Why I don't bother with genre...

[Lavane]

I haven't really become anything like a country music obsessive and have only really gotten into the genre at all in recent years. If I was more of a fan, I'd have a lot more records as it seems that country is one of those things where old LPs can be found on the cheap. I don't really like any of the contemporary popular stuff at all, but I do dig some old classics like Hank Williams (no greater!) and Buck Owens. Having not really checked out Jerry Lee Lewis's more famous rockabilly music, I bought an old LP of him in later years doing his country stuff and I have to admit that it's a really satisfying listen. I like old bluegrass stuff too. Beyond the quality of the playing, singing and songwriting, there's something about old country music that puts me into a certain time and place that I dig. I think that's true for a lot of music that I enjoy, that the vibe, or really the atmosphere that it exists in is a big part of the appeal. Like I can't go to that particular place or go back in time, but I can experience a bit of the feeling that it was like at that place and time.

Country and Western music now is just kinda rock and even rap pop music. If you want to hear old school Countey and Western, something like Bob Wills and the Texas Play Boys is something to listen to. Bob Wills did Country Swing music too.
I like good Blue Grass. An odd group I really like is Devil Makes Three.
They did one self titled studio album I really like. They prefer to play live.
It's all acoustic string instruments and vocals. Really cool kinda sea shanty stuff. I use that album a lot for testing along with DSOTM, etc.

 

[RunOutGroove]

Country and Western music now is just kinda rock and even rap pop music. If you want to hear old school Countey and Western, something like Bob Wills and the Texas Play Boys is something to listen to. Bob Wills did Country Swing music too.
I like good Blue Grass. An odd group I really like is Devil Makes Three.
They did one self titled studio album I really like. They prefer to play live.
It's all acoustic string instruments and vocals. Really cool kinda sea shanty stuff. I use that album a lot for testing along with DSOTM, etc.

I actually have a few Bob Wills LPs, though admittedly I haven't gotten into that stuff in the way that I have some other old country stuff. I'll probably put those records on at some point and suddenly realize their brilliance, which is the kind off thing that happens a lot with me, which is one of the reasons why I love to collect all of this old music. It might not hit you right away, but there's always the chance that you're going to rediscover it in your collection down the road and really appreciate it.

I'll look for that album you mention... I do like more contemporary country type stuff, just not the more commercial end of it. Some of the stuff that gets labeled as "alt-country" is quite good. Some of that sounds like it's a kind of tribute to older country styles, but other of that stuff seems to have a more authentic feel, but still have more contemporary influences. Though it's already a few decades old, so in no way is it new, but the album Anodyne, by the group Uncle Tupelo is a good example of what I'm talking about.

 

[Gigantic]

Junior Brown. That is all.

 

[RunOutGroove]

Junior Brown. That is all.

I don't own any of the records, but I did see his show a few decades ago and he was great. Another player who kinds of reminds me of him, not so much as far as virtuosity, but of that kind of countrified humor, is Wayne "the train" Hancock.

 

[Gigantic]

I don't own any of the records, but I did see his show a few decades ago and he was great. Another player who kinds of reminds me of him, not so much as far as virtuosity, but of that kind of countrified humor, is Wayne "the train" Hancock.

I've seen many musicians who inspired me to go back to the woodshed and practice my guitar. Junior Brown made me want to quit altogether, he was so good. I must have seen him playing a half dozen times when I lived in Iowa City in the 90's. He always put on a terrific show.

 

[JoeESP9]

For me, genre is pretty much a non-issue. All of my rock/pop/jazz is handled by Music Bee using one directory. There are individual folders for bands artists and compilations. I use Music Bee to control how everything is displayed. This works for me because I rarely play entire albums, preferring to cherry pick what I want to hear. For opera and classical I use Media Monkey. This is mostly because with "highbrow" music I generally play the entire album.

@Gigantic, who is Wayne "the train" Hancock? The only Hancock I'm aware of is Herbie.

