Country music has created its fair share of superstars, icons and tragic figures, from Brooks & Dunn to Hank Williams to Patsy Cline; charlatans and chanteuses; white-hatted good guys like George Strait and black-clad firebrands like Johnny Cash. But it's also the lone American musical genre to also produce a sage among its ranks: Willie Nelson. He's that rare caliber of artist who can be signified by one name. His book The Tao of Willie… more »
Robert Charles Guidry was leaving a diner in his native Louisiana when he heard the words that would forever make him Bobby Charles. "See you later, alligator," the 17-year-old jive-talked to a friend, only to hear, like a gospel call-and-response, "In a while, crocodile" from a neighboring patron.
He had been playing teen soirees with a combo called the Cardinals (no relation to the r&b vocal group of the same name) in the small town of… more »
Whither country music - or will it wither? Most of the c&w on strut at the recent CMA awards had more to do with 80's power-rock and 00's teen-pop than the morning farm report. In recent years, an alt-country movement in such Willy-billy suburbs as Brooklyn's Williamsburg has waved a country flag, along with a taste for trucker's caps and Pabst Blue Ribbon. This isn't a sudden outcropping on the range; ever since Gram Parsons… more »
