h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

John Denver sold 60 million record albums thanks to songs like
"Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and "Country Roads." I can't help
getting mist in my eyes and a lump in my throat when I hear them.
Pretty strange for a guy who lives in a big city, right? Well, not so
strange.

My parents moved to a small town when I was two years old. 62
years later, the house they built there is still the family home, though I moved away right after college. my father's still there, and my mother was with him until she went to a nursing home last month.

When we first moved there, a working farm still existed in the center of town. There were apple orchards and dairy farms on the hills, and some pig farms tucked away in places where there weren't many neighbors to complain about the smell. The orchards and pig farms are still there. The back roads are still as charming as they used to be....



Country roads, take me home
To the place where I belong...."

Country/Western music is a guilty pleasure with me. Sure, I listen to a classical radio station, but the 20th Century classical composer I enjoy the most is Aaron Copland. He wrote "Rodeo" and "Billy the Kid." He wrote music for movies like "The Red Pony" and "Our Town." He wrote an opera, too: "The Tender Land," which is set in a farming town. His ballet "Appalachian Spring" is about a bunch of townsfolk who come together to help a neighbor build a barn.

I like to think that in a past life I was the piano player in a Western saloon. I would accompany the cowboys as they sang "Home on the Range" or "The Streets of Laredo" or "Bury me Not on the Lone Prairie."

You can still buy CDs of these songs. There's one by Roy Rogers that I hope to buy soon. I used to watch Roy Rogers's TV show when I was a kid. I also enjoyed "Green Acres" and "Hee Haw." There's something warm and funny and lowkey about this music.

In the 1950s, there was an early rock group called the Everly Brothers. They were a crossover act. Their parents were both country singers, and their songs appeared on the both the Country Music and Rock & Roll charts. One of the great country songs of the period [not by the Everlys] was "Tennessee Waltz" [1948], made famous by Patty Page. Halfway around the world, a restaurateur in Taiwan heard the song and was so much in love it that he opened the "Tennessee Restaurant." He was created a fusion cuisine that featured Tennessee ingredients such as corn and sweet potatoes, and Chinese ingredients such as seafood. I ate there in 1989.

As I've made my way in the world in the decades since moving away, I've always noticed who the main country singers were. I enjoyed movies about the lives of Pasty Cline ["Sweet Dreams"], Loretta Lynn ["Coal Miner's Daughter"], and Johnny Cash " ["Walk the Line"]. I learned songs that were new to me -- like "Mama Says a Pistol is the Devil's Right Hand" -- when I watched "Brokeback Mountain."

People have been writing songs about life in the country for hundreds of years. They're still doing it, and there's a huge audience for country music. In the list of people who have sold more than 50 million records, I count at least seven country singers. In no particular order, they are: Willy Nelson, Kenny Rogers, John Denver, Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and Hank Williams Jr. I've acquired CDs by a few of these lately, and am enjoying their music immensely.

You can add Bob Dylan and Neil Young to that list

Thanks for the suggestions, Pierce.

Bob Dylan will be on my list, though I didn't have him figured for a country music icon. He wrote some really great songs as a folk singer, and later as a rock star. Folk music and country music are joined at the hip.

Neil Young's on my list, too. I just googled him, and I see that you're right. Amazon.com says, "Neil Young has always sneaked dollops of the country sound in his music, but 'Old Ways' is one of the times he went all the way." That's really good to know.

Keep the suggestions coming. There's a lot to explore. I just listened to 30 hits by Elvis yesterday. After the first 10 tracks, his singing suddenly got a lot better.

Paul there is a country and western called 'Rhinestone Cowboy' which I was played during my dance exercise classes at my boarding school in Hertfordshire. I can't remember who the singer was, but I did have his LP sometime in the 8o's.

"Rhinestone Cowboy" is a song that was made famous by Glen Campbell in 1975. Other great songs from the same year were "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" by B.J. Thomas, and "TGhank God I'm a Country Boy" by John Denver.

I guess I have an excuse to buy albums by Glen Campbell and B.J. Thomas now. I used to have an LP of Thomas's "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head. I wouldn't mind reconnecting with Thomas on CD. However, neither one sold 50 million albums. Maybe I could drop the two high-selling Japanese artists ["B'z" and "Mister Children."

I should probably look for a list that emphasizes quality over popularity. I'm still new to this tewrritory.

There's a BBC list of great singers:

1. Frank Sinatra
2. Elvis Presley
3. Nat King Cole
4. Ella Fitzgerald
5. Bing Crosby
6. John Lennon
7. Aretha Franklin
8. Billie Holiday
9. Barbra Streisand
10. Freddie Mercury

Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/music/1174020-greatest-singers-20th-century-old-article.html#ixzz240tltLEF

I have 7 of the 10 in my CD collection

Bob Dylan has shocked his followers more than once. First time must have been in The Royal Albert Hall, London, in 1964, when he started to play rock music - yes, on an electrificially amplified guitar! Second time was when he published his album "Nahsville Skyline" which (according to wikipedia) "displayed a complete immersion into country music. Along with the more basic lyrical themes, simple songwriting structures, and charming domestic feel, it introduced audiences to a radically new singing voice from Dylan — a soft, affected country croon."

