Generally speaking, do non-Americans love country music?

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Not sure if this was asked here yet, but it seems strange to think of Europeans enjoying Garth Brooks.

― billstevejim, Monday, 7 March 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

Generally speaking? I don't know. Obviously country isn't as big as in the US. I don't think Garth Brooks and his ilk sell that many records here in the UK, but older country is enjoyed by a wide range of people. Especially in Scotland, for some reason.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:09 (twenty years ago)

Well that makes sense. Old country is actually good.

― billstevejim, Monday, 7 March 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

country is big in germany.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

I heard that many foreign versions of US country singles are remixed with electronics instead of real strings and no twang....

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

and Birmingham (England, can't speak for Alabama)

― Robin Goad (rgoad), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

If you asked most English people to name two country musicians they'd say "The one with the tits, and the one that did that Nine Inch Nails cover".

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

jon you're thinking of that last shania album i think

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

Country music is huge in lots of non-US and even non-English speaking countries.

― Huk-L, Monday, 7 March 2005 16:14 (twenty years ago)

Radio 2/TOTP2 plays the odd bit of pop-country. I was surprised last year when my mum knew who Gretchen Wilson was.

x-post "the jerk in the cowboy hat, and that dead lady".

― Richard C (avoid80), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:15 (twenty years ago)

Also, what about Australia/NZ? Isn't country huge there?

― Richard C (avoid80), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

Recently in Norway there was a sort of trend where a number of Norwegian women in their 40s or so sold mad amounts of albums. Very easy-listening sorta thing. If you're familiar with the Swedish "dansband" thing, think of that going country.

http://www.artistguiden.no/bilder_artister/Heidi%20Hauge%20Country%20Girl%20CD%20cover.jpg

― Øystein (Øystein), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:18 (twenty years ago)

I've heard tell that 1920s country pioneer Jimmie Rodgers "The Singing Brakeman" is popular in Nigeria.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

Yeah -- It seems almost as many country singers come from Australia as come from Nasvhille or Texas these days! Though I have no idea how well the stuff *sells* down under. (Or even, really, what being a country singer in Australia *means,* per se' -- do they tend to come from a certain part of the country, like rural areas, or the outback? Most of the Aussie singers strike me as pretty suburban -- which coming from me is not an insult, by the way -- but I have no idea if Australians hear them that way or not.) (Maybe they just seem normal down there, seeing as how Olivia Newtown-John might have been first!) (On the other hand, AC/DC and Rose Tattoo and bands like that were basically Australian versions of Southern redneck boogie rock, in lots of ways; do all these acts play in redneck cowboy pubs, or what?)

― chuck, Monday, 7 March 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

There's a whole weird crossover in Germany of schlager-style German singalong pop hits merging with coutryfied twang guitar and boom-chicka rhythms merging with big whomping kick drums to create this strange Teutonic trucker music- we bought a cassette of this while on tour in Germany- all the Americans in the bus thought it was awesome and hilarious and the Germans were just wincing and rolling their eyes. (Imagine the David Allen Coe of Bavaria armed with an 808 and wearing a Stetson)

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

country is huge in many parts of africa, ethiopia has a huge jim reeves fixation, dolly parton has been and is hugely popular.

actually, jim reeves is pretty big across the continent, king sunny ade namechecks jim reeves as one of his favorite musicians, he was hugely popular in s. africa.

― H (Heruy), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:33 (twenty years ago)

how many country acts have had number one hits in the uk? conway twitty, roger miller, who else? how many have had number one hits in the us for that matter?

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:36 (twenty years ago)

Kenny Rogers had a couple of UK #1s.

― Richard C (avoid80), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:38 (twenty years ago)

Australian Country music sells very well in Australia - runner up to the first Australian Idol (Shannon Noll) is a country singer - No idea if there is an equivalent American Idol.

+ We have Tamworth (Australian equivalent of Nashville) and its music festival

http://www.ccimage.com.au/festival/

Most Australian Country music comes from northern inland NSW and southern inland Queensland.

