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<title>Top Honky-Tonk Artists on Rhapsody Online</title>
<dateCreated>Thu Dec 10 22:05:22 PST 2009</dateCreated>
<dateModified>Thu Dec 10 22:05:22 PST 2009</dateModified>
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<outline type="include" text="Willie Nelson" description="Willie Nelson was one of the original outlaws of country music, and one of its most influential songwriters. He began playing in the 1960s, writing &quot;Crazy&quot; for Patsy Cline and &quot;Hello Walls&quot; for Faron Young. Nelson's career as a performer flourished in the mid-1970s when he joined up with Waylon Jennings and released the crossover, chart-topping &lt;I&gt;Red Headed Stranger&lt;/I&gt;. It was the hit &quot;Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain&quot; that perpetuated the then-popular image of the longhaired country boy. Willie Nelson had arrived as a country superstar. His folky, nasal inflections carried his voice through many different genres of music, including Western Swing, traditional pop, jazz, Traditional Country, Cowboy country songs, Honky-Tonk, rock 'n' roll, folk music and of course, the blues. Nelson's success lasted until the late 1980s, when some trouble with the IRS landed him in a number of stuffed-crust pizza commercials and a cameo role in the film &lt;i&gt;Half Baked&lt;/i&gt; smoking his beloved joints. When the day is done, Nelson can easily be considered a bona fide legend.
- Eric Shea" category="Outlaw Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/willie-nelson/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Johnny Cash" description="You might consider Johnny Cash the original gangster. He sang a song about killing a man &quot;just to watch him die&quot; long before young men began to wear big pants and cap their teeth in gold. His trademark baritone growl and disdainful sneer were the crown and scepter he bore as the king of outlaw country music. Cash's unique sound wasn't complex by any means. His Southern Gothic-tinged narratives and lighthearted country songs contained similar elements to Woody Guthrie's simple ditties. However, nobody but Cash could sing those songs with the burning, heartfelt fever that has made him one of the most influential people in country music. Originally, he wanted to make gospel music after finishing up a Korean War tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force. But after releasing his first single on Sun Records (&quot;Cry Cry Cry&quot; backed with &quot;Hey Porter&quot;), it was perfectly clear that he was a country singer. Cash's music has never strayed from what he knew best: rock 'n' roll's rebellion, folk's painfully autobiographical sensibility, and country music's lovelorn longing. The Man In Black passed away in Nashville, Tenn., on September 12, 2003, due to complications brought on by diabetes. He survived his beloved wife, June Carter Cash, by four months.
- Eric Shea" category="Outlaw Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/johnny-cash/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Brad Paisley" description="Brad Paisley has a bit more going for him than your average Nashville molded hunk-in-a-hat. Before moving to Music City, he was a teenage phenomenon in his native West Virginia. Leading a country band, Paisley sang in a mature voice and played a wicked Bakersfield honky-tonk-influenced lead guitar. When he got to Nashville, he quickly nailed a publishing deal, which in turn led to a recording contract. Paisley wrote or co-wrote every song and played lead guitar on his 1999 debut &lt;i&gt;Who Needs Pictures&lt;/i&gt;. In 2003, he released chart-topper &lt;I&gt;Mud on the Tires&lt;/I&gt;. &lt;I&gt;Time Well Wasted&lt;/I&gt; came at the end of 2005, and earned him both the CMA and ACM award for Album of the Year, as well as four Grammy nominations. A few months after Paisley's son William Huckleberry was born in 2007, his sixth album, &lt;I&gt;5th Gear&lt;/I&gt;, was released. The album succeeded with a handful of hit singles and a Grammy for the instrumental track, &quot;Throttleneck.&quot; Perhaps the award was inspiration for his next album, the largely instrumental effort, &lt;I&gt;Play&lt;/I&gt;.
- Linda Ryan" category="New Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/brad-paisley/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Toby Keith" description="Toby Keith first gained national recognition in 1993 with his tongue-in-cheek No. 1 hit &quot;Should've Been a Cowboy.&quot; Along with a slew of like-minded country artists, he was a part of the neo-traditionalist movement that was intent on wresting the radio waves from the slick pop product pushers of the time. In the late-1990s he released a string of country hits that showcased his deep vocals and decidedly uptown yet tasteful arrangements. Then shortly after the turn of the century, Keith reinvented himself as a controversial crooner of sorts after recording 2002's &quot;Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),&quot; one of the first songs to cash in on the 9-11 tragedy with its vengeful lyrics promising that America would put a &quot;boot in the ass&quot; of the terrorists. The song was an instant hit with red state country music fans and compelled &lt;i&gt;ABC News&lt;/i&gt; anchor Peter Jennings to protest Keith's appearance on a network Fourth of July special. Of course tons of media hoopla followed, giving Keith the kind of priceless promotion that propelled &quot;Courtesy&quot; into legendary crossover hit status. Since then, Keith has continued to crank out the kind of roadhouse honky-tonk country songs that he began his career with, but he also stuck with what made him the most money -- riling up angry right wing Americans. His 2003 album &lt;i&gt;Shock'n Y'all&lt;/i&gt; (it sounds like &quot;Shock And Awe&quot; when you say it out loud) featured &quot;The Taliban Song,&quot; which referred to Middle Eastern men as camel herders. In interviews, Keith dismisses these kinds of songs as &quot;bus songs,&quot; tunes that he pens for fun, and were never meant to be released until his fans insisted. But not all of his &quot;bus songs&quot; are politically charged. Keith's &quot;Weed With Willie&quot; (also from &lt;i&gt;Shock'n Y'all&lt;/i&gt;) makes light of Willie Nelson's love for incredibly strong marijuana and &quot;Grain of Salt&quot; from 2006's &lt;i&gt;White Trash With Money&lt;/i&gt; serves as a tourist's tequila anthem.
- Eric Shea" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/toby-keith/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Trace Adkins" description="Louisiana born singer-songwriter Adkins is a former college football player and oil rig roughneck. After slogging away at the fringes of the music industry for a number of years, he got a record deal and his 1996 debut record took him straight into the country charts. Adkins connected with his listeners with the combination of his smoky baritone vocals and his smart, slightly dark, Honky-Tonk sensibility. The single &quot;Thinking Thing,&quot; also off of his debut, reached No. 1 in 1997.
