Country is a music of diverse pleasures: the bel canto balladry of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, the psychologically acute portraiture of Tom T. Hall, the politically rousing storytelling of Loretta Lynn, the self-deprecating myth-making of Billy Joe Shaver, the bone-chilling spirituality of Ralph Stanley. It’s also full of contradictions: Maligned by some as hackneyed and simplistic, its lyrics can attain a sophistication rarely encountered in other music. Dismissed for reactionary politics, it has consistently offered up fierce critiques of inequality, bigotry, and injustice (see Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears, below). And if during certain periods the country charts seem swamped with work of almost unimaginable ickiness and bathos, there are usually flashes of musical sublimity glimmering through.
For years, a certain kind of listener has turned up their nose at country’s directness, regionalism, and twang, as though ears that delight in Dame Janet Baker singing Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder cannot possibly enjoy the Louvin Brothers’ equally wrenching rendition of “When I Stop Dreaming.” This, of course, betrays nothing but a lack of imagination.
This magazine hasn’t been exempt from this strain of snobbery. Reader mail about a previous column on Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard suggested that it had reached an underserved segment of our readership, and what follows is a list of a dozen favorite country records that number among the most delightful, moving, and ass-shaking in all of American (and Canadian) music.
This little list isn’t intended to be a “greatest” anything, only a collection of personal favorites—ranking musical art makes about as much sense as ranking lovers. Also, I haven’t made a good-faith effort to represent the last decade. Though it’s an unpopular opinion to air publicly, not every age is equal in yielding cultural treasures, or as my friend
