Separating the plastic from the genuine article 

Melba Montgomery died in January. She was my second favorite all-time female country music singer. George Strait has semi-retired. Alan Jackson is battling health issues. I’m telling you, as real country singers go, Gene Watson and Moe Bandy are about all we have left.

And this is not a treatise on the sad state of country music today. It’s simply a small tribute to Gene and Moe. People can sing, listen, and dance to anything their hearts desire. I’m all for that. They can label it anything they want to. 

But don’t call it country if you didn’t grow up listening to Little Jimmy Dickens, Red Foley, and Minnie Pearl on the world famous Grand Ole Opry. Don’t call it country if you didn’t hang around the City Café praying someone with money would slip a nickel in the jukebox and play George Jones’ latest hit. Don’t call it country if you think Kitty Wells was a place cats went to get water.

Kenny Rogers was a great singer. He sang with “The New Christy Minstrels” and the “First Addition” before turning country. I really enjoyed all of his music. And he had several great hits. But I never considered him “country.” He was a little too smooth. He didn’t “eat them beans, wear them jeans, and pick and grin with us.”

I have friends that disagree with my opinion of Kenny Rogers. And I respect their right to do so.

They probably don’t agree with my thoughts on the industry as a whole. But putting on a Stetson hat, a brightly embroidered shirt, a pair of Justin boots, and walking out on stage with a D-28 Martin guitar in your hand doesn’t make you a country music singer.

I’m not saying they can’t sing. Quite the contrary, a lot of them are very good. But there is a down-home feeling involved with country music. A realism that can not be manufactured. Deep roots that you can’t shortcut or circumvent. Country music writer Nat Stuckey hit the nail on the head when he penned, “Don’t give me no plastic saddle, let me feel the leather when I ride.”

Nat also wrote, “I’ve got the hungries for your love, and I’m waitin’ in your welfare line.” If you were ever “head over heels” for that special one in your younger days, ole Nat was singing your song. If you stayed out late partying and carrying on till 3 a.m. in your older days, Nat had a song that might save your marriage. When he found himself in this situation, he called home immediately and explained, “Don’t pay the ransom honey I’ve escaped.” 

A lot of guys in the business today attended Belmont University’s School of Music. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that. But I don’t think Hank Williams did it that way. I know Melba didn’t. Nor Ray Price or Faron Young. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs quit school early to start playing country music.

I went through the rock and roll craze as a young teenager. Me and LaRenda Bradfield even danced along with Chubby Checker a time or two. Fun, but not much substance.

Chubby sang, “Let’s twist again like we did last summer.” Gene Watson told us in song, “Everything except my soul has been surrendered just to satisfy your fourteen carat mind.” Moe Bandy went a step further with, “It was always so easy to find an unhappy woman until I started looking for mine.”

Deep stuff. 

About life, heartache, cheating, getting put in jail, getting out of jail, working 40 hours a week, just bumming around, walking on someone’s fighting side, watching a Sunday morning coming down, removing chains from around a heart, tearing down an outhouse, knee deep in the blues, chasing those neon rainbows, living in a honky-tonk world, and, of course, leaving your home down on the rural route….

Gene Watson bears his Palestine, Texas, heart in every song. That’s the way Roy Acuff, Loretta Lynn, and Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers did it. It is the cornerstone of country music.

Moe Bandy was born in Meridian, Mississippi. You can’t get more country than that. I’ve never seen him in person. Yet!

I got word two weeks ago that Moe is playing at Tuck’s Bar, which is somewhere between Minor Hill, Tennessee (pop. 514), and Salem, Alabama. I’ve got a friend who already has me a ticket. I don’t drink at all, and I’ve lived my whole life trying to stay out of those places.

But, shoot, it’s Moe Bandy! And it’s only 425 miles up there.

You see why I am not sad or complaining about the current state of country music. I full well realize we are down to just two guys who can still sing it, feel it, and relay it all to us as they pour their soul into a country song. So, thank the good Lord we still have Gene Watson and Moe Bandy. I think the genre is in mighty good hands.

I can tell you for sure when I get back from my trip to Tuck’s….uh, um, uh….if I GET BACK from Tuck’s!

Respectfully,

Kes