NASHVILLE CATS: CREEM LOOKS AT COUNTRY MUSIC

NASHVILLE CATS: CREEM LOOKS AT COUNTRY MUSIC

A GUIDE TO ARTISTS & INSTRUMENTS

FEATURES

Allen Hester

by

Ah, those Nashville cats—“clean as country water” sang the Lovin’ Spoonful in one of the more obvious, but by no means the only tribute that rock bands of the 60’s era made to the sound and style of the hillbilly bands from Music City USA. Back in those days,, the Rolling Stones did “I’m Movin’ On” by Hank Snow, and the Beatles covered Carl Perkins’s “Matchbox” and other country tunes like “Act Naturally.” Going back a bit further, Elvis’s first single release had “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” on one side, which was a big hit for Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. Monroe is now recognized as the Father of Bluegrass; Hank Snow is still active on the Grand Ole Opry, and Carl Perkins is featured in a duet called “Get It” on McCartney’s new album Tug Of War. The point: country music and musicians have been interwoven into the fabric of rock from the very beginning up until the present day. Country music has become the middle-of-the-road sound of the 80’s; country singers like Kenny Rogers, Barbara Mandrell, Mickey Gilley and Conway Twitty have become some of the biggest “crossover” artist—i.e., their music is played on a variety of different radio formats ranging from hard country to contemporary pop—and other superstars like Dolly Parton have made it from the Opry stage in Nashville to the silver screen in 9 to 5. Miss Parton will appear later this year with Burt Reynolds in the movie version of Best Little Whorehouse In Texas; Reynolds, as you well know, has already cashed in on the country cornpone of his movie sidekick in the Smokey & The Bandit films; Jerry Reed, one of the finest guitarists in all of music, lends his particular style of backwoods humor to the Bandit saga. And no less a luminary than John Travolta, the man who brought us night fever, scored big at the box office a while back in Urban Cowboy, a movie that touched off a craze for cowboy hats, boots, feathered plumes and beginner’s chewing tobacco.

Well, the urban cowboy thing has just about run its course; Ralph Lauren and his designer-jean cohorts in New York have moved on to other things, having made a brief but very lucrative foray into the realm of cowboy duds. The real cowboys never paid much attention to all of it, except perhaps to spit real tobacco at the whole silly mess, mechanical bulls and all. Nevertheless, what has happened with the music, the broadening and deepening of the country music audiences on this country and abroad, the sophisticated uptown look of Nashville’s Opryland and new Opry House, the acceptance of country music stars as movie actors and actresses both in film and on TV—all of this will have a lasting effect on American pop culture, long after the feathered hatbands have made their retreat.

While this may come as a shock to some rock ’n’ roll fans, it is nothing new to rock ’n’ rollmusicians, who have looked to the country stars over the years for material, for guitar licks, and on occasion for some good-natured kidding. Granted, there are areas of that vast and often undefinable genre we call “rock” that seems to have no connection to country music (it’s hard to find it on an Ozzy Osbourne album), but on the other hand, so much of what we classify as rock can be traced back to a few seminal figures and groups of the late 60’s and early 70’s, who blended country, folk and rock styles together to give us what we have called for years “country-rock.”

There is a definite line than can be traced from Gram Parsons, a Waycross, Georgia boy who found himself in the middle of the California rock scene, ended up' playing with no less a supergroup than the Byrds, and almost singlehandedly injected “country music” into the people of southern California. The Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album is recognized today as a classic, a turning point in rock, when country sounds of groups sprang up: Buffalo Springfield, ^Poco, the Flying Burrito Brothers, New Riders of the Purple Sage—paving the way for later superstars like the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt. Today’s superstars—Eddie Rabbitt, Emmylou. Harris, (a close friend of the late G.Parsons), Rosanne Cash, Alabama—are the extension of this hybrid strain that runs from Nashville to Hollywood.

When someone says “country music,” what’s the first thing you think of, sequined suits? Shiny boots? Steel guitars and fiddles? A Cadillac with longhorns mounted on the hood? Hee Haw? Square dancing? A lot of people have certain notions about what country music is, and yet they have very little knowledge of how country music differs from, and is similar to its more raucous first cousin, rock ’n’ roll.

