[Scotty]

I love the blues. Especially slide and harmonica laden blues. My son says it sounds a lot like country. I almost let him out of the truck...

So what is it about country that I really don't like? I mean there's the odd song I like as long as it has a rockin beat and minimal lap steel, but both genres appear to be doing the same "woe was me" thing, only one "I'm like, yeah man, that sucks...I hear ya" and the other is "start acting like a man and quit yer cryin!"

 

[Robert1950]

You may want to start indoctrinating you son. Go to YouTube and play him Robert Johnson, Son House etc. and maybe Howling Wolf. They find a couple examples of classic country hurtin' music and play that. Sort of like the two extremes, just to start.

 

[Distortion]

Too each their own. I love country and if it is a great player even better. But myself I am so sick of tired old blues or another SRV clone. Can't change the track fast enough. If i hear Cold Shot at a jam one more time you will be reading about it in the paper.

 

[Krelf]

I love the blues too, and I also can't stomach country. When I was a child I was frequently told by my father that country music was what simpletons listened to.

Last May I went to a fireworks display, but they had a country group playing and as soon as I heard the lap steel, I turned the car around and went home. I can't take the corny lyrics and the over sized narcissistic stooges in cowboy hats playing three chord songs about trucks, capricious women and US patriotism.

And most of those guys have never been west of the Mississippi.

 

[bw66]

For me, they are both genres where I don't like much, but the stuff I do like, I like a lot.

 

[cheezyridr]

the roots of them come from different places. also, it depends on the type of country or blues, and what era it's from.

 

[BGood]

Maybe it's the audience you don't relate to ? For me that is definitively it.

 

[Granny Gremlin]

Country ("Hillbilly Blues") was always more populist than blues which tends to be more rootsy. That's how you get Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy out of what was once generally a down home mashup of mostly blues, with folk and gospel and all sorts of other stuff... and with blues, the worst you get is retired guy rock.

I never thought I'd see the day I defended country, but Cash never cried about nothin. Yer son's not (completely) wrong, but just cause 2 things come from the same place don't mean they're traveling together.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Blues, country, rock, pop, whatever, there's 20% good and 80% crap. Plus you have to admit it's much easier to write blues lyrics than tell a country story. I prefer blues any day but some country song writers are master story tellers.

 

[zontar]

Why do I like blues but dislike country?

Because you have good taste in music?

 

[High/Deaf]

Blues and country are huge (hyyyyyuuuuuuuge, as DT would say) categories. There is no one blues or country definition so I could see you playing someone a blues and a country song and having them hate B and like C. And then play them two different blues and country songs and then they like C and hate B.

How do you lump ABB's Stormy Monday in with a 30's acoustic version of Dust My Broom? Or any Hank Snow song along side a rippin' Brad Paisley country song? Those categories are just too limiting, like Rock became 40 years ago.

 

[Guest]

 

[mhammer]

The two genres each cover such a wide arc, that I don't know if it is possible to like the one categorically, and dislike the other categorically. I feel pretty confident in suggesting that there would be some "blues" that you might dislike or consider disposable, and some forms of "country" that you'd like a lot. I suspect there would also be some music that you might call blues that others would adamantly insist is country, and vice versa.

But yeah, there is crap in virtually ever genre of music that aims for popular appeal. Where music is used around the world for ceremonial purposes, rather than for seeking popularity and the money attached to it, there tends not to be quite so much crap. Not that it is all listenable to every person, but one is unlikely to find the locals muttering "You call that a chant? It's crap. Sing me a real chant."

 

[Lord-Humongous]

You haven't been exposed to good country music. Yet.
Margo Price has a great throwback sound, she is produced by Jack White. And you cannot ignore the awesome steel guitar, twangy singing, telecasters, its irresistible.

 

[sorbz62]

You haven't been exposed to good country music. Yet.
Margo Price has a great throwback sound, she is produced by Jack White. And you cannot ignore the awesome steel guitar, twangy singing, telecasters, its irresistible.

Complete and utter cockwomble shite.

Country AAANNNDDD Western music is shallow music for narrow-minded, uneducated, ******* 'Mericuns. I detest the vocals where every word is dragged up from deep below the note. It spoils every C&W song.

Blues is going the same way. If I have to hear another heavy blues artist like SRV, Phillip Sayce and so on, or have to suffer badly played versions of Johnny Be Good or Pride and Joy at jam nights again, I'm moving to an island with my banjo!

Whilst we're at it, CCR , the Doors, Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles are NOT classic rock but middle of the road soft-rock crap.

Just my tuppence worth.

Love you all,
Jim

 

[Lord-Humongous]

Lol, you just made my day Jim!

 

[Lord-Humongous]

Oops, double post.

 

[Steadfastly]

I think the OP is 100% correct. Those leaving, hurting, drinking and broken-heart songs are only found in country music.

Elvis Presley-Heartbreak Hotel is just one. There is a plethora of others in all kinds of music genres.

rock break up songs - YouTube

pop breakup songs - YouTube

pop drinking songs - YouTube

 

[Scotty]

My original post was not to criticize or insult those who like country. Do your thing. Me, still cant go there. Sorry, Margo doesn't do it for me, but I tried.The country stuff I DO like has a groove and fast beat. Piano is good, no lap steel. No twangy. No whiny vocals. No fiddle (though I like fiddle in maritime type music) and exception being that famous Charlie Daniels Band song

As for blues, I am more into the modern or rockin blues. Yep, SRV fan here...sorry, but the man was an animal on that Strat. So was Gary Moore. Runners up KWS, David Gogo, Steve Hill...all bad ass bluesmen. Then there's Colin James, Gary Clark JR, John Mayer, good ol Mr Gibbons, Bonnie Rait, Sonny Landreth, Johhny Lang...etc. Sure, I like some of the older blues greats like EC, Buddy Guy, John Lee, Howlin Wolf etc, but I gravitate to the more recent, harder players. Then again, I grew up with hard rock, so my tastes are closer to hard rock than soft. Play it hard or put it away sort of thing

 

[Guest]

No fiddle (though I like fiddle in maritime type music) and exception being that famous Charlie Daniels Band song