― Jedmond (Jedmond), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

Number one singles by country artists in the UK

Bobbie Gentry- "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" (Aug 1969)
Kenny Rogers- "Lucille" (Apr 1977)
Kenny Rogers- "Coward Of The County" (Jan 1980)
LeAnn Rimes- "Can't Fight The Moonlight" (Nov 2000)

Biggest hits by other country acts:

Dolly Parton- "Jolene", #7
Johnny Cash- "A Boy Named Sue", #4
Garth Brooks- "The Red Strokes / Ain't Going Down", #13
Dixie Chicks- "There's Your Trouble", #26

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

Julio Iglesias & Willie Nelson- "To All The Girls I've Loved Before", #17 (Willie Nelson's only UK hit single)

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

Have a look: http://www.pingpongcountry.de

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

"sixteen tons" went to number one in the uk too

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

Number one singles by country artists in the UK

Errr.. what about 'Stand By Your Man'? And Billy Connolly's 'D.I.V.O.R.C.E', if that counts.

Also, for your 'other biggest hits' list, Glen Campbell had quite a few singles in the top 10.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 7 March 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

one of he best things i ever saw was an ethopian in toronto selling old school hip hop, afro pop, and one single jim reeves dub

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 7 March 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

also canada has a whole coiuntry industry unrelated to nashville

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 7 March 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Fuck it, I'm gonna do it for all winners of the CMAs "Entertainer of the Year" category:

Eddy Arnold- "Make The World Go Away", #8
Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell- "All I Have To Do Is Dream", #3
Johnny Cash- "A Boy Named Sue", #4
Merle Haggard- No UK hit singles
Charley Pride- No UK hit singles
Loretta Lynn- No UK hit singles
Roy Clark- No UK hit singles
Charlie Rich- "The Most Beautiful Girl", #2
John Denver- "Annie's Song", #1
Mel Tillis- No UK hit singles
Ronnie Mislap- No UK hit singles
Dolly Parton- "Jolene", #7
Julio Iglesias & Willie Nelson- "To All The Girls I've Loved Before", #17
Barbra Mandrell- No UK hit singles
Alabama- No UK hit singles (which makes them less popular than Alabama 3, incidentally)
Ricky Skaggs- No UK hit singles
Reba McIntyre- No UK hit singles
Hank Williams Jr- No UK hit singles
George Strait- No UK hit singles
Garth Brooks- "The Red Strokes / Ain't Going Down", #13
Barbra Streisand / Vince Gill- "If You Ever Leave Me", #26
Alan Jackson- No UK hit singles
Brooks and Dunn- No UK hit singles
Shania Twain- "That Don't Impress Me Much", #3
Dixie Chicks- "There's Your Trouble", #26
Nelly featuring Tim McGraw- "Over And Over", #1
Kenny Chesney- No UK hit singles

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 7 March 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Kenny Rogers had a UK No.1 with 'Lucille', too.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 7 March 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

The Cardigans apparently love them some country music:
http://cardigans.com/images/uploads/dolly_nina.jpg

― Voodoo Man (Voodoo Man), Monday, 7 March 2005 17:39 (twenty years ago)

Don't know about cowboys, but I do know germans have a thing for indians...
http://www.lightwork.org/exhibitions/past/images_past/rob_bech01.jpg

― The Argunaut (sexyDancer), Monday, 7 March 2005 17:42 (twenty years ago)

country music has been huge in australia for decades--since the 40s. it's also really big in canada. australia and canada (the latter country fairly obviously) are not so different from the united states in many respects.

maybe it's naïve to say this, but i just figured people in other countries like country music for the same reasons americans like country music.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 7 March 2005 18:46 (twenty years ago)

We are forgetting Tammy guesting with the KLF too! #2, I think.

It's a minority interest here, but not an insignificant one. I've heard people say lots of times that country is pretty popular in many parts of Africa, but I can't prove that.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

The number of country albums I have bought from car boot sales, market stalls and charity shops shows that the bigger stars (Tammy, Dolly, Willie, Hank, George and so on) sold quite a few albums here in the '70s, in particular.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:51 (twenty years ago)

Didn't NME or Melody Maker used to print best-country-albums of the year lists in their year-end issues? I remember one of them did that in the '70s, and the lists often looked pretty weird and interesting in a somewhat clueless way (which is sort of a compliment, honest!)