- Eric Shea" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/trace-adkins/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Merle Haggard" description="Merle Haggard is one of the most influential country music Singer-Songwriters since Hank Williams. His career began when he snuck backstage to meet country legend Lefty Frizzell as a teen. Impressed by his songs, Frizzell refused to go back on stage until Haggard went up and sang a song -- to a warm audience response. Along with Buck Owens and Wynn Stewart, he was a pioneer of the Bakersfield country music scene in the 1960s, a working-class legend who sang torn and frayed narratives. Haggard's deep and throaty vocal style was influenced by Stewart's phrasing, his music touched by a subtle mix of blues, jazz, folk and Western Swing. Haggard's quality of songwriting has remained consistently ahead of the rest; country music wouldn't be the same without him.
- Eric Shea" category="Bakersfield Sound" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/merle-haggard/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Dolly Parton" description="Dolly Parton is almost more famous for her impossibly curvaceous figure and huge hair than for her music -- which is somewhat of a shame. She is, after all, a distinctive and important part of country music, representing a link from the music of her Appalachian birth place to country's crossover to pop. Parton is a multifaceted artist whose first success came as a songwriter in the mid-1960s, with hit songs recorded by Bill Phillips. After she became Porter Wagoner's singing partner, her career took off and she became a solo artist by 1971. She consistently charted throughout the '70s and crossed over to the Pop charts with &quot; Here You Come Again&quot; in 1977. Along the way Parton became a genuine pop culture icon. Despite the glitzy, glamorous aura that surrounds her, on her recordings Parton always manages to include some element that seems like pure country. As Nashville in the '90s has continued to show its disdain for veteran performers -- and for that matter any artist who doesn't seem genetically engineered -- Parton seems to be backing away from her own image. Her latest releases have been straight bluegrass and countrified folk-pop albums that she's recorded with members of Nashville's elite community of virtuoso bluegrass pickers.
- Eric Shea" category="Country Pop/Cosmopolitan" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/dolly-parton/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="George Jones" description="George Jones is the king of country singers and a highly acclaimed songwriter. His straightforward aversion to trends and his dark but romantic persona have served him well through nearly five decades of recordings, a highly publicized marriage to and divorce from singer Tammy Wynette, and bouts with addictions and poor health. Though he dominated country radio from the late '50s into the '80s, his more recent recordings have received little airplay. He remains, however, the preeminent country stylist and is so acknowledged by critics and young country stars alike.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Jones grew up the eighth child in a poor Texas family, his father an alcoholic laborer, his mother a church pianist. He came to music early, singing at 9, playing guitar at 11, and writing his first song at 12. Jones ran away from home at age 14; in 1947 he was hired by the duo Eddie and Pearl. A regular radio spot gave Jones his first glimmer of fame and also got him his first endearing nickname, Possum, so dubbed by a disc jockey for Jones' close-set eyes and turned-up nose. By 18 Jones already had a wife, a child, and a broken marriage behind him.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
After three years in the Marine Corps, Jones returned to Texas to start his musical career in earnest. He again gained attention while singing on the radio. A Houston producer, H. W. &quot;Pappy&quot; Daily, signed Jones to the Starday label; there, Jones had his first C&amp;W hits, including &quot;Why Baby Why&quot; (Number Four, 1955), &quot;You Gotta Be My Baby&quot; (Number Seven, 1956), and &quot;Just One More&quot; (Number Three, 1956). After Starday merged with the national label Mercury in 1957, Jones began cutting the classic singles that made him famous; among them, 1959's &quot;White Lightning,&quot; Jones' first C&amp;W Number One and his only pop hit (Number 73). Other hits from this period include &quot;Who Shot Sam&quot; (Number Seven, 1959), &quot;The Window Up Above&quot; (Number Two, 1960), and &quot;Tender Years&quot; (Number One, 1961).
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Jones' long string of country hits includes &quot;She Thinks I Still Care&quot; (Number One, 1962), &quot;You Comb Her Hair&quot; (Number Five, 1963), &quot;The Race Is On&quot; (Number Three, 1964), &quot;We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds&quot; (a duet with Melba Montgomery) (Number Three, 1963), &quot;Walk Through This World With Me&quot; (Number One, 1967), &quot;A Good Year for the Roses&quot; (Number Two, 1970), &quot;The Grand Tour&quot; (Number One, 1974), &quot;He Stopped Loving Her Today&quot; (Number One, 1980), and &quot;Yesterday's Wine&quot; (with Merle Haggard) (Number One, 1982). In addition to these and other major sellers were dozens of Top 20 hits. In all, Jones has found himself on the C&amp;W chart—as a solo artist or in duet settings—over 150 times.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
But Jones' phenomenal success as an artist ran neck and neck with his increasingly erratic behavior. Jones' excessive drinking, and later drug abuse, caused him to consistently miss shows (giving him the new nickname, No Show Jones), shirk off recording sessions, and behave violently toward wives and friends. In 1969 Jones married country superstar Tammy Wynette. Though their four-year marriage was stormy (Jones was accused of beating her and threatening her with a rifle), the two had chart success together during and after the marriage: &quot;We're Gonna Hold On&quot; (Number One, 1973), &quot;Golden Ring&quot; (Number One, 1976), &quot;Near You&quot; (Number One, 1976), and &quot;Two Story House&quot; (Number Two, 1980).
