IT wasn't so long ago that country music was the genre that darednot speak its name outside the trailer park. Confessing to liking itwas akin to admitting to a taste for wife-beating and bumperstickers that read 'They'll take my gun when they prise it from mycold dead fingers'. Things are changing. Being caught with a BillyRay Cyrus record should still be a hanging offence but there is acountry sub-genre which is rapidly becoming not just acceptableamong right-thinking society but even fashionable. It is related tomainstream Nashville country music but, like estranged sons andfathers, neither side acknowledges the other.
Chicago's Bloodshot Records is prominent among the new music'saficionados and their attitude towards Nashville is summed up intheir website plea to 'help us keep our steel-toed work boots firmlyon the throats of the rhinestone-encrusted enemies'.
The new music goes under the name of alt.country or Americana orinsurgent country or country rock or twangcore or whatever you like.None of them fit the genre properly but they all invoke an aspect ofthe music. Alt.country is possibly the most significant as the dotcurtailing the 'alternative' points towards the internet, which haspropagated the growth of much of the music.
It has been bubbling under for quite a while. Some trace it toGram Parsons who was making his posthumously released album GrievousAngel when he died in 1973. Others say Johnny Cash was one of itsoriginal pioneers. A more concrete explanation has it thatalt.country started when a band called Uncle Tupelo formed in theMidwest in the mid-Eighties. Combining a punk spirit withtraditional American musical themes, they crystalised an ethosothers had started before them and which others have continued toexplore after they split.
It is a broad church. Alt.country can sound raucous like a barroom brawl, or melancholy and despairing. It is often sung through aprism of booze blues but without the sentimentality of conventionalNashville. It refers to a past where people cooked up moonshine andlived in places that were a day's ride from their neighbours. Notthat most of the genre's musicians could tell a horse from theirass. Untypically for an American-rooted music, it often celebratesthe nobility of the loser. Hearts are invariably broken. It is notan overtly rebellious music. It might be about individuals doingthings their own way but they aren't shouting about it. Where Eminemmight flip the bird, the alt.country practitioner is more likely tosmile, shrug and carry on with what they are doing.
Alt.country has always been a ramshackle affair, lacking thecohesive aims of other musical movements. Some of its unwilling yetleading lights would even question that it really exists. JayFarrar, formerly of Uncle Tupelo and now of Son Volt, has said:"traditionally inspired music, or whatever you want to call it, fora long time has been viewed as unhip so a lot of people who enjoy itband together. I don't know if I think of it necessarily in thesense of a movement though".
If it is not a movement then it is certainly a growingphenomenon. Billy Kelly started the Big Big Country festival inGlasgow in 1995. Back then it lasted a weekend. This year it grew toa 10-day affair. "There is a growing interest in this music," saysKelly. "A lot of these artists are coming over here much moreregularly and the news spreads by word of mouth."
Jim White, Smog and Bonnie Prince Billy have played Scotland inthe last month while Jolene and the Cash Brothers, the HandsomeFamily and Lucy Kaplansky will all play here in the next few weeks.And earlier this month the Barbican in London put on a mini-festival of alt.country entitled Beyond Nashville: The Twisted Heartof Country.
Five years ago, this level of alt.country activity would havebeen unimaginable but in the last couple of years two things havehappened which have really moved alt.country from backroom to centrestage. First up is the astounding success of the soundtrack to theCoen brothers' movie O Brother, Where Art Thou. Rudy Osorio of HMVin the UK calls it "one of the best-selling original soundtracksthat we have had in the last 18 months". In the States, it has soldover two million copies. Not bad for an album composed of Depression-era songs performed by alt.country artists and a kick in the shinywhite teeth for the air-brushed, perma-tanned mainstream countrystars. That means you, Garth.
"We have always liked it," says Ethan Coen. "The mountain music,the delta blues, gospel, the chain-gang chants that would laterevolve into bluegrass, commercial country and rock 'n' roll. It iscompelling music in its own right, harking back to a time when musicwas a part of everyday life and not something performed bycelebrities."
One of the knock-on effects of the soundtrack album has been anincreased interest in the alt.country artists featured on it. WhenGillian Welch appeared in Glasgow three years ago she sold out abasement that held 50 people. Following on from her involvement withO Brother, Where Art Thou she was on course to sell out theFruitmarket at a subsequently cancelled concert earlier this year.
At the same time as this was happening, alt.country has quietlyproduced a figurehead in the shape of 26-year-old Ryan Adams. Mostmusical genres need a focus. Kurt Cobain was grunge's reluctantfrontman and Adams has already been compared to Seattle's mostfamous son. Naturally, he is having none of it but, since his recentalbum Gold entered the British charts in the top 20, success andattention look likely to be thrust upon him. That he recently datedWinona Ryder has nothing to do with his music but it certainly uppedhis celeb status.
Alt.country musicians have never had to think in terms of celebstatus much before this summer but that will change. In mostcircles, a penchant for alt.country was at best glossed over and atworst viewed as suffering from aural leprosy. Within a year look outfor Adams and his ilk popping up in Heat magazine. If Gram Parson'sbody hadn't been burnt in the Joshua Tree desert it would bespinning in its grave and whooping with laughter as it whirled. n
The Handsome Family play The Arches, Glasgow, tonight; TrishMurphy plays the Tron, Glasgow, tomorrow; Jolene and the CashBrothers play the Ferry, Glasgow, December 2; Lucy Kaplansky playsThe Ferry, Glasgow, December 6
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