Are those links on line anywhere? Or can anybody print any here?

― chuck, Monday, 7 March 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

Oops, I meant '80s not '70s (when I never saw either paper, pretty much just like in the '90s and '00s I guess).

― chuck, Monday, 7 March 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

i remember reading about this whole Wild West theme park somewhere in germany, where germans wear cowboy hats and there are mock saloons and stuff and American country music blasts from every corner. don't know if it's current country music, though.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

two words: bear family

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:02 (twenty years ago)

JAPAN.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:07 (twenty years ago)

aha! yeah, as i guessed, it's in bavaria! it's called Pullman City! more info from boingboing, which got it from an article in the NY Times:

"Main Street features covered plank sidewalks, double-decker railings and cutout clapboard facades. Outside the sheriff's office, the town marshal, Big Joe - a Turkish-born character actor little more than three feet tall - obligingly poses for photos, pointing his six-gun at guests and ordering "Hände hoch!" ("Hands up!")...Pullman City, in fact, is one of more than a dozen Wild West theme parks and similar attractions in Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia. I visited several others, including two parks in the Czech Republic and one near Vienna.

They all form part of a multifaceted Wild West subculture in Europe that includes everything from country music festivals and cowboy saloons to an established rodeo circuit. Tens of thousands of Europeans study (or even live like) trappers, American Indians or other frontier archetypes as a hobby. They join clubs, dress up in elaborate costumes and often take to the woods on weekends to live in tepees or sleep "cowboy style" under the stars. "People dream of a free, beautiful country, of romantic campfires and heroes in the saddle," said Detlef Jeschke, a Nuremberg-born former champion European rodeo cowboy who is Pullman City's program manager."

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:08 (twenty years ago)

In the Norwegian countryside, there are lots of bigtime fans of country music. Maybe not quite Garth Brooks, but certainly Jim Reeves was extremely popular here, and there have also been several Norwegian country acts that have sold bucketloads of albums.

I said countryside, and that is kind of the point. American culture, in its traditional and "white" form, is very popular with some people in the countryside here, usually "simple" people with not a lot of education and sort of traditional jobs. In more urban areas, there isn't much of a following for any kind of country music.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:13 (twenty years ago)

ye gods geir

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:15 (twenty years ago)

http://www.davidpaulmorris.com/stories/countrygold/bar.jpg
Japanese country music fans enjoy the music in Charlie Nagatani's bar, "Good Time Charlie's" located in Kumamoto, Japan.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:17 (twenty years ago)

read somewhere just the other day how kenny rogers was loved in jamaica

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:50 (twenty years ago)

I seem to remember "Friends in Low Places" being a huge smash in non-US countries.

― ffirehorse, Monday, 7 March 2005 21:19 (twenty years ago)

but blount, he put the word 'simple' in scare quotes, so obviously he's making progress!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 7 March 2005 21:31 (twenty years ago)

Its all about Bob Harris on Thursdays, Nick Barraclough on Weds, radio 2.