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Jones turned over a new leaf in his recording career and personal life during the 1980s. Eschewing the overproduced sound that had been cluttering his work, Jones returned to his honky-tonk roots. He sought help for substance abuse, amended his no-show ways, and established a stable fourth marriage. His 1992 single &quot;I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair&quot; (Number 34 C&amp;W) featured 10 contemporary country hitmakers, including Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, and Travis Tritt. In 1994 Jones recorded The Bradley Barn Sessions, a series of duets with performers including Trisha Yearwood, Keith Richards, and Mark Knopfler. That fall, Jones underwent triple bypass surgery; upon recovery, he returned to the studio to record &lt;i&gt;One&lt;/i&gt;, a reunion album with Wynette that the pair supported with a short tour. The following year saw the release of his notoriously self-deprecating, tell-all autobiography, &lt;i&gt;I Lived to Tell It All&lt;/i&gt;. An album of the same name followed later that year, peaking at Number 26 on the country chart. In 1998 he began hosting his own variety show on TNN, &lt;i&gt;The George Jones Show&lt;/i&gt;, which ran for two years.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Jones recorded one more album for MCA in 1998 but asked to be released from the label out of frustration from lack of radio airplay. He was in the finishing stages of recording his debut for Asylum the following year when he drove his sport-utility vehicle into a concrete bridge, landing him in the hospital with damaged lungs and liver. He later pleaded guilty to DWI &amp;#8212; his first slip off the wagon in more than a dozen years. He survived the ordeal with a new lease on life, a rush of renewed media interest, and his highest-charting album of the decade, &lt;i&gt;Cold Hard Truth&lt;/i&gt; (Number Five C&amp;W), which featured the single &quot;Choices&quot; (Number 24 C&amp;W). &lt;i&gt;Live With the Possum&lt;/i&gt; followed later the same year." category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/george-jones/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Dwight Yoakam" description="For folks who think country music has nothing to offer anymore besides Garth's ten gallon Billy Joel songs and Shania's Nashville AOR, Dwight Yoakam will provide an oasis of authentic Bakersfield honk. His unorthodox approach to Bud-swilling Honky Tonk has been a favorite among Nashville outsiders for years. Occasional chart success has proven Yoakam's ability to write pop country, but the majority of his material is an uncompromising blend of old and new, with a pointed disregard for strict country tradition. With a voice echoing primary influences Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, Yoakam injects his neo-traditional music with a rock 'n' roll punch that doesn't sacrifice anything as far as pure country credibility is concerned. Expect to hear sad 'n' lonely drinkers, fast car epics and desolate cowboy songs that begin in traditional country territory but exhibit an uncommonly accurate familiarity with the rock vocabulary.
- Eric Shea" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/dwight-yoakam/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Hank Williams, Jr." description="As his name makes clear, Hank Williams, Jr. is the son of country music legend (and Honky-Tonk deity) Hank Williams. Williams Jr. started off singing similar beer joint anthems before finding his own voice in the 1970s outlaw country realm. He can also be credited with taking the outlaw sound up a notch to deliver some gritty southern rock songs. Kid Rock cites Hank Williams Jr. as one of his most obvious influences, along with 2 Live Crew.
- Eric Shea" category="Outlaw Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/hank-williams-jr/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Jamey Johnson" description="Jamey Johnson grew up in a strict religious household, so it came as a surprise to his parents when he started playing music at an early age. By junior high, Johnson was adept at playing a variety of instruments and had music theory down pat. After an eight-year stint in the U.S. Marine Reserves, Johnson moved to Nashville to concentrate on music. Although he had a variety of day jobs, Johnson played music at night and eventually made contact with a circle of friends who got him &quot;regular&quot; work singing on their demos. Eventually Johnson signed to BNA and in early 2006 released his debut, &lt;I&gt;The Book&lt;/I&gt;. With a hit single (&quot;The Dollar&quot;) under his belt, Johnson hit the road -- and partied hard. Things started to unravel, first when his wife divorced him and then further when his record label dropped him. Lost and in shock, Johnson cut himself off from friends and family and became a recluse, writing smash hits for George Strait (&quot;Give It Away&quot;) and Trace Adkins (&quot;Honky Tonk Badonkadonk&quot;) to pass the time. In 2008, Johnson returned to the spotlight with the release of his sophomore effort, &lt;I&gt;That Lonesome Song&lt;/I&gt;, a battered collection of songs dealing with loss, growing pains and regret.
- Linda Ryan" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/jamey-johnson/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Emmylou Harris" description="The otherworldly and yet accessible voice of Emmylou Harris has helped bring country music to wider audiences. After the untimely death of her protege Gram Parsons, Harris kept the cosmic American music spirit and sound alive in her own solo recordings. She was blessed with a warm and nurturing singing voice that seems like it was destined to bring beautiful high-lonesome harmonies to life. Whether she's singing soulfully by herself or harmonizing with other folks, her elastic and dynamic vocals unfold and soar to astral heights, adding new dimensions and organic depth to whatever song she graces. Her incandescent inflections have accompanied the likes of Neil Young, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Beck, Sheryl Crow, The Band, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, and Glen Campbell to name a very few--but her rich phrasing and harmonious articulation has never been as powerful nor as heartbreakingly emotional as when she sang in close harmony with the late, great Parsons.
- Eric Shea" category="Cosmic American Music" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/emmylou-harris/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Hank Williams" description="Hank Williams was perhaps the most important country &amp; western performer of his time, and the most influential country artist in the development of rock &amp; roll. His 36 Top 10 C&amp;W hits - including the Number Ones &quot;Lovesick Blues,&quot; &quot;Why Don't You Love Me,&quot; &quot;Long Gone Lonesome Blues,&quot; &quot;Moanin' the Blues,&quot; &quot;Cold, Cold Heart,&quot; &quot;Hey, Good Lookin',&quot; &quot;Jambalaya (On the Bayou),&quot; and &quot;I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive&quot; &amp;#8212; and magnetic stage presence were instrumental in country music's rise in popularity during his lifetime. (&quot;Kaw-Liga,&quot; &quot;Your Cheatin' Heart,&quot; and &quot;Take These Chains From My Heart&quot; were posthumous Number One C&amp;W hits in 1953.) But it is as a songwriter that Williams' influence most profoundly changed country music and touched virtually every popular style emanating from it, especially rock &amp; roll. In compositions such as &quot;I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry,&quot; for example, Williams expressed intense, personal emotions with country's traditional plainspoken directness, a then revolutionary approach that through the works of George Jones, Willie Nelson, and countless other country artists has come to define the genre. As a singer, Williams mastered a range of styles, from gospel to the pre-rockabilly playfulness of &quot;Hey, Good Lookin'.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Hiram &quot;Hank&quot; Williams was born in a two-room sharecropper's shack in southeastern Alabama. His father was shell-shocked from World War I and committed himself to a veterans' hospital when Hank was seven, leaving Williams' mother to support him and his sister. She played organ in the local Baptist church, where Hank sang in the choir, and she bought him a guitar for $3.50. When he was 11, Williams moved in with relatives in a railroad camp and began frequenting the Saturday-night dances, where he learned about country music and moonshine. The following year, he moved with his family to the larger town of Greenville and began learning blues songs from a black street singer named Rufe &quot;Tee-Tot&quot; Payne. Williams played on streetcorners with Tee-Tot, sold peanuts, and shined shoes.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
