"Hey, Supper's On!...Get The Lobster Bibs!..."

Lots of folks loves them some country.

Over the past few years, with the rise of such singers as Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban and, of course, Taylor Swift, country music has become as popular in some major radio markets as rock stations.

In a lot of radio markets, as a matter of fact, country is numero uno.

That be “nuuhmber wunn, ya’ll…”

I likes me some country, too.

But not for the reason you might automatically assume.

In fact, there are three.

Reasons, that is, (black gold, Texas T…)

First, I get paid to offer up country music to folks on a daily basis on the old FM, there.

Second, it’s not really country music a lot of the time.

And third...

It’s just damn funny, hoss.
We’ll git back to that in a minit…

First things first.

I do a morning radio show locally in the country format and am currently working on a country music program that will feature great music, interesting stories and “not just the same old” that my homies and I hope to have available to a radio, computer and Ipod near you, no matter where you are, in the near future.

And, in the category of grandpa’s old maxim “find something you love to do, get somebody to pay you to do it and you’ll never have to go to work a day in your life”, I appreciate that country music is paying the old rent and car note, etc.

About that “not really country music” thing?

Well, I sincerely don’t think it a diss to offer up that Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban and the ubiquitous Ms. Swift, et al, aren’t exactly “country’ in either the conventional, or stereotypical, perception of a “country singer”.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but, put Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline and Taylor Swift in a portrait, title it “The Legends of Country Music”…

…and then let’s play “What’s Wrong with This Picture?”

Taylor Swift is about as “country” as I am.

So is Carrie Underwood.

Now, I’ll grant you it’s a stretch but I could be convinced that Keith Urban is a country singer.

The country is Australia.

Mate.

Oh…and let us not leave out the current “king of country music”, the uber-ubiqutious Kenny Chesney whose songs are becoming increasingly more in tune with the tiki bars that dot the shore line of the Caribbean waters where he parks his yacht/sailboat home than they are the honky tonk bars of Nashville, Tennessee.

None of this is intended as criticism or even critique.

It’s simply a matter of definition.

Carrie and Taylor and Keith (oh, my…) are simply representative of what country music has become in the last few years.

Pop music.

Add steel guitars and fiddles (and let’s make those steel drums a little louder in the mix, please) where appropriate.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

And the “reasons why” could be a whole other essay here.

Suffice to say that country sounds more pop all the time for a simple reason.

The lines between certain musical styles are getting more and more faint as time passes.

And I say, “vive le lack of difference, mon ami…”

We arrive now, though, at the third of my three personal reasons for enjoying the genre’

It’s just damn funny.
Well, it’s funny to me.

Why, you ask?

Thanks for asking.

Because “fish out of water” is a time tested premise for comedy.

And the pond of country music is stocked to the banks with fishes out of water.

But the really cool thing is that it’s a twofer.

Not only do we have pop singers writing and singing pop songs that are labeled country.

We have “country singers”, in the old fashioned sense, singing of the more traditional values of down home, sittin on the back porch, fried chicken on Sunday after church America.

While they hope to sell enough of those down home songs to be able to afford a yacht/sailboat home in the Carribean next door to the Ches…

Again, I say more power to em’.

Getting rich and living large is still the American dream.

And maybe it’s my own tongue stuck firmly in my cheek way of seeing things, but I find it funnier’n all git out.

Alan Jackson, for example, is a “down home, country boy” kind of singer who has had enormous success with songs extolling the virtues of the “country” life.

And he does live near Nashville.

I promise you, though, he does not live in a simple, country house with a back porch where they can smell the fried chicken after church.

Unless it’s the back porch that has climate control, state of the art media equipment and the smell of chicken is coming from the airplane hangar sized kitchen where the household staff is whippin up the vittles.

Randy Travis made a gazillion dollars singing of basic country values and traditions.

He and his manager wife have lived large in Hawaii for years.

And Justin Moore, one of the new guys whose latest video I have included here?

Well, just listen to the very catchy song, especially the lyrics.

And then trust me when I tell you that if Justin hits it really big, he’s not gonna limit spending the millions to having that screen door fixed on the house he grew up in.

Bet the farm.

I’ve heard it said, often, that country music is American music.

I couldn’t agree more.

Because having a good idea, working hard to make that idea work and then getting rich as a result is as American as Mama’s fresh baked apple pie.

Now being served up on the deck as we drop anchor off the coast of Martinique.

But just for a spell…ya’ll.