Time was in high school that I turned my nose up at country. I was part of the nerd crowd and also part of the way too cool for school musical theatre crowd. None of those people would listen to country. Country was reserved for the farm kids who weren't trying to fit in with the coolsters. Country was not cool.
But I expanded my musical horizons when I got to college and discovered that classic country was actually really good music. It was a lot like the folk that I listened to in high school. I still remember the one Christmas I came home from college and my uncle had bought me a Johnny Cash album I had on my wishlist. As I opened it excitedly and immediately threw it in the cd player, my mom looked at me somewhat confusedly and said: "I didn't even know you liked Johnny Cash."
I've been listening to a lot of country music all week. Not the achey-breaky-heart-my-wife-left-me-my-truck-broke- I-shipped-my-last-dollar-on-a-poker-game-oh-what- am-i-gonna-dooooooooooooooooooooooooooo crap (though hey - maybe I could write one of those songs about my life recently). No, I'm talking about
the good stuff: Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, the Statler Brothers, with some Hem, Wood Brothers, and Neko Case (not exactly country, but close enough on the songs I'm talking about) thrown in for good measure.
That's some good stuff. It's no mistake that a large portion of my poker playlist on my iPod is country music.
Mea culpa, country music. Sorry I snubbed you when I was younger and didn't know any better.
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