First of all, country music is more subdued. Rarely do you see any “hard country” stars, such as George Jones or Merle Haggard, jumping around the stage. Generally, they stand in front of the microphone and sing songs, perhaps pausing to smile during a solo or sway from side to side, while the boys in the band pat their feet and grin. There is very little of the theatrical element that one sees in a rock concert.

Second, country music revolves around storytelling, around a lyric that describes a situation or a mood in more or less a straight narrative form. The emotion of the story is the message, and country music singers are measured by how convincingly they can mourn death, curse unfaithful lovers and rejoice over the simplest and smallest of triumphs. Because the message is in the lyrics, rather than the beat itself or the sheer raw power of unbridled Marshall atnps, country music is generally played at a softer volume lever, with an emphasis on clean, distortion-free vocals, and clean, neatly arranged accompaniment from the band.

When the Spponful said, those Nashville Cats were as “clean as country water,” they meant not only were they clean in appearance and hairstyle, but they were clean musically—they didn’t use distortion or feedback on their amps, they didn’t go in for a lot of gimmicks on the floor that made their guitar sound like a freight train, and they relied on their ability to just naturally pick hell out of whatever instrument they played—guitar, fiddle, steel, dobro, mandolin, bass, piano, harp, drums or banjo.

Just recently, the Country Music Association presented a special award to a man who revolutionized the sound and the style of country music: Leo Fender. His contribution? Inventing the first solid body electric guitar, which he debuted in 1948, and which became THE guitar of the country music scene. The sound of the Fender Telecaster is associated almost immediately with country music, although it has been used admirably by blues and rock players as well. The clear, piercing treble of the Telecaster was just what country pickers needed in order to be heard over the other instruments in the band—-their hollow-bodied guitars would feed back at high volume levels—but the Telecaster gave them a clean, bright sound without feedback, and country lead guitar made a giant leap forward.

4 Co untry’ guitar playing is often maligned by rockers who think it is too easy. To those disciplines of heavy metal guitar, I can only say, ‘Try it sometime.’

Leo Fender’s guitars and maps have influenced the sound of country music since ’48. The Telecaster has been used by a number of legendary guitarists—Roy Buchanan, James Burton, Jim Messina, Don Rich, Albert Lee, Waylon Jennings, and it is by no means an easy guitar to master. Because of the fretboard radius, the neck angle and the lacquered maple neck, the Telly has a rather stiff playing action and doesn’t feel at all malleable under the fingers as some other guitars do—but once mastered, no other guitar sounds quite like it.

The Fender electric bass had a big influence on country music, too, by bringing the bass forward into the electronic age, and eliminating the need for the big upright basses that were hard to mic and even harder to transport. This also enabled the rhythm sections to be smaller, eliminating the need for a piano, and allowing amplified string bands to dominate the airwaves.

While many other guitars have come along that render sounds desirable for country music, and the Telecaster has some keen competition from at home and abroad, there is no single amplifier that has dominated the country music scene like the Fender amp has,. There are a number of other brands now in use, but Fender, over the last three decades, no doubt holds the record for most amps used by country musicians. Why? Well, largely because Fender got there early, with an amp that delivered what country musicians wanted —a clean sound, with multiple channel inputs, options such as reverb and tremolo, in a very durable and easily serviceable package. The Fender Twin Reverb was perhaps the most popular amp of all the various models, with the Super Reverb, the Dual Showman, and the Bassman not far behind. Of the other amps fhat have come along in recent years, only Peavey has been as popular with country players as Fender was and is.

Of course, Gibson guitars were popular on the old Grand Ole Opry stage before the time of Leo Fender, and Gibson has always been a dominant force in the making of the music, not only in the area of electric guitars, but in acoustic guitars, banjos, and mandolins. Back in the early part of the century there was a man who came to work for Gibson named Lloyd Loar. He was a musical genius, and a master luthier as well. He applied the techniques of violin-making to the mandolin, and soon developed two series of instruments that set the standards up to the present day. Gibson’s “A” Series, and the more ornate and expensive “F’ Series, became to mandolin players what the cherry sunburst Les Paul of the 50’s later became to rock guitarists the pinnacle of achievment in instrument making; the absolute best instrument available. Even today, with as many independent luthiers as there are building fine acoustic instruments, and with much more sophisticated equipment, there is no one who can outdo old Lloyd Loar, the genius of Gibson. His mandolins are the standard by which all others are judged.