― Abby (abby mcdonald), Monday, 7 March 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, in Tony Horwitz's fascinating Confederates On The Roof, about many kinds of peoples, all fascinated with the Civil War, he includes German activities. And come to think of it, he rosomebody mentions a guy who was the Zane Grey of Germany, and whose novels helped inspire lots of German cowboy movies at some point (can just imagine der Reich view of The Winning Of The West). Scott Rouse, who does a lot of mixes of old time country music, told me about all the orders he got from Scandanavia, back in the 90s, for club-ready country-techno mixes, even before Rednex hit with "Cotton-Eyed Joe"("Old hat to the Swedes," he said). I used to have a couple of import comps with a lot of stuff like that (and Lee Hazlewood's still over there, isn't he?) I've seen some early (approving) British mentions of the Beatles' country infuence, though I don't know if "Act Naturally" or "I've Just Seen A Face," say, were particularly big hits, or even singles. Stones' "Dead Flowers" sure made its mark; I still get promos that try to build whole careers on paraphrases of that track. "Wild Horses" I now tend to hear as an ancestor (or kissin' cousin) of the post-Elvis, italiante, cabaret/Eurovision country, Tom Jones on the one hand(with "Green Green Grass of Home," "Mexican Puppeteer," etc.) and Mary Hopkin on the other. Mary seems like an influence on ABBA, somewhat ("The Winner Takes It All"), and on Olivia, and Shania. (Of oucourse there are too many Canadian country artists to think about right now). Jamie O'Neal, from Australia, took it back from Shania, mor back toward Tom Jones, via Bonnie Tyler and some Marianne Faithful tracks (like her version of Shel Silverstein's "The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan," but also didn't she make at least one whole album that was supposed to be country, promoted or mentioned that way). Jamie, in other words, took it back toward *good* soap opera, if not a truly Grand Eurovision. That's her first album; haven't heard the new one. Most of the Australians I'm familiar with are, like th Canadians I'm most familiar with, on the folkie side of country(aside from Jamie's fellow expat Keith Urban, and even he's been tagged by Frank Kogan, as being kinda like Lindsey Buckingham, which suggests a post-folk-rock element). Cyndi Boste got captioned as "cowgirl of the outback", in my Voice roundup, "Alias In Wonderland." She sounds like a more dynamic, but equally deep-voiced Tracy Nelson, if Tracy wrote like, say, Neil Young x Lucinda Williams (very roughly speaking). On her latest, Scrambled Eggs (which topped my Nashville Scene Ballot in '04), she also covers Suzannah Espie, Tiffany Eckhart, Vicki Simpson, Andy Cowan,Dirty Lucy (a band), Tonchi McIntosh, Dave Steel (who sings with her, too), and Barb Walters, among others. Barb's own Rosa Duet album incl. singalongs with Cyndi, Dan Warner, Kim Salmon, Nick Barker, Ashley Davies. Speaking of expats, guess i should mention the gifted but often whiney Kasey Chambers (forgotten the name of her family band in Australia, but her dad Bill is also the Bill of Bill & Audry, and Audry [Auld] made a good solo album, in Nashville I think)

― don, Tuesday, 8 March 2005 03:39 (twenty years ago)

I was just watching On the Edge of Country, the alt-country show on GAC (a country music channel I recently started getting on DirecTV), and the host was an Australian woman, fwiw.

― Don't Ever Antagonize The Horny (AaronHz), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 04:01 (twenty years ago)

holy god drew that stuff sounds amazing! can you remember any names?

― f--gg (gcannon), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 04:08 (twenty years ago)

I grew up in Colac (Australia) and country was always big...seemed to be more so as I got older, with cross-over folks like Kasey Chambers etc.
Plus there's a huge rockabilly/psychobilly thing going on too...I know it's not country, but I don't see the two being unrelated.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 04:50 (twenty years ago)

i worked down the street in paris from a country/rockabilly record store. the same three guys were always in there. i asked how country music was received in france, and the owner told me, "ça ne marche pas...."

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 04:57 (twenty years ago)

A movie's being made, supposedly, about an American defector, who became a folk-country star-of-sorts in East Germany. Come to think of it, I 'member back 'round '75, Tenessee Ernie Ford and some others in public awe of reception they got, back in the U.S.S.R. (and a friend of mine had some Conway Twitty singles, re-recorded in Russian, which suited the music very well. "Hello Darlin" became "Dosvedanya,"" or however you spell it.)

― don, Tuesday, 8 March 2005 05:22 (twenty years ago)

Well, Australia does have a country singles chart...and they were smart enough to send Dana Lyons' "Cows With Guns" to number two on it! I wish it would've done that here...

and Birmingham (England, can't speak for Alabama)
Birmingham, Alabama has nothing but country stations...and maybe a rap/hip-hop/R&B station and a pop station.

― Ian Riese-Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

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