Hey—don’t call me country! This is
alt-country, baby, and while it might seem the two are close enough to be kissing cousins, the styles are a long, long way apart in the minds—and ears—of most artists performing this eclectic mutt of a very American musical brew. Both are predominantly guitar-based music, certainly, but while contemporary commercial country features guitar playing that is largely tame and precise, however virtuosic in its achievement, alt-country is often crude, loud, rude, and raw—a loose but emotive expression of the more rebellious side of the six-string’s voice, and primal comfort food for fans of unchained guitar.
Described variously as Americana, alt-country, or even semi-twang, this is a broad church of roots-based rock and roll that blends as many influences as any form of music since … well, since rock and roll, really. Equal parts old-school country and punk as played by some practitioners, the genre is also influenced by folk music, bluegrass, rockabilly, honkytonk, blues, new country, and contemporary rock forms such as grunge, indie, and alt-rock. In fact, despite the “alternative country” label this music is often given, it is almost always closer to any of these other styles than it is to the contemporary, highly commercial brand of “country” music emanating from the Nashville scene today. (Hell, Ryan Adams almost walked out of an interview I was conducting with him at the time of the release of
the final Whiskeytown album, Pneumonia, when I started describing him as a country artist.) Passions run high between these two genres divided by a common name, so let’s dig in and see what the difference really is. This time out, let’s try to put a handle on this thing called alt-country. Be sure to sink your teeth into
the Top 5 Essential Alt-Country Albums.
Like many other genres, this music encompasses so many very different artists that it almost seems unfair to shelter two diverse sounds—say, the experimental nouveau-pop of Wilco and the revamped mountain music of Gillian Welch—under the same umbrella. Others make more comfortable bedfellows: Son Volt (or Uncle Tupelo that preceded them), Whiskeytown,
the Jayhawks, Richard Buckner, Nadine, or Blue Mountain. Either way, here they all sit, and generally for good reasons. Most of these artists do in fact have something in common: a foundation best summed up as the rocker’s awakening to the purity of seminal American country, folk, and early rock and roll. I envision this epiphany unfolding in a punk or metal kid who one day puts on a record by Bob Dylan and the Band, Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash, or Hank Williams that he pilfered from his uncle’s LP collection, and the light flares on. “This is
amazing stuff!” The sound has finally sunken in, and the hook has been set.
Early names in this movement, ones that were working even before the current classifications were really formed, include bands such as Green On Red, Rank and File, the Long Ryders,
Jason and the Scorchers, and even Los Lobos, John Mellencamp, and early REM (I’m thinking their first five albums in particular). Some founding fathers of “new country” such as Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakum, also deserve a nod. Other acts that have had mass appeal and a Top 20 hit or two also touch on these sounds, if occasionally only briefly. We’re talking bands such as Counting Crows, the Gin Blossoms, and the Wallflowers; and even Bruce Springsteen has employed many Americana and alt-country flavors in his songwriting and playing. With all of these and the others mentioned above, there’s either a little twang, some rootsified jangle, or a folky, organic simplicity to the guitar style and sound that is undeniably American at its core. If such music appeals to you and you want to immerse yourself in this guitar style, listen not only to the names I’ve already listed, but seek out the forefathers in the various source-genres: from Hank Williams to Buck Owens, Bill Monroe to the Louvin Brothers,
Johnny Cash to Carl Perkins, Ledbelly to Woody Guthrie. Blend some seminal twang riffs with a little punk energy and a rockabilly string-slinger’s tonal sensibility, crank it up a notch or two higher than your mother would approve of, and you’re playing alt-country, friend.
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