Moreover "Sometime during that session, country legend Johnny Cash stopped by to visit. A friend and label-mate of Dylan's as well as an early supporter of his music, Cash had been recording next door with his own band. The two wound up recording a series of duets ... "Girl from the North Country" ... was ultimately sequenced as the album's opener."

Ahhhh! Thanks for that, Pierce. I've held back on trying to select a representative sample of Dylan's work, because he tried so many different styles. I heard one or two of his 1960s recordings when I was in college. Yes, the songs were good and the lyrics were poetical, but I didn't enjoy his singing. If he tried singing differently for "Nashville Skyline," and it worked for him, that's a good thing to know. Let me see what I can do......

I'm back! I just went over to Amazon, found the recording, and put it on my wish list. I've also put hit compilations by B J Thomas and Glen Campbell on the list, too.

Good for you

I have a couple hundred dollars of bonus points with my credit card company. They let me apply the points when I buy things from Amazon. So, until the points run out I'm filling in these gaps in my CD collection.
A lot of independent dealers sell through Amazon. A lot of good quality used cds sell for between $3.00 and $5.00 through these dealers. Even with a three dollar shipping charge, the costs are still reasonable. Sometimes the prices are even lower. I just bought a Celine Dion cd for one cent.

That's probably more than I would pay for it


Nah, I'm just kidding. Her material is not really my but she has an incredible voice and knows how to use it

I usually refer to her as "The Sirene Of Titanic" - get it?

Well, except for the song she sang in "Titanic," I haven't heard her sing, as far as I know.

Once I hear the CD, I'll know what I think of it.

So far, I've formed a few first impressions:

I can only take Michael Jackson for 15 minutes at a time, and only in his early years when he was a child and teenager. His later stuff is far too frenetic, and he starts to get shrill.

I enjoyed Elton John's CDs.

I just played a CD by Queen. The voices are quite good. I think I'm going to enjoy that group.

Early today, I played a CD by Stevie Wonder. It's nice to have his three best-known song hits on one CD, but the CD is far too loud and not all that enjoyable.

Kurt Vonnegut once wrote a called "The Sirens of Titan"

Thank you Paul for your answer. I think it was my cousin Brenda who was staying with my family at the time when I first heard the song. I think it is my favourite Glen Campbell song. I don't know what the name of the LP was.

I am sure that I heard Sasha Distel sing 'Raindrops are falling on my head' in 1970 on a TV show and I sung it at my friend at her 7th birthday party.

Vonnegut had a dark sense of humor. "Cat's Cradle" arises from a period when Vonnegut was working in the PR division of General Electric. He got the sense that the scientists there were indifferent about the uses to which their work was put. "Cat's Cradle" is a string game. It's relevant to the book in that Felix Hoenikker [a fictional Nobel laureate physicist and co-inventor of the atom bomb] was playing cat's cradle when the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Sp much for indifference.

In the book, a writer who is working on a book about what important Americans were doing on the day the bombs were dropped, goes to visit Hoenikker's children, who reveal that the late scientist bequeathed to them his secret invention called ice-nine. Ice-nine is a form of water that is solid at room temperature. It only becomes liquid at a temperature of 95 degrees F. When ice-nine comes in contact with regular water, it makes it become ice-nine as well.

The writer and the Hoenikker children eventually visit San Lorenzo, a Haiti-like worst-case tropical island. One of the Hoenikker children becomes the country'sleader. When he learns he has terminal cancer, he uses ice-nine to have himself frozen rather than endure the agonies of cancer. During an air show, an airplane accidentally crashes into the palace, pushing his frozen corpse into the ocean. As a result, all the world's oceans turn solid. You might be able to guess the rest.

I read a lot of Vonnegut's s, but it was years ago. I remember "ice9" well. Too well.

It seemed like a very imaginative book. More power to Vonnegut!

"Bob Dylan has shocked his followers more than once... Second time was when he published his album "Nashville Skyline."

I'm listening to it right now. It's downright restful, coming right after an hour of Whitney Houston's overpowering ballads.
I picked up the Dylan and Houston CDs from the bargain racks at Barnes & Noble today. I also picked up a Kenny G. CD, but haven't heard it yet.

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how Kenny G was able to sell 70 million CDs when true jazz masters like Armstrong, Ellington, Davis, Parker, etc., sold far fewer.

Find the answer and you are guaranteed a Nobel Prize