Other Gibson guitars have a place in country music history, too. Their acoustic and hollow-body electric guitars were in wide-spread use throughout the early days of the Opry, and even after Fender revolutionized the industry with the Telecaster, it wasn’t long before Gibson got wise and came out with the Les Paul, their first solid body guitar. Of the many guitars that are played today by country artists, perhaps the most widely visible is the Gibson Byrdland that Roy Clark plays on TV. The Byrdland model, although originally a “jazz” guitar, has been a favorite of Clark’s since the 50’s—(he has lost over a dozen of them to the airlines alone!) and Clark, like many of the “good ole boys” in Nashville, is an accomplished jazz player as well as a country music virtuoso. In fact, there are a lot of similarities in the techque of bluegrass and jazz guitar playing; both styles call for speed, dexterity, and a very highly developed picking technique with the right hand.

Of the many acoustic guitars that Gibson has made over the years, the one that stands out as the epitome of a country singer’s stage guitar is the big J-200. It is a beautifully shaped florentine-style instrument, with ornate inlay and purfling, and it is fitted with a neck that plays more like a jazz guitar than an acoustic one. For several structural reasons, the J-200 is not a very loud, booming guitar, so it is not suitable for bluegrass, but it makes a great rhythm guitar, and it looks very rich and elegant. If you’ve ever seen Emmylou Harris, you’ve seen her playing a J-200. Elvis used to use one, although more as a prop than anything else, yet he also must have sensed the thoroughbred quality of the J-200.

When it comes to bluegrass picking, there is one and only one guitar manufacturer that has dominated the genre: C.F.Martin. Their “pre-war herringbone D-28” is the most desired guitar among bluegrass pickers. It is an instrument in a class by itself. Martin guitars are desired because they have a loud, booming bass, a crisp treble, and a good balance and projection all across the fingerboard. In a bluegrass band, whether you are parlorpickin’ or performing onstage, nothing else will outperform the old D-28. The sound of it dwarfs all the competition, or at least 95% of it. There are some other manufacturers that make a super high quality acoustic guitar that can compete with Martin; Taylor Guitars have won some acceptance in bluegrass circles, and Gallagher guitars are played by no less legendary pickers than Doc Watson and Chet Atkins (both of whom play a variety of different brands). But new manufacturers have a long way to go to catch up with the rich tradition of Martin, which has been jn business since 1833. By the way, as a little bit of trivia, the first Martin D-45 guitar was built especially for one of Hollywood’s earliest and most popular singing cowboys —Gene Autry. The legendary Jimmie Rodgers played a Martin, the late bluegrass wizard Clarence White played one, and they, like the Gibson mandolins, are the standard by which all others are judged .

The real cowboys never paid much attention to the urban cowboy thing, except perhaps to spit real tobacco at the whole silly mess, mechanical bulls and all.

Of the new electric guitars on the market, Peavey’s T-60 stands out as a very popular model among country pickers. Jerry Reed plays one, Conway Twitty strums one, and a host of other big name bands such as Barbara Mandrell’s band, the DoRights, play the Peavey guitars and basses. The T-60 is popular because it offers the player the best of both humbucking pickups and single coil pickups in one instrument. The unique circuitry allows the player to choose either pickup mode, from a bright sound that closely resembles the Telecaster, to the thick midrange sounds of the humbucker, all in one guitar. As country music has grown and incorporated some of the sounds of rock music, the demand for a more versatile guitar has grown also. Peavey has met this demand, and at the same time managed to keep the cost of the instrument well under that of the big-name American guitars. This is another thing that country players want; an affordable guitar. That is why Fender was able to make such an impact in the early 50’s; their guitar cost a lot less than the other guitars of the day. Country players, while they take as much pride in their instruments as rock players do, generally do not go to as great lengths to acquire vintage instruments aS rock players do. In country music, the guitar is more of a workhorse than a thoroughbred race horse. The T-60 isn’t a glamourous, fancy showpiece. It is a durable, versatile and affordable guitar that delivers the sounds that country pickers want, and that is why it is so popular.

Also, when it comes to amplifiers, the Peavey gear comes as close as anything to capturing the market that Fender once dominated. Peavey amps have inherited the reputation for dependability, flexibility, and affordability that Fender once enjoyed. They are in very widespread use, and one model in particular, the Session 500, was designed with a particular instrument, the steel guitar, in mind.

