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I'm one of those making my way back to early 70s country rock by way of its influence on alt-county acts from Camper van Beethoven to Ryan Adams. It took Whiskeytown to get me over my fear of country-rock crossover, hatched, no doubt, from traumatic high-school memories of mullet-headed Camaro jockeys rocking The Eagles as the wellspring of all that is good and decent in the world.
Finding the Flying Burrito Brothers, for example, is an interesting path for me because I did not listen to country as a kid, and so I end up hearing the "influenced" before the "influences." This is the inverse of my experience with, say, pop rock, where I'm always on about how a someone of recent vintage sounds like a rehash of Gang of Four or Duran Duran.
Anyway, to my ears, this track by the Jayhawks really seems to have been penned by the ghost of Gram Parsons. See if you agree. I'm especially interested to hear from those with more insight into the genre.
Anyone have a decent name for a genre that would include Tom Waits? Depending on how you look at it, it could include everyone from Lou Reed to Springsteen to Leonard Cohen to Nick Cave. On some days, it includes Dylan. Other times, it belongs with other alt acts from the Pixies to the Decemberists.
For those of you who are familiar with Apple's smart playlists, the easy arguments seem to be for tags Alt Blues or Alt Folk or Alt Roots. This lets Waits get picked up when you are trawling for either Alt or Blues/Folk/Roots. It just seems that you miss out on getting, say, Elvis Costello in on the same category when he so clearly belongs. Sometimes.
How have you decided on who else belongs in that Tom Waits genre.
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tempted to say avant blues, but i'm a genre whore(i guess it looks like we all are though)
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Everything you said makes complete sense to me and I just wanted to say that pretty much all I've been listening to over the past 6 months is Gram solo, Flying Burrito Brothers, ISB, Byrds, etc. I really can't get enough . . .
And like you said, influenced has led me to influence. So, it all started with Wilco, Ryan Adams, Whiskeytown about 6 years ago and since have discovered Gram. Now I've taken it a step further and have been (slowly) getting into Gram's influences: Hank Sr., George Jones, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard . . . good stuff.
Because, like you, I did not grow up a country fan, it's taken me a little bit longer to get into the genre, but i figured it would eventually happen after I started listening to Whiskeytown and Wilco's Being There, back in the day.
And the point about rock bands influenced by new wave and post punk pretty much holds true for me too. Though I wasn't a huge fan of bands like Joy Division, Gang of Four, PiL before hearing new rock, I had definitely listened to them before Interpol and Radio 4 (respectively).
I don't know the Jayhawks that well, but I did want to mention that the Whiskeytown cover of Gram's A Song for You is amazing and Ryan sounds EXACTLY like Gram on the track. Shows you how much respect he has for his influences.
Good to have another true kindred mogger.