Crowd pleasers

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

This one is obscure as all get out but people love it. . . .

Most of the groups I've played with do it. Never heard that Wishbone Ash version, and it's a hoot. So — thanks!

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

. . . But an honest listen IMO reveals that today's young players play cleaner, faster, more imaginatively, with better use of dynamics, countermelodies and harmony. It's a natural progression in any field where participants are building on tradition while pushing the boundaries. . . .

Yup! Standing on shoulders, indeed. When something stops improving, that's when to start worrying.

So I worry about singers. Where are all the Laura Nyros, Sam Cooks, Janis Joplins, Otis Reddings, Grace Slicks, Linda Ronstadts, and Aretha Franklins? Who will replace Mick Jagger, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Mavis Staples, and Van Morrison?

Where are the Johnny Cashes, Loretta Lynns, Roy Orbesons, and Patsy Clines? Who will replace Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, and Dolly Parton?

Sure, there are still some good singers, but not many of them are making it to the top of the charts.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

Yup! Standing on shoulders, indeed. When something stops improving, that's when to start worrying.

So I worry about singers. Where are all the Laura Nyros, Sam Cooks, Janis Joplins, Otis Reddings, Grace Slicks, Linda Ronstadts, and Aretha Franklins? Who will replace Mick Jagger, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Mavis Staples, and Van Morrison?

Where are the Johnny Cashes, Loretta Lynns, Roy Orbesons, and Patsy Clines? Who will replace Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, and Dolly Parton?

Sure, there are still some good singers, but not many of them are making it to the top of the charts.

There are still plenty of great singers around but much fewer people are trying to make a living from music these days because it has become too difficult.

Music has been made available to the masses through digital technology and streaming for much lower cost these days but as a result, there is way less money available for musicians to make a living.

I realize this is a subject for another thread, so I will not belabor this. But I will state again that great singers are still around.

- Glenn

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

There are still plenty of great singers around . . . .

- Glenn

Yup, of course they are, as I said. You just wouldn't know it to turn on the radio. You have to drag the river. Everything in American culture began stagnating in the eighties. The river scum stench is overwhelming the roses.

[bfm612]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

There are still plenty of great singers around but much fewer people are trying to make a living from music these days because it has become too difficult...
- Glenn

Maybe it's not necessarily a bad thing that we don't have as much of a monoculture such that we have only a limited number of artists to whom everyone listens. It's great that a lot of artists whom traditional music gatekeepers don't deem 'marketable' don't actually need to be marketable to spread their music around. If people are interested in them, they have access to them. That's a good thing. I'd argue people now have access to more incredible singers compared to before when the country listened to only the same few dozen artists whose records stores carried or songs radios played.

When I read names of artists that people on this forum mention, a lot of them do not have a huge following and would be considered obscure. They may not be huge, but can be incredible nevertheless. So there could be incredible singers outside of this AGF world (imagine that), singers obscure or unknown to us. It's possible that people think there are no great singers even if there are great singers who just don't happen to be household names the way Joni Mitchell or Jackson Browne was.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by bfm612

Maybe it's not necessarily a bad thing that we don't have as much of a monoculture . . . .

I appreciate the sentiment, but I can't help miss the monoculture. When I hear someone who only gets news from MS-NBC arguing with someone who only gets it from Fox News, I long for the days of Cronkite, Murrow, Severeid, and Huntley and Brinkley. People didn't always agree — far from it! — but at least we were seeing the same headlines and living in the same world.

Likewise, I miss the days when you could hear the Stones, Louie Armstrong, Sinatra, the Supremes, Buck Owens, Hendrix, and Johnny Cash and June Carter on the radio without changing the station. In spite of our deep social and political divisions, it was one world. Amazing, when you remember that our continent is three thousand miles wide — twice as far as the distance from London to Moscow.

Now we're hopelessly — I think dangerously — fragmented. Are there any quick fixes? Music can bring people together, but only when we can all hear it.

[Juiced06GTO]

I have received great reactions from some newer stuff that I have been playing. Tyler Childers - Nose to the Grindstone, Whitehouse Road, and Feathers Indians have had huge reactions. Anything by Zack Bryan, but particularly Something in the Orange, Revival, and Heading South.

I also do Pride and Joy on acoustic, and if my buddy is available he will lay down some harp over it for me, that really gets the crowd going. We did a medley of that into Voodo Chile on acoustic that had the place going nuts last week. Midnight train to Memphis and If it hadn't been for lover are good upbeat songs that get the crowd going too.

For older stuff, Into the Mystic, which I usually medely into Free by Zac Brown, Let it Be, Free Falling, and Thunder Road have all earned me some good tips in the jar!

I also throw in Wonderwall, Wagon Wheel, and Nutshell by Alice in Chains, and Let Her Cry by Hootie that seem to be real crowd pleasers too.