Steel guitar is a relatively new instrument, having been invented only in the late 50’s. Compared to the guitar, it is still an infant. However, in its short life span, the steel guitar has been categorized by listeners and producers alike as being intrinsically “country.” Most people associate the crying sound of the instrument with the na$al love ballads of hard country, but in fact, the steel guitar is perhaps the most versatile of all stringed instruments. One of the unique things about the steel is that many of its foremost players are also builders of steel guitars. Buddy Emmons (Emmons), Shot Jackson (Sho-Bud), Maurice Anderson (MSA), Zane Beck (BMI)—these are only a few of the pioneers of the instrument, both in terms of playing and manufacturing.

Burdened by the instant association with country music, the steel guitar has had a tough time being accepted by audiences as anything but a country instrument. The steel is caught in sort of a catch-22: Rock producers don’t want' to use it on their records for fear of being called country, and country producers in recent years have turned away from heavy use of the steel for fear of losing the crossover market. So the steel guitar, as versatile as it really is, is caught in limbo. Recently, due to the surge in country music and country dances (see Urban Cowboy, Gilley’s, Billy Bob’s, etc.), the steel has been on the upswing in terms of popularity, but few people to this day realize the enormous potential of the instrument as something more than country.

As far back as 1967, Buddy Emmons was playing everything from bluegrass breakdowns to mainstream jazz to Bach fugues on the steel. Curly Chalker, the house steel guitarist on Hee Haw, is also an accomplished jazz player. So is Maurice Anderson. These are guys who will be more than happy to sit down and play anything except “Steel Guitar Rag.” Why? Because they don’t want people to go on associating the steel guitar with just country music.

There have been some exceptions to the use of the steel as just a country music instrument. Jeff Baxter played steel for both the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan. In the California country rock scene, the steel has been accepted and expanded, thanks to players like Sneaky Pete Kleiftow, Hank DeVito, Dan Dugmore, Rusty Young, and others. David Lindley, lap steel guitar virtuoso for Jackson Browne, New players like Paul Franklin (Mel Tillis) and Wally Murphy (Asleep At The Wheel) have amazed audiences with their incredibly fast solo picking. A good steel guitarist can match any six-string guitarist, and outplay most of them, either using singlenote runs and a clean setting on the amp, or using a distorted sound and slide guitar riffs.

Recognizing the versatility of the steel, Peavey built the Session 400, and later the 500, for the steel player who wanted versatility and flexibility to play the many styles that are possible on the steel. For this reason, the Session 500 has 300 RMS watts of power, for ultra-clean operation at high volume levels, master volume and channel volume for overdriven rock sounds, a built-in “string effect” for the use of the steel as a violin-like instrument, a built-in phasor, which is one of the more popular effects in all of country guitar playing, and a remote control multi-switch that attaches to the leg of the guitar itself, so that adjustments can be made without having to get out of the playing position and runback to the amp during a performance. No other major company has taken the steel guitar seriously enough to design an amp for it; there have been, for years, amplifiers made by the steel guitar manufacturers themselves, but these are scarce, and generally very inferior to the Session 500, which makes an excellent keyboard amplifier as well.

Speaking of keyboards, is there a keyboard that dominates the field of country music in the same way that the Martin guitar dominates bluegrass? Well, yes and no. If you include the concert grand piano, then you have a dominating instrument. Country piano playing is built around the sound and action of the grand piano, and electronic pianos generally come up short when country piano players try to get the same style and sound from any electronic models. Much of today’s country piano playing, whether it comes from Mickey Gilley, Jerry Lee Lewis, or Charlie Rich, is derived from the style of Floyd Cramer, the master of country piano in Nashville. In fact, the piano player from Asleep At The Wheel, a fine western swing band, took his stage name—Floyd Domino i —from the two most influential piano players of the late 50’s—Floyd Cramer and Fats Domino.

One thing is certain: rock and country music go fishin’ in the same creek.

So, if you allow acoustic pianos into the contest then, yes, they dominate. But what about the portable pianos? Well, the Yamaha Electric Grand is by far the most popular today, simply because it is as close to the authentic sound of a grand piano as technology has been able to take us. Granted, there are some high-quality polyphonic digital synthesizers on the market that can be programmed to sound a lot like the grand piano, but the action is still slightly different, and it seems that a number of players want the sound of real strings (which the Yamaha has) and the piano action of the Yamaha.