In 1937 the family moved to Montgomery, Alabama. Hank won an amateur contest by performing his &quot;W.P.A. Blues&quot; and, dubbed the Singing Kid, he secured a twice-weekly radio show on local station WSFA. Soon after, he formed the Drifting Cowboys and began playing the Alabama roadhouse circuit, with his mother as booking agent and driver.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
By December 1944, Williams had played nearly every roadhouse in Alabama and had married Audrey Mae Sheppard. Two years later, he signed a songwriting contract with Nashville publishers Acuff-Rose, and he recorded in Nashville on the small Sterling label. Soon after, he got a recording contract with newly formed MGM and began his successful collaboration with producer/arranger Fred Rose. That summer (1948), Williams joined the popular KWKH country music radio program &lt;i&gt;Louisiana Hayride&lt;/i&gt; in Shreveport. His records started making the C&amp;W charts, and he finally hit big with &quot;Lovesick Blues,&quot; which became the Number One country record of 1949.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
On June 11, 1949, Williams played at the Grand Ole Opry for the first time and received an unprecedented six encores. His fame grew along with his touring schedule of one-nighters across the country. Besides recording his bluesy C&amp;W records, he also recorded gospel-influenced songs under the name Luke the Drifter. By 1952 his drinking had gotten out of hand, his health had deteriorated, and his marriage ended in divorce. Williams' chronic back problems had resulted in his dependence on painkillers, and in August he was fired from the Grand Ole Opry because of frequent no-shows. Four months later, at the age of 29, he died of a heart attack in the back of his Cadillac en route to a show in Canton, Ohio. (Many years later reports were issued that he actually died in a Knoxville, Tennessee, hotel room after excessive alcohol and drug consumption.)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
After his death, Williams' records sold more than ever, and have continued to do so in the nearly 50 years since. His oft-covered catalogue has produced hits for artists ranging from Fats Domino and John Fogerty's Blue Ridge Rangers to Ray Charles and B.J. Thomas and has been the inspiration for a whole new generation of alt-country artists. In the late '90s Mercury Records began reissuing Williams' music on lavish CD sets. The 1998 box set &lt;i&gt;The Complete Hank Williams&lt;/i&gt; won two Grammys.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;i&gt;from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock &amp; Roll (Simon &amp; Schuster, 2001)&lt;/i&gt;
" category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/hank-williams/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Jerry Lee Lewis" description="The Killer still sounds much the same as he did in the late 1950s. His trademark pumping piano and wild mix of country with R&amp;B sounds just as fresh and vital as it did forty years ago. Lewis' crazy stage antics masked his innate shyness. While it was his image that helped propel him to national attention, it was his songs that kept him there: ÂWhole Lotta Shakin' Going On,Â ÂGreat Balls of Fire,Â and ÂBreathlessÂ have defined rock Ân' roll. Lewis' personal life turned out to be as wild as his stage persona and helped to ruin the first phase of his career Â his drinking, incest, gun violence, and drug addiction had the press vilifying him as a walking southern stereotype. He made a comeback in country music in the late Â60s and had a long period of success there. Since the Â80s he has continued to stun live audiences by performing his classic material. To this day, Jerry Lee Lewis gives off more energy than a nuclear reactor, and he's just as volatile.
- Nick Dedina" category="'50s Rock 'n' Roll" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/jerry-lee-lewis/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Pat Green" description="Pat Green's Texan Country Rock bounces around like a Superball in a Bakersfield trampoline factory, without sounding anything like Country Swing. His songs have pop melodies that are as sweet as buttermilk and as catchy as flypaper. Green started writing some of the country songs that he still sings today while attending Texas Tech at the age of 18. His debut album &quot;Dancehall Dreamer&quot; was touted as an independent album, but it wasn't so independent if you consider the fact that his parents funded it. When he only 19 years old, Green played for over 2,000 people at Willie Nelson's Fourth of July picnic. He sold over 200,000 copies of his sixth album, &quot;Songs We Wish We'd Written,&quot; without any major label support.
- Eric Shea" category="Country Pop/Cosmopolitan" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/pat-green/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Hank Williams III" description="It can't be too easy being Hank Williams III and having people expect you to fill two pairs of boots. Luckily, the grandson to the Honky-Tonk legend and son of one of Southern Rock's biggest outlaws has found his own sound and style. Depending on who he's sharing a bill with, Hank III can be seen effortlessly walking a musical tightrope between Old-Time Revival/Honky-Tonk songs and more snot-nosed, bratty Cowpunk songs. In the former, his voice hauntingly croons and cries in a style slightly similar to his late grandfather, but it more closely resembles that of Hank III's contemporary and friend, Wayne Hancock. Hank III also has a side project named Assjack, which Williams describes as &quot;hellbilly danger with and old school punk feel.&quot;
- Eric Shea" category="Cowpunk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/hank-williams-iii/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Patty Loveless" description="While decked-out divas and blonde buckle bunnies flock to Nashville to hire old session guys to play pedal steel guitar over their recordings, it's a good thing to know that Patty Loveless is still keepin' her country music real. Like LeAnn Rimes, Loveless has garnered many comparisons to Patsy Cline, but she also holds the crown as the queen of new traditional honky tonk women, thanks to her purism and dedication to twang-steeped country rock. Her honky tonk roots are indeed hardcore - like Loretta Lynn, she's a coal miner's daughter - and she does what the best songwriters suggest: she sings about what she knows. Whether Loveless is playing roadhouse rock or lovelorn tear-in-the-beer ballads, her brand of country music is as fresh as homemade okra gumbo, yet as classic as country gravy.
- Eric Shea" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/patty-loveless/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Tammy Wynette" description="Though she was once dubbed &quot;the First lady of Country Music,&quot; Tammy Wynette was always much more than Geroge Jones' wife -- her weepy and beautiful singing voice has been gracing country radio stations since 1966. Like Jeanie C. Riley, Wynette rose to popularity with divorcee-themed Honky-Tonk songs, and she and Jones recorded a handful of chart-topping duets before their rocky marriage ended in 1975. Her recordings didn't chart as high in the 1980s and '90s, but she continued to sell out venues thanks to a loyal following. She died in 1998.
