Music videos that feature Thunderbirds

[uwe]

Poor backing band. As usual, they probably didn't have a single rehearsal with him.

[Dave W]

And he probably chewed them out afterwards, if he didn't chew them out on stage. But he's Chuck, and that's what he does.

[Rob]

Poor backing band. As usual, they probably didn't have a single rehearsal with him.

I didn't think Chuck ever rehearsed with his sidemen.  Just expected them to know his stuff and follow the changes.

[Highlander]

Only ever wrote one song, and everyone, including us all here, has covered it...

[Stjofön Big]

That bass player, Billy Kinsley, might have been sole responsible for that dum-de-dum corny beat that, from the early 70's, came to be the standard of bass playing for Mr Berry. "Just follow the bass drum, kid!" Boring, boring, boring.
But Kinsley had been around earlier on. He was the bass player of The Merseybeat before he split in -64, and was replaced by the excellent John Gustafson. Kinsley later returned to form The Merseys of Sorrow fame.
As far as I know, The Merseybeats were the first group to use T-bird/F-bird bass, and guitars. Looked real coool! http://www.lastfm.se/music/The+Merseybeats/+images/94455281

[uwe]

Big hair, a bird and a Bird, New Country & a Queen chestnut ...

[Pilgrim]

That's a great remake, Uwe.  I really enjoyed that.

That's only a "cover" in that people know some of the lyrics to sing along with it...which IMO is a big plus.

[uwe]

They've countrified it in a way that now all of the sudden the Queen original sounds country'ish to me!

[Granny Gremlin]

Poor backing band. As usual, they probably didn't have a single rehearsal with him.

Chuck hit the odd bum note in there too so, whatever.

[Pilgrim]

They've countrified it in a way that now all of the sudden the Queen original sounds country'ish to me!

I like that.  It shows you how music can cross genres.  If Los Straitjackets can play this tune surf style, then ANYTHING can be done surf style...



Or this one, straight out of the big band era...

[Dave W]

The Band Perry is every bit as country as Rachel Dolezal is black.

[Highlander]

Claws away, Dave...

The latter is quite news-worthy here too...

[uwe]

The Band Perry is every bit as country as Rachel Dolezal is black.

Oh my, it's New Country, pop music with country elements and country inspired instrumentation, Dave, get over it! It has long become its own music form and industry. Blame Poco, The Eagles and Garth Brooks or whatever.  Granted, with The Band Perry, the bass player does tend to want to look like a hard rocker. But Country Pop really is nothing new.



The definition of what constitutes country and what doesn't is about as fruitful as the one trying to determine what real blues is and what isn't.  You will never be able to develop abstract criteria that work for all cases.

[Pilgrim]

Back when I started as a DJ (1968) we did indeed have both kinds of music - country AND western!  I like ballads, and I remember Dick Curless' "Heartline Special" was one of my faves:



...and another was Marty Robbins' "El Paso" which was 9 years old and still a highly requested song....(c'mon, click on it, you know you want to hear it one more time...)



Unfortunately, we still had a lot of stuff like Roy Acuff's version of "Great Speckled Bird" which was old-style southern hymn made into a "country" record.  Never did anything for me at all, and I tend to shudder a bit when I hear it.

And I don't recommend listening for more than 60 seconds...



But that style of music has long been abandoned by all but the most nostalgic country artists.  Now as noted above, we have pop music with a country overlay.  IMO much of it is better than current pop music, although I'm not a country listener.

[uwe]

Blues and country were the core of rock. And as rock grew legs in the 60ies it looked at some of its roots more closely and bands such as Buffalo Springfield, The Birds, Gram Parsons or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band took on board country influences while bands such as Ten Years After, Chicken Shack, Fleetwood Mac and Canned Heat looked closer at the blues. Some bands looked at both (Rolling Stones).

For a long time there seemed to be a greater influence of country on rock than the other way around, I remember bands as diverse as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Band, Flying Burrito Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Eagles, Poco and even America or Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show all being referred to as "country rock" here in Europe in the 70ies. And some bands played country tunes where you would haver never thought it: 



But come around the 80ies and 90ies, rock had become such a prevalent force in popular music that its influences started running into country music - and that led to the emergence of New Country in which I hear traces of U2, AOR (of the Journey, REO and Foreigner type) and even LA pop/hair metal.

And I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing - it certainly has dusted off country music on one hand and raised recognition in rock quarters where that music initially also sprang from (other than the blues).

The discussion whether a piece of music now qualifies for "real" or just "new" country does remind me a bit of the furor Herr Zimmermann caused when he strapped a Strat around his shoulder at the Newport Festival in the early 60ies and was all of the sudden no longer perceived as a folkie by the diehards. Incidentally, I'm seeing him on Friday once again and he will no doubt be shifting from country to rock to folk to blues effortlessly from song to song.