But the Yamaha Electric Grand has only been out a few years; before its appearance on the market, the electric piano which was used most often.was probably the Wurlitzer, a rather crude little piano which was troublesome to maintain on the road, but which had a bright enough tone to cut through the band and be heard. The Fender Rhodes piano made a big hit among jazz and rock players, but it never was a mainstay in hard country music because its warm bell-like tones and stiff playing action did not lend themselves well to the country sound, which was essentially that of an acoustic piano, or as close as one could get. However, crossover artists like Ray Charles and Ronnie Milsap do use the Rhodes, because their styles cover a wide range.

In spite of the fact that synthesizers such as Oberheim and Sequential Circuits can duplicate the grand piano sound, synthe‘ sizers and electronic keyboards in general have been slower in gaining widespread use in the country field. This is not because country players cannot learn to opperate them, and certainly not because they can’t afford them, but simply because the sound of the grand piano is such a basic element in country music. The general practice is for the performer to rent a grand piano for the concert. In these studios, there is always a grand piano; at the Opry in Nashville, there are several. Renting one is usually no problem, and in fact, many clubs have some kind of piano in the house. Guys like Jerry Lee Lewis won’t play anything but a grand, and Lewis has been known to show up for a concert, find that he has been provided with an upright piano, and promptly shove it off the stage. Sure, Jerry is an extremist, but you get the idea.

The organ and the string synthesizers are used in country music, but the lead lines of synthesizers that one hears on a lot of rock records is simply not there in country. What you do hear is synthesized string sounds and perhaps an occasional synthesized vocal chorus of “oohs” and “aaahs.” But for the most part, the sound of fiddles comes from real fiddlers.

When it comes to effects, there are a few effects that stand out as being very popular, while others are never heard of in country music. For example, the wah-wah pedal was a big part of the sound of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and others; also the fuzz-tone or distortion device was popular. These are two electronic signal-modifying devices that rarely, if ever, found their way onto a country record. One exception might be Pete Drake’s instrumental hit “Forever,” which was done using a wah effect on the steel guitar, but by and large there just isn’t any distortion of wah effect to speak of on country records. Of course, reverb and tremolo have been used on guitars since the 50’s. More recently, echo units and digital delay lines have come into use in the studio and on stage. These are more subtle, spatial effects, used to give depth to a record and enhance a guitar track, rather than drastically modify it.

Of all the effects used, probably the phasor and it’s two close relatives, the flanger and the chorus box, are in the widest use among country players. Waylon Jennings was one of the first to embrace the phasor, and it has become a part of his guitar sound; Hank Williams, Jr. uses a chorus box made by Boss, and more than any other sound, the phased, flanged or chorused guitar is prominent on today’s country hits.

Perhaps one reason why country musicians don’t use a lot of effects is due to the nature of the instrumentation in a country band. Steel guitar,, fiddle, dobro, banjo and guitars are hard enough to keep in tune with one another, especially the steel guitar and the fiddle. Too many electronic gadgets tends to muddy the sound so much that it takes on a dissonant quality. In rock music, where extended solos still are prevalent in concerts, the guitarist often calls upon a variety of special effects to perk up an otherwise boring and tedious exercise in flashy playing, but in country, the solos are much more compact and to the point, and thus the players have to rely less on gadgets than on their fingers.

If American popular music is anything, it is this synthesis of styles and traditions from the blues, gospel and folk music that comprises the flesh and bones of both rock and country music.

This is not to say that recent crossover country artists have not used some of rock music’s pet sounds. Eddie Rabbitt’s “Rainy Nights” had a distorted guitar solo, and even a hard country artist like Merle Haggard has had some slightly distorted guitar sounds on some of his more recent work, particularly on his last album for MCA, Back To The Barrooms, where a Stratocaster was prominently featured on the album, rather than the more familiar Telecaster sound of Merle’s lead guitarist, Roy Nichols, who is one of the masters of the country Telly sound. And the solo on Rdnnie Milsap’s “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It For The World” sounds as if it had some Compression or overdrive added to it, because the guitar solo really' sings and sustains, much more in the rock style than a hard country style.