- Eric Shea" category="Country Pop/Cosmopolitan" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/tammy-wynette/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Loretta Lynn" description="For the uninitiated, Loretta Lynn is one of the very biggest names in the history of Country Pop; before Reba McEntire, there was Loretta. From the start of her career in 1962 she's maintained a familiar Top-10 face, but it was the Oscar-winning film &lt;I&gt;Coal Miner's Daughter&lt;/i&gt; (1980) that made her a brand name in non-(Ford)truck-driving households across the nation. One of the first female country singers to address feminist issues, Lynn was considered a maverick during the '70s by the Grand Ole Opry's stuffed-shirt elite. With songs like &quot;Don't Come Home a Drinkin'&quot; and &quot;The Pill&quot; she stood in stark contrast to the stand-by-your-abuser sentiment of the time. This outspoken quality and her bedrock vocal style has been her legacy, influencing countless artists and earning her the utmost respect of the Nashville nation. The album-per-year pace Lynn had kept up for almost thirty years began to slacken during the '90s as she went into a sort of semiretirement, releasing fewer records, but choosing her material more carefully. As a duet partner, she teamed up with nearly every big-name country artist, ushering that peculiarly country tradition into contemporary times. &lt;i&gt;Still Country&lt;/i&gt; (2000) finds her in fine form; the hard Honky-Tonk rocker &quot;Country in My Genes&quot; serves as a showcase for her pure country vitality and confirms her icon status.
- Mike McGuirk" category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/loretta-lynn/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Keith Whitley" description="Keith Whitley was born country and he died country. At the age of four, Whitley brought home first place awards singing in talent shows. By age eight he'd picked up a guitar. Most impressively, at age thirteen, Whitley and a young Ricky Skaggs formed a Bluegrass band; they joined Ralph Stanley's Clinch Mountain Boys soon after. Whitley played with that group and other country and Bluegrass musicians until he cut three records with the New South in 1978. He landed a deal with RCA records four years later and released his solo debut, &lt;I&gt;A Hard Act To Follow&lt;/I&gt;, which featured Honky-Tonk songs with slivers of rock. Today, the album is considered an integral part of the New Traditional family tree. Behind the varied production on every one of his recordings reveals a man with a soulful voice and a strong love for country music. Whitley continued to make commercially produced albums that he was generally unhappy with, battling alcoholism concurrently. His battle ended May 9, 1989, when he died from acute alcohol poisoning.
- Eric Shea" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/keith-whitley/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="John Anderson" description="Like many of today's new country superstars, John Anderson strolled into Nashville with nothing more than a guitar and a pocket full of crumpled cash. He took some odd jobs (including roof work on the Grand Ole Opry) before releasing his first single for Warner Brothers in 1978. Anderson's sound predated the urban cowboy hype by a year or two, and he blended that popular roadhouse style with a new traditional/honky-tonk fusion in a way that kept him from being pigeonholed.
- Eric Shea" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/john-anderson/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Sammy Kershaw" description="Sammy Kershaw started the '90s as one of the best modern country rockers. Wrapping his George Jones voice around heartbreakers and southern boogie romps has led to hit after hit. Kershaw doesn't write his own songs, but he sings them like they come from bitter experience. This emotional honesty puts him ahead of most of today's Nashville stars. It also makes you question his choice in material. If torch songs and Honky-Tonk rave-ups are his strong suit, why has he spent the later half of the '90s recording so many novelty numbers? Well, his idol George Jones has followed the same path over the years and always comes through with another winner when you least expect it. Here's hoping that Kershaw's career is as long and interesting.
- Eric Shea" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/sammy-kershaw/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Roger Miller" description="An undervalued songwriter in the '50s and '60s, Roger Miller will undoubtedly be known as the man who sang goofy yokel anthems like &quot;Do-Wacka-Do,&quot; &quot;Chug-A-Lug,&quot; and &quot;You Can't Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd.&quot; In addition, he is behind the perennial favorite, &quot;King of the Road.&quot; A master of Country Pop, his simple, infectious music yielded hits for artists like Ray Price, George Jones, and Ernest Tubb before his own releases garnered crossover success in the folk and pop arenas in the mid-'60s. Silliness aside, his value as a craftsman cannot be denied; he remains a major influence to creative Country artists ranging from k.d. lang to Dwight Yoakam.
- Eric Shea" category="Nashville Sound" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/roger-miller/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Ray Price" description="The Texas born Price began his career as a protege of sorts of Hank Williams, and certainly Williams' influence can be detected in the hard edged hits that Price had from the late '50s through the mid '60s. He hit big in 1956 with the song &quot;Crazy Arms&quot; written by steel guitarist Ralph Mooney. The song features a driving bass and drum part, a 4/4 shuffle that has since become part of country music's sonic vocabulary and is known as the &quot;Ray Price Shuffle.&quot; The second act of Price's career came in the early '70s when he had a huge crossover hit with Kris Kristofferson's &quot;For the Goodtimes.&quot; Price's version is a lush string driven example of the best of the Countrypolitan sound and is widely regarded as a classic. At each stage of his career, Price kept his own council when it came to choosing material. to hear him tell it he was advised against both &quot;Crazy Arms&quot; and &quot;For the Goodtimes.&quot; These songs and the numerous others that he brought to the top of the charts are a testament to his vision as an artist.
- Eric Shea" category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/ray-price/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Johnny Rivers" description="Southern-born, Los Angeles-based Rivers is the living embodiment of the swinging Sunset Strip scene of the mid-1960s. In 1964 the singer/guitarist had a record-breaking residency at the famed Whiskey A-Go-Go, where he and his very tight, rocking band would pack them in for night after night of Chuck Berry-inspired rock and southern soul. Rivers held his own against the British invasion, having a huge hit with Berry's &quot;Memphis,&quot; and later with his signature &quot;Secret Agent Man&quot;. As well as having a long string of hit singles to his name, Rivers is a quintessential music business insider in the best sense. He was instrumental in supporting the early career of songwriter Jimmy Webb, and he founded the influential Dunhill Records, the home of the Mammas &amp; the Papas, Steppenwolf, and others.
