

The tracks range from 1956 to 1965, a long time in any music.From Ray Prices classic shuffle Crazy Arms to Roger Millers scat in King of the Road.

Country Music is often portrayed as samey, boring and trite. These songs sold in their hundreds of thousands, tackling issues other genres wouldn’t touch. And they did it in a way that meant as soon as you heard the guitar chords of I Fall To Pieces you stop and remember that it’s Patsy. Country Music can evoke memory and emotion.

This ACE collection is a very worthy entrant in the Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll Series. Buy it now.

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Peterson, Richard A.: Creating Country Music