In fact, there are a number of groups that can go either way, rock or country. The Charlie Daniels Band is a prime example; at the last Volunteer Jam (VIII) the stage was covered with Marshall and Mesa Boogie amplifiers, as well as the smaller Fender amps, and both Daniels and his lead guitarist, Tommy Crain, as well as Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers, were all playing vintage Les Pauls. So there they were in cowboy, hats and boots, with your basic Jimmy Page guitar and map rig! The latest big hit for Daniels is a thing called “Still In Saigon” which sounds for all the world like an old Allman Brothers tune because of its twin lead guitar work, a trademark of the late Duane Allman and Dickey Betts. So it’s hard to classify some of these bands; maybe the classifications just aren’t accurate; maybe record promoters and disc jockeys need the classifications more than the artists and their fans do. One thing is certain: rock and country music go fishin’ in the same creek.

Other groups that can play either rock or. country with equal facility include the Marshall Tucker Band, Hank Williams, Jr. and the Bama Band, Eddie Rabbitt, Bonnie Raitt and the Bump Band, Linda Ronstadt, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dave Edmunds, Joe Ely, Alabama, and yes, even Elvis Costello, who surprised everyone last year with the release of his Almost Blue country album. There are any. number of other groups that can make the transition from glitter to grits with no apparent difficulty. For the musicians, there is really not a lot of difference in the two kinds of music. The trick is to choose material carefully and present it in such a way that the audience feels comfortable with all of it; an abrupt change can be unnerving, but if the sets are well-paced, then the rockers will begin to fidget just about the time the band finishes a couple of country tunes ans starts to rock. Before you know it, they’ve forgotten all about that last Hank Williams tune and are groovin’ on redneck rock. To see a performer walk that fine line between the two genres, to play original music alongside standards by artists of a previous generation, is really a joy. It is the artist as synthesist, and if American popular music is anything, it is this synthesis of styles and traditions from blues, gospel, and folk i; music that comprises the flesh and bones of both rock music and country music.

ARTIST

Alabama

Chet Atkins

Roy Clark

Charlie Daniels

Dave Edmunds

Merle Haggard

Waylon Jennings

George Jones

Johnny Lee

Eddie Rabbitt

Willie Nelson

Bonnie Raitt

Jerry Reed

Albert Lee (Emmylou)

James Burton (Elvis, Emmylou)

Hank Williams, Jr.

Merle Travis

Carl Perkins

You may notice a “Made In America” bias among these prominent figures in country music; almost all of their favorite instruments are made in the States. This holds true only when it comes to guitars,

INSTRUMENT

Music Man double neck 6 over 6.

Gibson, Gretsch, Hascal Haille

Gibson, Byrdland, Ovation Adamas

Les Paul cherry sunburst

Gibson ES335

Fender Telecaster

Fender Telecaster

Martin acoustic, Alvarez acoustic

Ovation electric/acoustic

Ovation electric/acoustic

Martin nylon-string classical

Fender Strat, Gibson ES-175

Peavey T-60

Fender Telecaster

Fender Telecaster

Fender Stratocaster

Gibson (custom-made models)

Peavey T-60

where there is a strong tradition; when it comes to keyboards, drums, amps and sound gear, there is less of an American bias.

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But for all the similarities, and areas where the two musical forms blend together, it should be noted that as far as guitar playing goes, “country” guitar playing is often maligned by rockers who think it is too easy. To those disciples of heavy metal guitar, I can only say, “Try it some time.” Try taking all the distortion, all the echo, and all the sustain, overdrive, compression, chorusing and everything else away from the guitar. Plug it straight into the amp. Add maybe a little reverb. NOW: Let’s hear a little “Malaguena” in the style of Roy Clark. Or how ’bout “Cascade” by Chet Atkins? Maybe a little “Reedology” by Jerry Reed? Now pick up the acoustic guitar and gimme “Black Mountain Rag” by Doc Watson. Hell, I’ll settle for “Cannonball Rag” by Merle Travis. Having trouble? Need help? Polly want some feedback?

I’m not suggesting that every guitar player should play these kinds of songs; but I am saying that no guitar player should scoff at this kind of playing. It is simply too good to dismiss categorically. For all the cornpone jokes, the sequined suits, and the maudlin themes in the songs, country music still retains at its core some of the most brilliant guitarwork put on wax.