What are some of your favourite country music albums?

Nice harmonies. The Oak Ridge Boys are interesting how they've changed their shape and sound across the decades, while retaining their country gospel core. My mother played them a lot when I was growing up.

She also plays the Statler Brothers and the Louvin Brothers a lot to this day. Jean Shepard recorded a quirky, zippy version of 'Flowers On The Wall' with the Second Fiddles.

Please do include anything you like. I'm keen to explore more Americana bands as I've been listening to Wilco albums this year. Guitarist Nels Cline played in two of my favourite bands, the Geraldine Fibbers and Scarnella, who had a strong country flavour.

Carla Bozulich of the Geraldine Fibbers and Scarnella came from the industrial scene (she was in Ethyl Meatplow) but she's worked with Willie Nelson. She recorded her own version of Nelson's album 'Red Headed Stranger' (1975) in 2003.

It was NJToTx who told me several years back how Texan Phil Ochs was folk but not country, so you can imagine my surprise to now see Ochs listed under "country rock" at Wikipedia. I knew he was rooted in the folk club circuit, but as with Oklahoman Hoyt Axton, some feel Ochs drifted from folk in to country composition at points in his career.

I'm afraid I struggle often to tell the difference between folk and country and I'm generally terrible when it comes to labels and classifications; Emmylou Harris' album 'Gliding Bird' (1969) is a firm folk favourite yet I still don't know if she is believed to have later strayed in to country territory.

Seeing as it can be so difficult for some people to discern what genre of music something falls under - and I'm one of those people that can find it extremely difficult - I often look for ways to dodge the question completely. For example, I don't really understand why the Band and Neil Young are sometimes on country music lists, but other times, not.

Country rock music I enjoy from the late 1960s seems to largely swirl around the same set of musicians, performers who were active on America's psychedelicised west coast scene around that time. Were Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, the Grateful Dead or Bread ever country enough to be definitively categorised as being country rock? I honestly have no idea. Or, how about a group like the Beau Brummels who changed musical direction towards the end of the decade?

In 1970, albums like 'American Beauty' (1970) by the Grateful Dead, 'Copperfields' (1970) by the Dillards and 'Poco' (1970) by Poco showed the country rock subgenre was flourishing. By 1971, debut albums like 'Redwing' (1971) by Redwing, 'Eagles' (1972) by the Eagles, 'Manassas' (1972) by Manassas and 'Pure Prairie League' (1972) by Pure Prairie League were rapidly reshaping the musical landscape while advancing studio production techniques.

Neil Young brought in country & western session players to record the album 'Harvest' (1972) and created a work that has endured across the decades, influencing countless musicians across the musical spectrum. A transitioning between folk and country had been happening for a while as demonstrated by longplayers like 'David's Album' (1969) by Joan Baez, 'Greatest Hits' (1970) by Phil Ochs and 'Summer Side Of Life' (1971) by Gordon Lightfoot, while Oklahomans J.J. Cale and Leon Russell got busy mixing country blues cocktails flavoured with the fruits of folk, drawing from their time spent living and working in California.

Perhaps the albums of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) compound this musical conundrum in my mind. Creedence Clearwater Revival incorporated elements of Mississippian blues, Kentuckian bluegrass, Texan rock 'n' rattle and Louisianan swamp boogie within a heady rock 'n' roll stew convulsing with evolving rhythms and shifting musical cadences, so why are they not considered a country rock band? Or, are they?
Well, for me at least, nothing caps a folk-based exploration quite like engaging with the pure, unadulterated, rhythmic madness of 'Cosmo's Factory' (1970).

So I ask myself, just how might a dedicated music theorist dissect the genrebending works of a band like Creedence Clearwater Revival? It's a mystery to me. Yet there's a new documentary on the band, led by narration from Jeff Bridges who won a Best Actor Academy Award for 'Crazy Heart' (2009) in which he offered a thinly veiled portrait of country star and drinkin' song enthusiast Hank Thompson. Perhaps this documentary may yet shed some light. It's called 'Travelin' Band : Creedence Clearwater Revival At The Royal Albert Hall' (2022) and I'm looking forward to seeing it, if it's made available on dvd.

The group's use of grounded instruments like the harmonica, cowbell, maracas, gutbucket and washboard helped crystallise their raw studio sound on the album 'Willie And The Poorboys' (1969) which music critics today say brought their rootsy voodoo back home. From then on in, the group's progressive, psychedelic stewballs incorporated elements of swamp boogie, full-tilt boogie and southern-fried boogie (at irregular intervals). Concise soul workouts rubbed shoulders with extended space rock ruminations, culminating in perhaps their most divisive epic, 'Rude Awakening #2', while the band's tried and tested, rhythm and blues hyperextensions continued to be underpinned by hard-edged, rock 'n' roll riffage.


When stripped back to a 3-piece for 'Mardi Gras' (1972), it became clear the party was over. The band's first disappointing album saw them go full-blown country on tracks like 'Lookin' For A Reason' and 'Tearin' Up The Country', but it felt like simple misdirection (or a lack of material). Creedence Clearwater Revival split in 1972 and John Fogerty recorded 'The Blue Ridge Rangers' (1973), an album said to be inspired by his passion for bluegrass music. By this time, Tom Fogerty had already released two solo albums, 'Tom Fogerty' (1972) and 'Excalibur' (1972).

So, I ask, was it country music and its grasp that ultimately killed off the Creedence Clearwater Revival?

Another band it seems who hold connections to Wilco (in their case, that can be traced back to Chicago, Illinois). Thanks!