Musings in Music City
I’ve found myself enjoying a few days down in Nashville this past week, playing it safe, doing some gigs and connecting with a few friends. Always inspiring to be there, even now the town itself exudes the finest in bluegrass, country, rock and folk music. So naturally I’ve got Nashville and country music traditions on my mind.
Vine Street Alternative has often been referred to as “a horn band” when we venture into settings outside of jazz venues. I suppose that’s an accurate thing to say. So let’s talk a little bit about the cross-section between “horn bands” and country music! Most people don’t necessarily think of a saxophone, trumpet, etc. when they think “country.” Images of banjos, fiddles, pedal steel guitars and telecasters are probably what comes to mind for most country fans when we’re talking about orchestration. But there’s been a prominent place for woodwinds throughout much of country music history as well.
US music has always been about the fusing of cultures and traditions, the morphing and combing of styles and genres popularized by all the diverse groups of people that found themselves living here. It should come as no surprise that the history of country music has borrowed some flavor from the preeminent influence of New Orleans, as well as traditions from across the southern border with Mexico that have always colored life in Texas, California, etc. And of course the whole Western Swing tradition is a direct extension of a swing band jazz style also combined with the Mexican Banda tradition.
Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire, Marty Robbin's The Hanging Tree, Bob Wills’s Rose of San Antone, these are all examples of chart-topping country classics that employ a Mexican inflection with unmistakeable Mariachi trumpet stylings. In a profound combination of the jazz and country worlds, Louis Armstrong played with Jimmie Rodgers in 1930 and again with Johnny Cash.
Check out the incredible clips in this article:
For some R&B saxophone with honky tonk seasoning, here’s Merle Haggard’s I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink:
Current prominent artists I dig including Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell have been using brass on their albums and live shows recently. The general feeling I get from musicians around Nashville and NYC is that using horns in country music is out of fashion, but a careful overview of the tradition indicates that it’s always been in the arsenal of many of country’s most influential songwriters. Maybe woodwinds will make more of a comeback in the country music of the near future. They will if we have something to say about it!
To finish off this little journey I thought it’d be entirely appropriate, especially at this very moment in history, to leave you with one of my favorite classic songs of all time.