- Tom Heyman" category="'60s Oldies" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/johnny-rivers/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Buck Owens" description="Singer-songwriter, guitarist, and music business mogul Buck Owens might be more famous for his long tenure on the country music TV show &lt;i&gt;Hee Haw&lt;/i&gt; than for the fact that he was probably the most successful country act of the 1960s. Born in Texas in 1929, Owens settled in Bakersfield, Calif., in 1951 and set about creating the Bakersfield Sound. By the early '60s, Owens and his band the Buckaroos had forged a lean, hard Honky-Tonk sound different from what was happening in Nashville at the time. Owens and his main musical foil Don Rich alternated on lead guitar, while steel guitarist Tom Brumley played razor-sharp fills on the up-tempo songs and sweeping solos on the ballads. Owens' songs, many of which have become standards, are lessons in sharp wordplay and musical economy. Almost everything the band did, including solo records from the Buckaroos, went into the charts and stayed there for quite a while. When Owens' close friend and protege Don Rich died at age thirty-three in 1974, Owens scaled back his work, eventually going on to host &lt;i&gt;Hee Haw&lt;/i&gt;. Owens still played regularly at his Crystal Palace club in Bakersfield until his death on March 24, 2006. He remains revered by old and new fans around the world.
- Tom Heyman" category="Bakersfield Sound" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/buck-owens/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Johnny Horton" description="In the late 1950s, Johnny Horton was one of the first musicians to fuse down-home honky-tonk songwriting with wild rockabilly rhythms. Although Elvis Presley's early material hinted at this musical hybrid, Horton's take on the hillbilly/greaser marriage was much more exaggerated. Just as Horton's talent was blossoming, he died in a gruesome car crash in 1960.
- Eric Shea" category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/johnny-horton/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Marty Stuart" description="Marty Stuart's road to country superstardom began at age 13 when he was hired as a mandolinist by Bluegrass legend Lester Flatt, with whom he played until Flatt's death in 1979. Stuart then spent quite a bit of time as a journeyman sideman playing acoustic and electric guitar for Doc &amp; Merle Watson, fiddler Vassar Clements, and most significantly a long stint as lead guitarist for Johnny Cash. Stuart's own career as a leader didn't hit hard until 1989's &quot;Hillbilly Rock&quot; (1989), which pretty much sums up Stuart's traditionally minded, hard country sound. This record was a hit, as were many of the records that followed. Stuart is an inveterate collector of country memorabilia, owning several of Hank Williams guitars as well as Clarence White's original B-bender Telecaster guitar.
- Tom Heyman" category="New Traditional Bluegrass" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/marty-stuart/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Ricky Skaggs" description="Singer-Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ricky Skaggs started his career in Bluegrass playing mandolin and guitar with the Stanley Brothers in 1970. He kept developing his skills as both a sideman and a leader throughout the '70s, working mostly in Bluegrass. He was also a member of Emmylou Harris' Hot Band for a couple of years. In the early '80s, he had a streak of mainstream country (a genre plagued with pop gloss and overproduction) chart success. Skaggs and his sidemen's virtuoso country picking was heavily influenced by Bluegrass. That, when combined with his lean, no-frills production, makes Skaggs' gold and platinum success even more remarkable.
- Eric Shea" category="New Traditional Bluegrass" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/ricky-skaggs/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Flying Burrito Brothers" description="Shortly after the 1968 release of the Byrds' &lt;i&gt;Sweetheart of the Rodeo&lt;/i&gt;, Gram Parsons left the group to form the seminal Flying Burrito Brothers with fellow Byrd Chris Hillman -- also recruiting bass player Chris Ethridge and pedal steel player &quot;Sneaky&quot; Pete Kleinow to form a band that many would hold responsible for the birth of Country Rock. Parsons preferred the self-coined &quot;Cosmic American Music&quot; title to describe his band's overall vibe. The seminal sound of the Burritos was a twangy, swirling mix of Soul, Bakersfield-inspired Honky-Tonk, R&amp;B, psychedelia and rock 'n' roll. The Flying Burrito Brothers were outfitted with beautifully custom-made, rhinestone-bedizened, hand-embroidered Western suits by the late, great Nudie Cohen; they released &lt;i&gt;The Gilded Palace of Sin&lt;/i&gt; in 1969, donning their intergalactic Western wear on the album's cover. Following the release, Ethridge was replaced by Bernie Leadon and the Flying Burrito Brothers recorded &lt;i&gt;Burrito Deluxe&lt;/i&gt; in 1970. Although Parsons left the group in 1970, the Flying Burrito Brothers have carried on into the twenty-first century with a revolving cast of musicians and a vast repertoire of Cosmic American Music songs.
- Eric Shea" category="Cosmic American Music" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-flying-burrito-brothers/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Eddy Arnold" description="Eddy Arnold, &quot;The Tennessee Plowboy,&quot; is credited for bringing hillbilly music to the big city. He had 28 No. 1 country singles, many of which crossed over to the pop charts. Managed by Colonel Tom Parker (who would later manage Elvis), Arnold was the most commercially successful country singer of the 1940s, with hits such as &quot;Anytime&quot; and &quot;Bouquet of Roses.&quot; He had his own television show, &lt;I&gt;Eddy Arnold Time&lt;/I&gt;, in the early 1950s, and returned to the top of the charts in the '60s, reborn as a sophisticated pop crooner, with strings. &quot;Make the World Go Away&quot; was his biggest hit of this period. This Country Music Hall of Fame inductee continued to record and chart hits in the '70s and '80s, making him one of the few artists to chart in five decades. He recorded a final album, &lt;i&gt;After All These Years&lt;/i&gt;, in 2005, and passed away three years later, at age 89.
