Changing of the Guard: What Happened to Country Music?
The question I get asked the most is, “what happened to country music?” Most answers to this question are going to be somewhat subjective, because who really knows. I have given this question considerable thought and study and have concluded a somewhat rational answer. Country music aged and came to an abrupt changing of the guard. Not only did the music age, but the people behind the scenes; the producers, the artists and repertoire (A&R) regime, the sidemen and songwriters, also aged.
During the golden years (1940s-1970s) country music artists had a lasting talent which kept them popular beyond their formative years. By the early-1970s, country music sales were soaring. More than ever, country music was appealing to a younger generation and that appeal led to an influx of young artist, sidemen and songwriters. During that time the old guard (producers, A&R regime, sidemen and songwriters) wasn’t prepared for the influx of new talent.
In the early-1970s, Bob Johnston, A&R director for Columbia Records, Nashville Division stated in an interview; “Country songs and country music are booming as never before. Look at night clubs, look at sales. Look at the country songs breaking into the pop field. Look at the pop artists recording country songs for sale to a young audience.”
At the time, several in the Nashville recording regime recognized that many country songs were moving over to the pop charts, a strong indication that young people were buying the songs. Surveys also indicated that the average visitor to the Grand Ole Opry was much younger.
Because of the soaring record and concert sales, the Nashville regime wanted the young country music artists to become stars overnight. That had never happened before and it wasn’t going to happen with the old guard. Nashville had the same sidemen, the same producers and the same writers on almost every record. The old regime's paradigms were not aligned with those of the much younger talent. The gap between the young and the old was wide. The old guard wasn't very enthusiastic about working with the young talent and the young artists really didn't have much in common with the old guard. Therefore, most of the old guard chose to retire, instead of working with the young artists in an effort to narrow the gap.
Just as there was an influx of new young talent, there was a mass exodus of the old guard. Country music aged and came to an abrupt changing of the guard. Instead of a gradual change, it happened almost overnight. A gradual change may have retained some of the core elements that established bluegrass, western swing, honky-tonk and old-time gospel.
As a result, there was a complete reinvention of the country music wheel. The new Nashville regime of singers, songwriters and producers plotted a new course for country music. The path they took didn’t require instruments like the steel guitar, fiddle, standup bass guitar, mandolin or the banjo. The path they forged didn't require creative songwriters, distinguished sidemen or seasoned producers.
Without Chet Atkins, Harlan Howard, Dallas Frazier, Owen Bradley, Frank Jones, Ken Nelson, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells, Bob Moore, Jimmy Day and Ray Edenton to mentor the new guard, country music transformed beyond its original identity and took an irreversible course.
~ Richard Bell, Dec. 2011.
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Mr. Bell is a country music historian who resides in Nashville Tennessee.
