A year ago I finally did a column about country music on account of going to a rodeo in the far northern reaches of the state. Well, I was at the rodeo again last weekend (pictured left), so it’s time for another one.

First a point of clarification: I don’t dislike country for the usual vaguely classist, “I like everything but country and rap” reasons. No, it’s a personal grudge. My mom, like seemingly most moms in the ’90s, was into pop-country. During the heyday of Garth Brooks, it was huge and that’s what she listened to in the 1989 Plymouth Voyager with fake wood paneling that seemingly everyone’s mom drove back then. And I hated it.

Part of it was the obvious: When you’re in middle and high school, your parents’ music is always lame. When my parents were young, their music was awesome, I loved and continue to love late ’60s rock and Gordon Lightfoot, but the modern music they liked was always bad.

But the other part is that while most genres are forced into a small box of acceptable themes and sounds, pop-country has two sets of limitations, and when it has to have the modern country twang and subject matters and the modern pop polish, it just ends up trash.

All that said, not all country is pop-country, so let’s focus on the good stuff.

Willie Nelson — “On the Road Again”

Anyone who claims they don’t love Willie Nelson is lying to you. He’s a country legend, a counterculture legend and he can famously smoke Snoop Dogg under the table. If that doesn’t cover the majority of American subcultures, I don’t know what would.

Aside from his shockingly broad appeal, the other amazing part of Willie Nelson is that he’s still out there being Willie Nelson. He’s 90 years old and he’s still performing and going strong! He won a couple Grammys in 2023! And not in a sad, throwback act sort of way. He hasn’t completely lost touch with the modern world like many people his age. He’s advocating for relevant causes and hanging out with his modern counterparts.

May we all age like Willie Nelson.

Woody Guthrie — “Union Burying Ground”

The tragedy of country music as a genre is that, originally, it was socially conscious protest music. They might not have described it in those terms, but in a modern sense it’s the best description. It was music by and for working people being exploited and oppressed by society, speaking out about that oppression and challenging the people and systems perpetuating it.

In that sense, it had more in common with NWA’s “Fuck Tha Police” than anything Toby Keith has ever done. It was a testament of the conditions of their lives in their words, to people who wouldn’t know otherwise. And it was effective. It rallied people who identified with those sentiments and conditions to band together and challenge it.

Then time went on and it became sanitized for the mainstream, then 9/11 happened and it became pure, unadulterated jingoism to rally support for those same people and systems perpetuating the listeners’ conditions. They basically turned it around against them. It can be argued that hip-hop is starting to walk the same road, but time will tell.

But oh, there was a beautiful day when country music was more “Take the Power Back” than “Horst-Wessel-Lied.”

Patsy Cline — “Crazy”

This is, believe it or not, another Willie Nelson song. He wrote it before he got famous and, as it wasn’t a standard three-chord country song, there was hesitance toward recording it. Patsy Cline picked it up and recorded it. Not only did it become her signature hit but, for a while—and possibly to this day—it became the most-played song on jukeboxes of all time.

Also, those background vocals? That’s The Jordanaires. They were a gospel group formed in 1948 that did white people versions of spirituals, basically a religious version of Pat Boone making a career doing awful white versions of early rock and roll or Eric Clapton doing mediocre white versions of jazz. They made extra money doing background harmonies for other artists in Nashville. They appeared on a bunch of Patsy Cline songs, obviously, but are most famous for backing up Elvis. They also worked with Johnny Cash in the ’50s and again in 1990, and only broke up in 2013, with their last appearance being on a 2011 Kristin Chenoweth album.

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Jason Isbell — “Super 8”

This column is called Rewind because, originally, I took one year per week and picked my favorite songs. It was a column of the best old songs for people with blind spots that included entire decades. Then I ran out of years and it became whatever this is, but I kept the name “Rewind” because even left to my own devices, most of the songs I pick will be old. I don’t like new music, what can I say. Capitalism has gone too far in ruining art.

Of course, when covering an entire genre, I should probably acknowledge that it still exists and not all modern country music is irredeemable trash glorifying crippling alcoholism or gleefully encouraging xenophobia to smooth the path to fascism. For example, Jason Isbell exists.

Isbell came to prominence in his six years with the Drive-By Truckers, who are also very good. The parting, when he left, was amicable. But considering he’s since said he doesn’t clearly remember most of that time due to alcohol and cocaine addiction, it probably wasn’t unwelcome. He’s since gotten sober and his solo work is fantastic. He’s also a great Twitter follow, as long as Twitter lasts.

Sturgill Simpson — “In Bloom”

I know I should have used “Turtles All the Way Down,” which is my favorite Sturgill-Simpson-penned song. I try to avoid using covers of songs I already liked to represent artists, because I’m already biased in the song’s favor. All that said, man, do I love his cover of Nirvana’s “In Bloom.” I think I actually like it more than Nirvana’s original, somehow.

Simpson is the closest the modern world has to those old-time country singers I mentioned earlier. He’s the first man on his mom’s side of the family not to work in a coal mine because, instead, he joined the Navy. He worked at a Union Pacific railyard in Salt Lake City. Eventually, in 2013, he paid to record and release an album himself, which led to a music career.

The most telling thing about modern country music is that, between the Navy and his time at the railyard, he moved to Nashville and tried to break into music. Here’s a guy who’s basically a modern version of ’70s vintage Waylon Jennings, a prodigal talent, and the industry just kinda sent him on his way. Makes you wonder how many other greats we’re missing out on so we can get Toby Keith and Jason Aldean.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.