- Eric Shea" category="Nashville Sound" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/eddy-arnold/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Johnny Paycheck" description="Most people know Johnny Paycheck for his huge hit from the 1970s &quot;Take This Job and Shove It&quot; and a number of other Nashville Country hits like &quot;Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets.&quot; Few people realize that that was merely act two in a life that has seen more ups and downs than a roller coaster. Paycheck started his career at the tail end of the Rockabilly era, recording some undistinguished sides under the name Donny Young. At the time, he had already been dishonorably discharged from the service after doing hard time in the stockade for beating a superior officer. A gifted multi-instrumentalist proficient on bass, steel guitar, and guitar, Paycheck then spent quite a bit of time in the road bands of folks like Faron Young, Ray Price, and George Jones. The very thought of the substance abusing championship team of Jones and Paycheck makes the idea of Aerosmith's Toxic Twins -- Steven Tyler and Joe Perry -- pale in comparison. In the mid-'60s he made a series of stunningly original albums for the independent Little Darlin' record label. The work is marked by Paycheck's beautiful singing, emotionally raw songwriting, and the diamond hard sound of his recording band, led by pedal steel wiz Lloyd Green. These records did not sell particularly well, and by the mid -'70s Paycheck was broke and on skid row. He returned from obscurity later on that decade, recording with top Nashville producer Billy Sherrill. That relationship yielded many terrific sides as well as the aforementioned &quot;Take This Job and Shove It.&quot; Despite his success, Paycheck's problems with alcohol and cocaine found him in a downward spiral which culminated in an 1985 incident in an Ohio bar in which he shot a man, and was subsequently sent to prison. Paycheck got out of prison a changed man who has slowly, but surely reclaimed his dignity and started to receive the respect as a writer and singer that he deserves. The Country Music Foundation reissued his Little Darlin' recordings in a critically acclaimed package.
- Tom Heyman" category="Outlaw Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/johnny-paycheck/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Gram Parsons" description="What more can be said of the late, great Gram Parsons? He's been dubbed everything from &quot;the inventor of Country Rock&quot; to &quot;the godfather of Alt Country&quot; and &quot;a goddamn pussy.&quot; (Those last words actually came from Merle Haggard.) Whatever your take on him is, Parsons can be credited for fusing the boogie strut of rock 'n' roll with sweet Soul melodies, uplifting Gospel-influenced harmonies and (above all) the broken hearted sentiment of country music. He influenced everyone from the Rolling Stones to the Eagles to Wilco and beyond. He called Waycross, Georgia his homeland and attributed his love for country music to his upbringing in the South. Parsons' earliest recordings were rooted in folk, however. After playing in a number of Kingston Trio sounding Folk Revival troupes, he tried his hand at some Fred Neil influenced Singer/Songwriter work before giving life to the International Submarine band, arguably the first electric Country Rock band. Soon after releasing the then innovative &quot;Safe At Home&quot; on Lee Hazlewood's LHI label, he was recruited by the Byrds to record &quot;Sweetheart of the Rodeo&quot; with them. He turned their country music flirtations in a new direction that crossed Nashville West with his International Submarine Band (If it were not for Roger McGuinn, &quot;Sweetheart of the Rodeo&quot; might not have sounded like a Byrds record.) He then recruited the Byrds' Chris Hillman from to form the Flying Burrito Brothers, a rhinestone clad quartet of psychedelic Country Rockers. Parsons then abandoned ship to hang with the Stones, discover Emmylou Harris, and cut two prodigious solo albums that blended Bakersfield country influences with Boogie Rock and Honky-Tonk. Parsons died shortly after from a morphine 'n' tequila overdose in room #8 of the Joshua Tree Inn at the age of 26 without one hit single to his name.
- Eric Shea" category="Cosmic American Music" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/gram-parsons/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Boxmasters" description="Dapper trio the Boxmasters play a breed of country that Nashville cats don't make any more, hilariously depicting the lives of wanderlust middle-aged schlubs whose best days are behind them. Basically, their template seems to be the loser in the Statler Brothers' 1965 &quot;Flowers on the Wall&quot; who plays solitaire 'til dawn with a deck of 51. Since no other active band excels at this sort of sport, it's no surprise these guys come off as sensitive about the news peg journalists inevitably latch onto: namely, that frontman W.R. &quot;Bud&quot; Thornton is better known as Billy Bob. But this is no vanity act, and it's hard to imagine musicians working harder to camouflage the celebrity angle. In 10 months, between June 2008 and April 2009, the Boxmasters released the equivalent of five full-lengths -- two double-discs (each split between originals and covers) plus a more perfunctory holiday set. The originals sardonically focus on deceit in love and business, husbands in the doghouse and self-imposed financial disaster; the covers venture beyond country to rope in rocking Brits from the Beatles to Mott the Hoople -- which might explain why the band titled its 2009 album &lt;I&gt;Modbilly&lt;/I&gt;.
- Chuck Eddy" category="Traditional Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-boxmasters/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Faron Young" description="" category="Country Pop/Cosmopolitan" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/faron-young/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Aaron Watson" description="" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/aaron-watson/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Floyd Cramer" description="The very first time Floyd Cramer got to play piano on the radio, he accompanied Elvis Presley. That not only set the tone for a career as one of Nashville's best piano players, but it also led to a solid connection with Presley's producer, Chet Atkins. Together the two pioneered what has become known as the Nashville sound, a Phil Spector-esque layering of easy-on-the-ears musical elements designed to bring country music to the pop audience.
- Eric Shea" category="Instrumental Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/floyd-cramer/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Mickey Gilley" description="Although they never got married to each other, Mickey Gilley and Jerry Lee Lewis were cousins. Gilley began playing music in the Killer's footsteps, blending country, soul, rock 'n' roll, blues, and R&amp;B to create a tamer version of his cousin's sound. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Gilley found success in playing (and hosting) country music. Shortly before his 1974 hit &quot;Room Full of Roses&quot; began to climb the charts, Gilley opened his first Gilley's Club in Pasadena, Calif. The real rise to country superstardom came a few years later, when the urban cowboy trend took off and landed Gilley at the forefront of its mechanical bull antics. The release of &lt;i&gt;Urban Cowboy&lt;/i&gt; in 1978 brought Gilley's music and his club national attention. His music and radio hits had an up-tempo rocking beat with subtle Honky-Tonk undertones, but the production seemed polished and plastic to hard-&lt;i&gt;corn&lt;/i&gt; country enthusiasts; it wasn't long before the Urban Cowboy trend moved over to make room for Rubik's Cubes and oversized Frankie Goes to Hollywood T-shirts.
- Eric Shea" category="Urban Cowboy" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/mickey-gilley/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Hank Snow" description="" category="Traditional Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/hank-snow/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Gene Watson" description="" category="Urban Cowboy" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/gene-watson/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Gourds" description="They'll bang on anything that makes a purty noise, they make sure to swallow the contents of the whiskey jug before blowing into it, and they're not above covering Snoop Doggy Dog. Who cares if it's college-kid country? It's excellent.
