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Despite its Grand Ol' Opery fame, on the ground Nashville has a diversity of musicians because of musical infrastructure, cost of living, and a social normality

Despite its Grand Ol' Opery fame, on the ground Nashville has a diversity of musicians because of musical infrastructure, cost of living, and a social normality of musicianship. Of course Nashville is not a hothouse of radical music, but we are talking about Americana right?

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
I speak of the corporate "Nashville" music publishing scene that controls what gets promoted as the latest flavor of "Country", not what happens locally in the city. A lot of what gets classed as Americana would have been played on country radio into the 70s.
- brudgers 2y ago
  Pedal steel is perhaps the most Americana of instruments; there were few pedal steel players better than Jerry Garcia, and few bands with larger repertoires of Americana than the Grateful Dead. In the 1970’s, the Grateful Dead weren’t played on country radio. Indeed they were barely on radio at all anywhere until Touch of Gray in the mid 1980’s. And then only because of MTV…which in the early days refused to air videos by black musicians. Nashville was no different from the rest of US pop culture industry then. And is no different today. Americana still fares much better there than EDM, Punk, and Rap.
  - dmurray 2y ago
    According to Wikipedia they aired music by Black musicians from day 1, with the Specials among others in their first program [0]. They were criticized for not having enough black acts. That's a reasonable criticism, but let's not make it sound like some kind of apartheid. They made a commercial decision about what genres to focused on, rather than something racially motivated. They didn't air many videos by country singers or classical violinists either. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV
    - brudgers 2y ago
      You can see MTV’s “string of black faces” rationalizing in the Bowie interview: https://youtu.be/XZGiVzIr8Qg?si=T1RmgwQiqOP_GiNE https://youtu.be/XZGiVzIr8Qg?si=T1RmgwQiqOP_GiNE Wikipedia’s article whitewashes the actual history. We were watching MTV and smoking weed in those Reagan’s America days. — In fairness the US music industry had the race music chart which became the R&B chart to keep black musicians off the pop chart and Elvis’s controversy was singing black music…and consequently being played on white radio stations to white kids.
      - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        Lots of white artists were repackaging black recordings for segregated radio play in the 40s and 50s. It was routine in that era for any popular song to be covered by many artists within the same year, so it wasn't entirely insidious but there was a definite whitewashing going on with more than just Elvis. Georgia Gibbs is a notable case. Elvis' controversy was more the "sexualized" dancing which was among the things sanitized out of the covers.
greenavocado 2y ago
[flagged]

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago

I speak of the corporate "Nashville" music publishing scene that controls what gets promoted as the latest flavor of "Country", not what happens locally in the city. A lot of what gets classed as Americana would have been played on country radio into the 70s.

brudgers 2y ago
Pedal steel is perhaps the most Americana of instruments; there were few pedal steel players better than Jerry Garcia, and few bands with larger repertoires of Americana than the Grateful Dead. In the 1970’s, the Grateful Dead weren’t played on country radio. Indeed they were barely on radio at all anywhere until Touch of Gray in the mid 1980’s. And then only because of MTV…which in the early days refused to air videos by black musicians. Nashville was no different from the rest of US pop culture industry then. And is no different today. Americana still fares much better there than EDM, Punk, and Rap.
- dmurray 2y ago
  According to Wikipedia they aired music by Black musicians from day 1, with the Specials among others in their first program [0]. They were criticized for not having enough black acts. That's a reasonable criticism, but let's not make it sound like some kind of apartheid. They made a commercial decision about what genres to focused on, rather than something racially motivated. They didn't air many videos by country singers or classical violinists either. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV
  - brudgers 2y ago
    You can see MTV’s “string of black faces” rationalizing in the Bowie interview: https://youtu.be/XZGiVzIr8Qg?si=T1RmgwQiqOP_GiNE https://youtu.be/XZGiVzIr8Qg?si=T1RmgwQiqOP_GiNE Wikipedia’s article whitewashes the actual history. We were watching MTV and smoking weed in those Reagan’s America days. — In fairness the US music industry had the race music chart which became the R&B chart to keep black musicians off the pop chart and Elvis’s controversy was singing black music…and consequently being played on white radio stations to white kids.
    - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
      Lots of white artists were repackaging black recordings for segregated radio play in the 40s and 50s. It was routine in that era for any popular song to be covered by many artists within the same year, so it wasn't entirely insidious but there was a definite whitewashing going on with more than just Elvis. Georgia Gibbs is a notable case. Elvis' controversy was more the "sexualized" dancing which was among the things sanitized out of the covers.

greenavocado 2y ago

[flagged]