If you want to get discouraged from playing the guitar again, listen to Plum from George Benson, Body Talk. He ends his solo with an amazing riff.

 

[eiraved]

@Gigantic, who is Wayne "the train" Hancock? The only Hancock I'm aware of is Herbie.

It was @RunOutGroove who mentioned Wayne "The Train" Hancock.

 

[Gigantic]

@Gigantic, who is Wayne "the train" Hancock? The only Hancock I'm aware of is Herbie.

Dunno, I’ve never heard of him.

 

[Quadman2]

I listen to music about 14 hours a day. I listen to random tracks (shuffled) to simulate the old FM album rock days (without ads). I use Simple Library Views in LMS so that I can combine the folders, if desired, and listen to the type of music that I am in the mood for.

Like you RT, I do the "random selection" thingy, using a Sony A-45 high/res player for FLAC.

Within the device there's about 6 or so "Mood" options wherein it decides on what will be played within what frame-of mind-you are in at the time. And with 3k+tunes available, I've more than enough of a variety to listen to during the day. Night listening is another matter with a my choice being made.


Q

 

[JoeESP9]

@RunOutGroove:
Who is Wayne "the train" Hancock? You might also want to give Plum from George Benson, Body Talk a listen.

 

[RunOutGroove]

@RunOutGroove:
Who is Wayne "the train" Hancock? You might also want to give Plum from George Benson, Body Talk a listen.

Well... someone had mentioned Junior Brown, and I feel that Wayne Hancock is somewhat in the same camp. He's a kind of modern country performer, who does some oldies, but writes a lot of his own stuff, which tends to be kind of goofy and has influences of stuff like Hank Williams as well as more rockabilly type stuff. He uses an odd sort of band that's very rhythmically powerful, but without a drummer, but with a bass player who slaps the strings, making for a kind of snare back-beat sound. He always works with a hotshot lead guitar player and often a pedal steel player as well, who trade solos. I actually don't own any of his records, but have seen him his band live a few times and they were always great.

Not in the same universe musically as someone like George Benson, and I'm well aware of that guy, though I don't have any albums of his (gotta get some!) and don't know that tune/album, but will have to check it out. I like his more popular, more pop stuff OK, but it's his earlier stuff that I've heard, which is more rooted in jazz (and doesn't have the vocals, though he is admittedly a great singer) that I like the best...

 

[JoeESP9]

The Benson album I mentioned is from his straight jazz era (before Breezin') before he started to sing. That's sing formally. Quite often he would hum along with his solos. I've never been all that fond of his singing.

I have a John Mayall Album, The Turning Point which also has no drummer. Surprisingly when I play it for people and ask them what instrument is missing, they almost never say drums. I then point it out and they always say, "I didn't notice".

 

[krautmaster]

I just classify mine by the decade it was recorded (70's / 80's etc) as the musical styles shifter over time... my 70's has Led Zeppelin to Carol King, my 80's has all the one hit wonders of that decade, 90's is mostly alternative....

I do have a few sub genres like "70's AM Radio hits", "Mellow Mood", "Great Guitar Solos", Country, Soul, and Classical.

 

[C Hart]

About 75% of my liatening is shuffling my large iTunes library. Every genre gets a trip to the plate.

I like disco for housework and cleaning, jazz for relaxing or working, rock for partying, and individual artists and songs when my brain determines they need listening. Every genre has hits and misses so why limit your scope?

 

[JoeESP9]

If I'm not in "the chair" I use the Music Bee remote on my phone and tablet. I set it for random play and hit skip when it selects something that doesn't fit my mood.

For me any listening session may and usually does cross many musical types, and genres. For instance, when in "the chair" The Firebird may be a start but ELP or Yes may be next with Stanley Turrentine following. That same session might end with If3 (Fibonacci's Number) or Chicago (Introduction).

