"Legends Of Our Time"
The Country Western & Bluegrass
Birthday Book
FOREWORD BY
MAC McDIVITT
The book you are holding “Legends Of Our Time” is obviously a labor of love. Not very many people would undertake a project of this size and probably only Terry Horn would have the energy and drive to see it through. There have been other lists of birthdates and birthplaces; they have usually been included in another publication, and of a limited scope. Terry’s project includes old-time country musicians, traditional country musicians, modern country artists, bluegrass musicians, and even pop artists who have had success on country record charts as well as record producers, songwriters, and other people involved in the country music industry.
Back when I was doing some part-time country DJ work, I would have loved to have a book such as this to provide background historical information on the traditional country music that I played. I had to scrounge around in various places to come up with this type of information. I had frequently thought about doing this type of book myself but I didn’t have the drive to get it all together as Terry has done. He has spent countless hours in researching, compiling, checking, re-checking, to come up with “Legends Of Our Time” that is the definitive book of its type.
Why would anyone go to the trouble to put all this information together? It should be fairly obvious that the author is not going to get rich from publishing this book. Terry is one of the dwindling few of us who think that the history of country music is important. When I was growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, country DJs routinely played records by artists like Jimmie Rodgers who had been popular in the 1920s and 1930s as well as playing the hits of the day. If you listen to country radio today the history of country music doesn’t extend much beyond last month.
So why is country music history important? As less and less traditional music is available on radio and television, people begin to lose track of who the traditional musicians were. If you don’t think this is true, go into some of the mainstream CD stores. Look under Country Music and you will find people like Perry Como and Tony Bennett. This is because the people who stock the CD racks don’t know real country music and to them Perry Como and Bing Crosby sound like today’s so-called country music. Sad to say, these people do sound like what goes under the guise of country music today.
Terry’s book preserves the names of the traditional musicians. It gives their birthplaces which helps to explain the local and regional influences which have had an effect on their music. It gives their birthdates which places them in the context of what was happening in that particular era. Some of the fun things you can do with this book are to see which artists came from your home town or state and to see who was born on or near your own birthday. If you want to get an idea about where Bluegrass Music really developed; take a look at the names of the artists who came from that small area where Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia come together.
If people like Terry don’t continue to treasure the history of country music, there won’t be any country music as we know it. It’s in short supply now. Corporate America has not been kind to traditional country music. Long-time country music publications Country Song Roundup, Music City News, and Country Music Magazine have gone out of business. The wonderful Nashville Network that provided us with news of country music and various live and recorded country music and country music-related shows on TV is gone. Instead of knowledgeable personalities like Ralph Emery interviewing real live people we have faceless announcers introducing an endless stream of sleep-inducing videos. The best country music magazine comes from England. The best record companies for fans of traditional country music are located in Germany and England. The featured exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame is devoted to Nashville Rhythm and Blues music. The CMA Awards Show is scheduled to come from New York City.
However, there is hope for real country music as long as there are people like Terry around. He is a terrific fan of honky-tonk and bluegrass music which is unusual for a person of his generation. He gets excited about the same songs and records that we old guys do. He has also gathered together some great photos for his picture CD collection, to share with us.
If you’ve read this far, you’re concerned about the future of traditional country music. So you say to yourself “What can I do to help preserve country music as we’ve known it and how I can keep hearing it?” I’m glad you asked. The first thing you have to do is to realize that the music we love is not mass market music and any attempt to make it that is going to adulterate it to the extent that we won’t recognize it. Our music appeals to what is known as a “niche audience” which means that it is loved by a small but enthusiastic group of people. This means we are not going to find it on network television or on most cable stations or big radio stations. Television exposure will usually be occasionally on PBS. The big radio standard bearer is Eddie Stubbs on WSM although they keep chipping away at him. In order to hear real country music you have to search out the small local radio stations and the internet sites that program traditional country music.
Another source of our kind of music is the little local Saturday Night Opry type shows which have quietly made a comeback in the past few years. They occasionally have a name guest but usually feature local performers who are a mix of talented young people trying to get a start along with seasoned professional musicians. Bluegrass festivals in the summer are numerous. The best way to find out about these is to obtain Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine which is available on some news stands and by subscription. Other sources of live traditional country music are the steel guitar shows and conventions which are increasing in numbers. The big ones are in St. Louis and Dallas but there are smaller ones in other cities around the country.
As far as recorded country music is concerned, the company doing by far the best job of preserving American country music history is “Bear Family Records” in Germany. They have done some fabulous box sets as well as single CDs of the most important bluegrass and country music performers of the past. Other companies which are putting out some good CDs of historical country music are JSP, Proper, Ace, Krazy Kat, and Country Routes in the UK, Cattle Records in Germany, and Collector Records in Holland. In America, there is good, currently recorded country music coming out of Texas on small record labels and artist-produced and financed CDs, which you need to search the internet for. Most bluegrass is on small labels, and the best consistent source for it is County Sales in Floyd, Virginia which does mail-order and also has a website on the internet.
As far as print media is concerned, the best magazine dealing with country music in general is Country Music People from the UK. The best magazine for bluegrass and old-time country music is Bluegrass Unlimited from Virginia.
There are probably more books on country music available today than at any time in history. Not all book stores have them and none of them have very many. The above mentioned County Sales handles a lot of them and the big internet book stores have quite a few. A lot of the books are like the one you’re holding now, put together and privately published by someone who really loves the music and wants to preserve the history of it while there is still time.
The point of all this is that our kind of music is still out there. It just requires some effort on our part to find it. We can’t sit around and whine about it not being on major record labels or network TV or corporate radio. We have to get out and look for it. We need to provide the encouragement for the dedicated people who are trying to keep the music alive by buying their books and CDs and going to their shows.
Author Notes | Mac McDivitt's Foreward
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