- Tim Quirk" category="Alt Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-gourds/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Gary Stewart" description="" category="Outlaw Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/gary-stewart/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Dale Watson" description="It took Dale Watson a good deal of traveling to find his place in the world, and that nomadic, time-to-move-on spirit is a common thread that runs through many of his songs. Watson plays country music in the tradition of 1950s and 1960s Honky-Tonk, which puts him firmly out of step with today's heavily produced Country Pop artists burning their way up the charts. His deep voice and old-fashioned style recall the likes of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. The wheels were set in motion back in 1988 when, at the urging of Rosie Flores, Watson moved to Los Angeles; thus began his stint as guitarist in the house band at the local Palomino Club, which in turn led to a contract with Curb Records and a contribution to the &lt;I&gt;Town South of Bakersfield&lt;/I&gt; compilation. After a short stint in Nashville, Watson ended up in Austin, where he signed to HighTone Records and released &lt;I&gt;Cheatin' Heart Attack&lt;/I&gt; (1995), &lt;I&gt;Blessed or Damned&lt;/I&gt; (1996), and &lt;i&gt;The Truckin' Sessions&lt;/i&gt; (1998). In 2000, Watson's fiance was killed in an auto accident, and Dale's grief spiraled out of control. Taking pills and drinking heavily, the singer checked himself into a mental institution. Writing proved to be the best healer, and in 2001 Watson released &lt;I&gt;Every Song I Write is for You&lt;/I&gt;. In 2005, Watson was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame, and then moved to Maryland to be closer to his daughters. 2007 saw the release of both &lt;I&gt;From the Cradle to the Grave&lt;/I&gt; and &lt;I&gt;The Little Darlin' Sessions&lt;/I&gt;, but it was 2009's &lt;I&gt;The Truckin' Sessions, Vol. 2&lt;/I&gt; where Dale Watson returned to form.
- Linda Ryan" category="Bakersfield Sound" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/dale-watson/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Lefty Frizzell" description="Lefty Frizzell (1928-1975) single-handedly changed the way country musicians sing Honky-Tonk. His innovative singing style is solely responsible for the long, drawn-out vowel inflections and smooth phrasing found in the songs of everyone from George Jones and Willie Nelson to George Strait and Randy Travis. Certain country enthusiasts believe he made the Honky-Tonk sound more accessible to a wider audience while still preserving the music's haggard soul. From his first single &quot;If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time,&quot; to his later hits such as &quot;She's Gone Gone Gone,&quot; it's easy to understand why this man had such an impact on the singing styles of so many country music legends. At times, his voice sounded like a lonesome Dixieland horn, weeping along with watery pedal steel notes and soft acoustic strums. America's very first tear in a beer was probably the result of someone first listening to the lovelorn laments of Lefty Frizzell.
- Eric Shea" category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/lefty-frizzell/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Wade Hayes" description="" category="New Traditional" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/wade-hayes/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Moe Bandy" description="Moe Bandy grew up on Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. In fact, his grandfather worked on the railroad with Rodgers in Meridian, Miss., so it's no surprise that the man should grow up to be one of the most respected Honky-Tonk singers of the 1970s. His music touched on everything that could put real tears in beers. But aside from the usual chicken-wire-and-broken-beer-bottle subjects of heartache, alcoholism, fist fights, infidelity, and the great ol' U.S. of A., Bandy also managed to slip some funny content into his songwriting, sometimes portraying himself as a drunken rodeo clown (with the help of Lefty Frizell). Although his music is a bit different, his voice often breaks like a much more polished Kris Kristofferson.
- Eric Shea" category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/moe-bandy/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Webb Pierce" description="" category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/webb-pierce/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Kitty Wells" description="One of the first modern superstars of country music, Kitty Wells' proto-feminist persona and songwriting paved the way for artists such as Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. Married to country singer Johnnie Wright, Wells got her start singing with Johnnie and Jack, a very popular duo Wright had with the singer Jack Anglin. After setting out on her own in the 1950s, Wells hit the big time with the song &quot;It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels,&quot; a response to Hank Thompson's &quot;Wild Side of Life.&quot; The song was a No. 1 hit and lead to her induction into the Grand Ole Opry. Wells had hit after hit in the charts throughout the '50s and '60s; she was a popular live attraction after the chart success ended in the mid-'70s. Her records combine tough Honky-Tonk with the lush Nashville Sound characterized by sweeping strings and banks of backing vocals.
- Eric Shea" category="Honky-Tonk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/kitty-wells/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Roy Acuff" description="A perennial favorite on the Grand Ole Opry until his death in 1992, Roy Acuff stands as one of the most influential and well known artists of the early country music era. Acuff became an overnight sensation when he played the now classic &quot;The Great Speckled Bird&quot; on the Opry in 1938, introducing America to his characteristically intense vocal style -- a style that left an indelible mark on country music. In addition to performing archaic, fiddle-happy mountain songs, bawdy country novelties (under the pseudonym the Bang Boys), and Gospel standards picked up in the backwoods of pre-war Tennessee, Acuff proved himself a businessman of no small talent as well. Culling thousands of songs he wrote (and claimed to have written) under the umbrella of mammoth publishing house Acuff-Rose, he and songwriter Fred Rose for a time were co-owners of just about every song identified with Nashville, from Hank Williams to the Everly Brothers.
- Mike McGuirk" category="Traditional Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/roy-acuff/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Ferlin Husky" description="The Missouri born Husky was a major star in the 1960s with his lush Nashville Sound records, characterized by his biggest hit &quot;Wings of a Dove&quot;. Husky's voice is an amazing instrument able to swoop from a rumbling baritone up into a quavering tenor, giving his records a sweeping, dramatic grandeur. In the 1950s he recorded a number of Honky Tonk sides under the name Terry Preston, which he thought sounded less &quot;country&quot; than his given name. when he signed to Capitol records in the 1960s he changed back to his given name and began hitting the charts. His hits had all but dried up by the 1970s, but he remained a popular concert attraction.
- Tom Heyman" category="Traditional Country" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/ferlin-husky/data.opml?rws=%2Fcountry%2Fhonky-tonk%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
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