DJ Cucumbah's - Dude Ranche

*Before I get to the liner notes I want to apologize for not commenting on all the awesome CDs that have been arriving in my mailbox. I have enjoyed them all immensely and hope we keep doing this. I need my horizons expanded as much as the next guy (maybe more). A loud, and long, round of applause for y'all.*

Dude Ranche



When I was growing up in the middle of Alberta, I hated country music. For me it was viscerally associated with those backwards, shit kicking cowboy rednecks that I found so annoying. At the age of fifteen, I installed a ten foot antenna on the house and immersed myself in FM radio album rock.

However, I moved far from the dusty plains to Montreal to attend art school. Just around the corner from the arts building, at a bar called The Blue Angel, once a month, on a Monday night, The Country Music Association of Canada held an open stage jam. The first time I walked in I thought the jukebox was playing a scratchy old bluegrass record, but then I noticed that it was the band playing. A cast of characters attended regularly - Rocky the old pedal steel player from Quebec City, who learned English by memorizing Hank Williams songs; Ralph the Pakistani taxi driver who sat wearing a powder blue polyester suit, banjo at his side, too shy to get up on stage; Jennie from Nova Scotia who had a voice like a cat with its tail caught in a screen door. I was hooked - cheap beer, free hotdogs at midnight, and the only real rule – no songs composed after 1960.

For me this was just the start and over the years I have collected a few favorites and figured out a few things about its history and varied influences.

So Dude Ranche is my personal and meandering history of country music - which is not necessarily in chronological order. We start with Bluegrass, swerve into C&W for a second, then dash through the great crossover of the 60's, sprint onto contemporary practitioners and then carom off a guardrail and over a cliff.

Folkways recorded folk music around the world and in the late fifties rediscovered a lot of American music, putting an anthropological focus on its own backyard. This recording is from 1959.

White House Blues (aka "McKinley Blues") Earl Taylor And The Stoney Mountain Boys (Classic Bluegrass from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings)

I love the vocals on this Bill Monroe track, almost sweet enough to make you believe in Jesus (but not quite). Seems Monroe coined the term Bluegrass – or had something to do with it.

Happy On My Way Bill Monroe (The Music Of Bill Monroe: From 1936 To 1994)

Doc Watson has been playing this stuff for years. I saw him at folk festival years ago and he sure can pick. This recording is from 1961.

Way Down Town Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley (Original Folkways Recordings 1960 – 1962)

I threw this one in here to contrast the bluegrass revival music to the slick commercial country that was emanating from the radios of the time.

Heartaches Patsy Cline (1962)

In the early seventies, a bunch of young fellers and old timers got together and recorded Will The Circle Be Unbroken, a watershed album that seems like a passing of the torch from one generation to another. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band figures extensively on this album and unfortunately went on to release some pretty nasty pop country stuff later in the decade. Roy Acuff was one of the old guys.

Wreck On The Highway Roy Acuff (Will The Circle Be Unbroken)

As awesome a coal miner song as there ever was. There is something about Merel Travis' voice that really gets me as he sings this deeply existential tune.

Dark as a Dungeon Merle Travis

Somewhere along the way to putting together this CD I discovered that a most striking feature of most of these selections was the prominence of the voice. So I thought this cover really showcased Buck Owens' pipes, even though he wrote tuns of songs himself.

Bridge Over Troubled Water Buck Owens

Then there was the great crossover. Gram Parsons, the rebel Harvard Graduate, seems to have single-handedly created the country rock genre. Later on, the Eagles wore his influence on their country rock gold hemmed sleeves. He features in The Byrds, singing and writing…

One Hundred Years From Now The Byrds

…and singing Wild Horses, which Mick Jagger gave to him to record before the Stones did.

Wild Horses The Flying Burrito Brothers

I had heard about the Grateful Dead but when I finally heard them I was surprised they were so country. I guess if you listen to it on acid it sounds like something else.

Ripple Grateful Dead

Dylan, with deep roots in American folk music from the beginning, recorded his country album Nashville Skyline in 1969. His voice was never so smooth – this is a song about his dog.

Lay Lady Lay Bob Dylan

The Man in Black has never been darker than on this cover of a Will Oldham tune - a pretty recent recording but it fits here in the Sturm und Twang section.

I See a Darkness Johnny Cash

Back to Gram Parsons - and here we see his continued influence in two tracks from a tribute album from a couple years back. Time for some more female vocals. Emmylou Harris hung out with Parsons back in the day before he self-destructed.

She The Pretenders & Emmylou Harris

$1,000 Wedding Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield

Can't have a party without some Commander Cody. Not to be confused with any of those CB radio joke songs from the 70's.

Truck Drivin' Man Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen

John Prine is one funny guy. A doggerel poet for the people.

Inspite of Ourselves John Prine and Iris Dement

I've seen Ms. Case a couple of times live, but despite sounding good and pure she never really seems to give it up. I think she is saving her golden voice for these studio recordings. This composition is a testament to her ability to update the genre.

Margaret Vs. Pauline Neko Case

Arizona's own Calexico mix it up with a country sound that has liberal hints of that other United States to the south.

Service and Repair Calexico

At some point I was thinking that a CD of country style songs by bands that usually didn't do 'country', but I quickly abandoned that idea. So here, at the end, is where we go swerving off the rails. I love how Mahavishnu Orchestra takes the sweetest country folk melody and smashes it into a million jazz fusion pieces, then comes back to it as if nothing had happened.

Open Country Joy Mahavishnu Orchestra

John Zorn wrote this one minute version of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western soundtrack classic for an ad agency on spec – he never heard back from them.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly John Zorn

Now that it's over I realize that this CD doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the influence of country music. Not only that but I forgot to include the track Dead in the Water, from the Supersuckers' 1997 album Must've Been High.

On a sad note, despite the fact that there is all this great country and country influenced music out there, those cowboys back in Alberta are still listening to crap.