 

[RunOutGroove]

also, one of the few great things about middle age is that when we were kids, if you were into music, you were supposed to be into just one thing: metal kids listened to metal, punk kids listened to, you guessed it, punk & post punk and the rap & R&B kids stayed in their lane. Much of my listening to music friends outside of the bounds of my social group had to be on the down low. As I progressed into my twenties, I expanded my range, but on an obsessive level- when I got into 50's and 60's jazz, that was pretty much all I listened to, ditto for alt country, indie rock, underground hip hop and electronica. for a point in the 00's, I nearly stopped listening to music altogether. Now, in my 50's, I have reconnected with a number of my music from my teens, college and grad school years and I've found that none of us care much for those distinctions; what's good is good. In a given week, my friends and I will listen to Steely Dan, Boards Of Canada, Sleep, Elder, Tame Impala, Olivia Rodrigo, Queens of the Stone Age, Wu Tang Clan, Wilco, Slayer, the Feelies, Merle Haggard, Charles Mingus and whatnot... not giving a $hit is so freeing.

I guess that was my point. back when actual mixtapes were a thing, I'd make a mixtape that had Billie Holiday and Metallica on the same side, with a range of genres in between, curated in a way that made it seem normal and natural, but I was aware that my interest in music was beyond casual and ventured into the realm of excessive, obsessive geekdom. It was because of that, in high school, I got a job at my local independent record store, where that was an advantage: I was expected to be knowledgeable about most of the genres we carried. nobody at the store paid too much attention to top-40, the Malls had that on lock. However, we had to know Jazz, Blues, R n B, Hip-Hop and Rap, Metal, Punk, Post Punk, Industrial, Goth and all of the so-called underground music that people came into our store to find. my bosses would give me homework assignments based on the music I was listening to at the time, history lessons and rabbit holes... "Oh, you like the replacements? you need to listen to Big Star; If you like Big Star, you really need to listen to Badfinger. while you're at it, listen to the Stone's Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers, then listen to Gram Parsons and Flying Burrito Brothers. Oh, all that 4AD crap you like? You should listen to Tim Buckley and Nick Drake..." so many rabbit holes, chasing the influences of the flavor du jour, something that I still do to this very day. Thankfully, my streaming service puts almost everything at my fingertips and I can save my hard earned money on the things I really, really find interesting.

I had a pretty similar journey to yours growing up as far as my appreciation for music. As a teen my taste was pretty eclectic for the time, in that I liked classic and prog rock, but also punk stuff that was new at the time and there weren't too many people that were into both the new and the old. There wasn't much that I was into, much less even aware of beyond that though, but in my late teens, I did started to get into jazz just a bit, with fusion stuff capturing my ears first, obviously because it was basically rock based stuff. I, like you, worked in a record store for a few years in my 20s. It wasn't nearly as hip as the place that you worked at though, but it did carry a huge variety of stuff (it was an older independent shop, popular with middle aged folks who shopped there as kids - new releases by folks like James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt sold at some of the highest rates in the country). Though working at that shop and other influences in my life, my taste for music broadened and I got into all kinds of stuff like acoustic jazz, funk/soul, reggae, hip hop, electronic, African and Brazilian music, etc. Only much more recently have I developed a taste for classic country, bluegrass and classical music, but that stuff I have to admit that I'm thus far just kind of dipping my toes into it and haven't gone as crazy for it as I have for other genres.

Anyway, I feel like one can enjoy music much more if they're aware of the broader culture of it and understand what influenced what. I see different genres of music more in terms of similarities these days than in differences - I hear similar threads running through lots of disparate styles.

Interestingly, I feel like there's a lot of younger folks who are into, and very knowledgeable about a lot of the older music that we're into and have similarly eclectic taste. When I go to the coffee shop a couple of blocks from me, kids who are probably about half my age are cranking a playlist that seems to be pulled from my own collection (Brian Eno, Bowie, Television, etc), ditto when I go to the grocery store and also when I hear young DJs on local independent radio. I think that firstly, a lot of folks are bored with current music and secondly, that the kind of of tribal attitude with musical culture (where young folks have to choose sides, to be into punk, dance music, metal, whatever) is maybe not as much of a thing these days as it was decades ago.