by Larkin Williamson

Created on: January 12, 2009

Back in the 90s, I was a house painter in Nashville, Tennessee. I just happened to be painting the country star Travis Tritts' managers' offices. This was the same time that Travis and Bill Ray Cyrus were in the brains verses booty wars. Travis hated Billys' "Achy Breaky Heart" and Billy didn't care all the way to the bank. Anyhow, as I was painting when I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman there. The man said," who cares about that Billy Ray Virus, his fans are retards and all they really care about is his achy, shaky butt"! The woman replied," yes I know, his shows are filled with morons who aren't smart enough to know what good Country music is". They both laughed and went on talking about how Travis Tritt was a star belly sneech singer and singers like Billy Ray didn't have stars upon thars.

The two people conversing were obviously working for or with Travis Tritt in some fashion. Being a painter, I heard quite a few conversations around the music business In Tune Town. One time, a big Producer was telling someone on the phone all about Country Music. He said" just go to Fan Fair and you will witness an unbelievable mass gathering of idiots"! He went on saying," I have to "dumb a song up" to sell it in this town and hell, most of the Artists here aint half as smart as a drum stick"! The person on the other end of the line must have asked" then why do it"? The producer replied," I do it because Country Music is a lucrative business, why hell, you can fart three chords behind kissin' up to the female trailer trash ego and have a smash hit"! "Women buy 83 percent of our records, therefore we must play up to the little ladies so they will keep on buying the (She is my Salvation) type crap"!

I thought to myself," wow, this is what some people really think here"? It dawned on me that many of the Country songs at the time were pretty much kissing up to women. I had even hear a guy from Los Angeles say" who needs a marriage counselor, just ask a male County star, they know all about what women want"! I can only sum it up as a business thing. The Country music that was playing on the radio in the 90s and pretty much now, dose seem to "kiss up" to women. If we compare the songs of the Johnny Cash era and any young male Country star today, there is a major difference in writing. Johnny sang about how it is and today is singing about how it should be.

I have never cared much for preachy songs of teaching men about what a woman needs. I miss real songs about love and pain. I miss the artists that simply sang a song because it was a great song. It was a strange experience to hear people of the business talk about how they really saw Country music. I believe that Country music will evolve in some good way despite the business attitude. It is funny to watch the Country music Business try to escape from the "Hee Haw" mentality but constantly returns to it for profit. It's like Country music is always searching for an identity but never finding it. Aint that a hoot!

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