[Joe Beamish]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

"Better" is certainly a subjective term. And there's no doubt that today's greats are standing on the shoulders of their musical forebearers.

But I've listened to a lot of Uncle Dave Macon, Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, John Duffy, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Del McCoury, Norman Blake, Sam Bush, and more. No doubt some of the old cats still with us would say they were better than the younger generation. OTOH many of the older guys will and have said the opposite.

Most of the new generation of players I've seen and heard are very gracious and grateful towards their musical predecessors.

But an honest listen IMO reveals that today's young players play cleaner, faster, more imaginatively, with better use of dynamics, countermelodies and harmony. It's a natural progression in any field where participants are building on tradition while pushing the boundaries.

The same reason why today's athletes are continuing to break records.

Cleaner and faster is arguable, and anyway that’s small change. I’m talking about soul, impact and originality.

[bfm612]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

I appreciate the sentiment, but I can't help miss the monoculture...I miss the days when you could hear the Stones, Louie Armstrong, Sinatra, the Supremes, Buck Owens, Hendrix, and Johnny Cash and June Carter on the radio without changing the station. In spite of our deep social and political divisions, it was one world...

Yes, I also look back fondly (sometimes) on the old days when everyone was watching the same big shows at the same time, talking about it at work or school the morning after, etc. I wouldn't want to romanticize things and say "Episode 1 of 'Survivor' brought the country together", but I do get the feeling you're describing, at least in retrospect. It's a nice feeling.

At the same time, being Gen X, I spent an embarrassing amount of time railing against whatever we considered mainstream. As a generation, Gen X tended to devalue what's popular (i.e., what's "pop"), even artists we previously adored but whom we accused of selling out.

Times and attitudes have changed I think for the better at least in this area. Nowadays, even Gen Xers can agree that popularity doesn't automatically make something bad. (A silly idea to begin with.) BUT I'll say I still have a great appreciation for the unjustly underappreciated, all those oddballs we found by diggin' in record stores, because there are so many gems among them. While monoculture maybe fleetingly unites people, I think love of the obscure can help you find your people, which I think as valuable.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Juiced06GTO

I have received great reactions from some newer stuff that I have been playing. Tyler Childers - Nose to the Grindstone, Whitehouse Road, and Feathers Indians have had huge reactions. Anything by Zack Bryan, but particularly Something in the Orange, Revival, and Heading South.

I also do Pride and Joy on acoustic, and if my buddy is available he will lay down some harp over it for me, that really gets the crowd going. We did a medley of that into Voodo Chile on acoustic that had the place going nuts last week. Midnight train to Memphis and If it hadn't been for lover are good upbeat songs that get the crowd going too.

For older stuff, Into the Mystic, which I usually medely into Free by Zac Brown, Let it Be, Free Falling, and Thunder Road have all earned me some good tips in the jar!

I also throw in Wonderwall, Wagon Wheel, and Nutshell by Alice in Chains, and Let Her Cry by Hootie that seem to be real crowd pleasers too.

Nice list. We do "If It Hadn't Been for Love." Wouldn't call it upbeat, though! "Into the Mystic" is another we have fun with.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by bfm612

. . . At the same time, being Gen X, I spent an embarrassing amount of time railing against whatever we considered mainstream. As a generation, Gen X tended to devalue what's popular (i.e., what's "pop"), even artists we previously adored but whom we accused of selling out. . . .

Yup. And that was very boomer, too. (I thought you guys learned it from us!) My high school peers and I called top forty stations Ugly Radio and spent a lot of time bending our ears to folks like Incredible String Band, Pentangle, Tim Hardin, Zappa, Richard and Mimi Farina, Nina Simone, Paul Butterfied, Gary Davis, Sonny and Brownie, and Mississippi John Hurt.

A beloved LP was The Who Sell Out, for obvious reasons. A popular nonfiction book was Theodore Roszak's The Making of a Counterculture. It's some of what Leary's Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out was about: rejection of mainstream culture. (Though I confess, I still think the peak of Clapton's career was with Cream.)

I've always been impressed by the more underground artists who figured out how to hold onto their early followings when they got more popular, like the Dead, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Lou Reed, and Johnny Cash.

What I saw that was different about Gen X wasn't the iconoclasm. That was a core sixties value, too. It was the birth of the snark-and-irony zeitgeist, which has only gotten stronger over the years.* I mean, boomers had it, too, but it didn't define the generation. "Kumbaya" was sincere, not a cynical joke.

(Tell me if I'm off base here. I can take it!)

Originally Posted by bfm612

. . . I think love of the obscure can help you find your people, which I think as valuable.

Amen to that!

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*Don't get me wrong. There's certainly plenty to be snarky and ironic about!