cmt raze i love country music. i mean the real stuff, written and performed by people who didn't know how to be inauthentic. folks like emmylou harris. hank williams. johnny cash. kris kristofferson. patsy_cline. lindi ortega. gram parsons. matraca berg. waylon jennings. the louvrin brothers. i can't say the pop pablum with pedal steel guitar that calls itself country these_days does much for me. so maybe it's a little strange that i would miss a now-defunct cable television channel that was steeped in that second thing. but i do. it's been dead for nine years now, and i'll still have dreams sometimes where i'm looking for something to watch on tv. usually i settle for whatever they're showing on cmt. last_night it was a double bill. first, keith urban toured a county fair while smiling his way through "somebody like you" or a song just like it. after he failed to find whoever he was searching for, the young dixie chicks occupied the same setting. "when my feet have all moved in, we'll find a way to all fit in," natalie maines sang. she followed those words with a wordless falsetto wail that made her sound a lot less certain than she tried to make herself seem. it made me want to step into the scene and hug her. this wasn't that kind of dream. so i watched and waited for the chorus to come back around again, hoping to hear that lonely little melody one more time. but never's_just_the_echo_of_forever. asleep or awake, i know how stories of this sort end. 250503 ... nr i love real country too. i'll add gillian welch, townes van zandt, dolly parton, willie nelson, and many more to this list. then there's the alt-country stuff, like neko case, the sadies, some of wilco, one of angel olsen's albums, and again always more. pedal steel sounds pretty good in a lot of that stuff. 250504 ... ovenbird Same. Same! I would add Patty Griffin. Her album 1000 Kisses has some really fantastic songs on it. It straddles the line between country and folk and I come back to it often. 250504 ... raze so much yes to all of this. i gave "blacklisted" a listen not so long ago after going far too long without having neko_case in my ears, and it was even better than i remembered it being. 250504 ... warmthofrelease if a stereotypical country fan were to ask me who's my favorite country artist, I would ask them whether Gillian_Welch counts. She is one of the world's most precious gifts. There are few records more fulfilling than Time and Soul_Journey. Why does she sing so pretty. Why does she have to melt me every time. 250504 what's it to you? who go blather from