- Howdy, I'm Michael Gadlin.
- Yeehaw, and I'm Kate Perdoni.
Y'all, welcome back to Arts District
from Rocky Mountain PBS.
- Today's episode is dedicated
to the spirit of country music.
- That's right, as we'll see in a minute,
some folks live and die by country music,
but what exactly is country?
- Kate that's a great question.
Arts District producers Alexis Kikoen
and Jeffrey Dallet explore Denver
to find out the pulse of the country music scene.
- And to learn from the experts themselves,
what makes country, country.
(twangy steel guitar)
- I like country music just because it's relatable to me.
- There are people that get heartbroken,
there are people that go through struggles every day,
rely on God.
- You're telling a story, so it's like,
somebody's done this or you can relate to it in that way.
- I grew up with country music, I've loved it forever.
- Country tells stories on some things
that most other music doesn't do
and I think as long as you're telling stories
with that 3 chords and the truth mantra,
that's country music.
- Go back to the old thing, 3 chords and the truth,
always told a great story.
- They'll talk about heartbreak,
they'll talk about vices that they have,
they'll talk about maybe relationships that have gone wrong.
- Heartbreak ya know, and drinkin.
All those family values that we like so much.
I think the real country music
and why I'd always related to it
was kinda like yeah, my life kinda sucks
and here's a song about it,
you know that guy's talking to ...
he's reading my mail you know.
I think it hit home to a lot of people.
- I think everybody heard country music
at some point in their life,
and it takes em back to a time.
- I think country has the capacity to make you
maybe feel a little deeper than other forms of music.
(twangy steel guitar)
♪ Ain't the mornin light pretty ♪
- I just prefer that you did what we just went over,
I can go ahead and stick something in there after that.
Because I want your voice to shine on the top of this thing.
Today we are cutting harmonies and I had my good friend
Mary Huckins from Dakota Blonde come in to add harmonies
to a great tune called Early.
Which is the story of a little tiny town in Iowa.
Early, Iowa.
♪ All right with me
♪ All right with me, me
- So you're going
♪ all right with me
Cause I'm doin
♪ all right with me
Yeah, there it is, that's it.
All right, here we go.
♪ My home on the range
♪ It's a one horse town
- (chuckling) She nailed it.
♪ Was all right with me
♪ Oo oo oo oo
- Country music is different in a lot of ways
than other types of music
even though it is so closely related.
Country and jazz and dixieland,
they have the same starting point that began with
African slaves, that began with folks in the North
doing minstrel music, and it all mixed
and then it just grew,
and it became more about home and family.
- I think the fiddles and the steel
really put the signature country stamp to it.
(slow steel guitar)
When you catch that out of the corner of your ear
you know it's gonna be a country record.
(energetic guitar music)
- Our state and our city especially here in Denver,
has had such a great relationship with country music
for so long.
- I moved here in 1976 and that sort of seventies thing
there was a huge country music scene here.
There was a whole network of clubs in town
that had house bands that played six nights a week,
same band every week,
and they were all just stellar, killer players.
- I think in Colorado it's a really different genre
than it might be around the rest of the country
because of the western connection that's involved.
The Nashville cats sing about cowboys
but they don't really know any.
- I just think when you look outside, you know,
and you see the landscape of this state,
there's no other place like it.
There is not a time that we are not visiting with
a country artist and we say,
"Hey, you know we're Tracy and Guy from KYGO Denver"
"I love Denver!"
Everybody says that.
- Denver is a great spot for everybody
to stop through on their tours.
- [Woman] I love hanging out like at the Grizzly Rose
and you know, I mean that's such a fun place to be
and just walking around looking at all the pictures
and the history.
- The country music scene to me is the Grizzly Rose.
They come in and they have a good time
and I think that's what country music allows people to do
is just enjoy themselves.
(twangy electric guitar)
♪ Shotgun seat, got my baby in the truck ♪
♪ Playin in the mud, guess you're gonna get stuck ♪
♪ In the rear view mirror see your cares disappear ♪
♪ In a dust cloud
- Country music does not mean you have to have on
a cowboy hat and a pair of Wranglers
and be able to ride a horse or ride a bull
or rope a calf.
Sometimes there's the I lost my dog, lost my girlfriend
kind of music, but for the most part it's fun, it's upbeat.
- I feel like there is an unwillingness sometimes to
strip away the stereotype that they have,
where they go every song's about a dog
or every song's about the truck
or whatever it may be, well, no it's not!
I think I would say, you have to give it a shot,
and you have to find artists that are telling your story.
If you're saying it's not real country music
because somebody's a little too Top 40,
then there's gonna be artists out there
that you might relate to a little bit more.
- I think when we talk about sub-genres of country,
they're countless, there's new country.
- Honky-Tonk.
- Old country.
- Soul.
- Classic country.
- Hardcore traditionalist.
- Western.
- Bluegrass.
- It's the same music.
- With every music format there becomes trends that happen,
and whether it's like the bro country
or whether now it's starting to lean a little bit more
even traditional sounds.
It's actually a good balance for us right now.
Denver is #1 for new country, 98.5, KYGO.
Good morning, it is Tracy and Guy.
Final day of July today getting up to about 90.
Guy this was a bit of a shocking story yesterday
apparently Siri is recording us doing like,
doing like everything.
- Yes.
- Like confirmed?
- Yes especially those Shakespearean moments
we have in the bedroom.
- (laughing) I'm sorry, did you call em
Shakespearean moments?
- Yeah, those beautiful, poetic moments.
- (chuckling) we have different moments
because I would call mine like Chewbacca moaning.
(laughing heartily)
- Shakespearean is very bold of you on this show.
We love waking up Denver every morning
and it's really flattering to have that.
You wanna make people laugh cause everyone's heading to work
and they're dropping their kids off at daycare or at school,
they've gotta get somewhere on time,
they've got a meeting.
So our job really is to put people in a place of
relaxation, having a little bit of fun,
and having them go, uh ah, I agree,
that happened to me too.
Anytime you're interviewing anybody in country music
you have to have a natural curiosity to ask questions.
- [Guy] Did you always wanna be a musician Matthew
or what did you wanna be in school when you grew up?
- [Matt] You know, yeah, I,
from an early age wanted to be a musician.
I was in the 5th grade talent show, singing,
singing like a Richard Marx song, and then --
- That was Matt Ramsey, he's the lead singer of Old Dominion
and so we went into, we found out he was in a talent show
when he was in 5th grade and what song he sang in 5th grade.
Did you sing Right Here Waiting For You
in your 5th grade talent show?
- [Matt] I did, that's the one.
- Oh my (laughing)
How many girlfriends did you have after that?
Oh my gosh, did the girls fall in love with you
when they heard you sang that song?
You know, and you can see when we do an interview like that
they really do open up.
- People do either hate or love country music.
- I think a lotta people look down on it
because it is so simple.
Four decades in the studio I've recorded any,
every kind of music you could ever imagine,
I still think country is the hardest music to play.
One of my most favorite bass players in the world,
who plays on everything, he'll tell you
a country ballad is the most terrifying thing
to play in the studio because of the simplicity of it.
- That's the only thing I think that can bother me a little
is when that wall goes up
and they don't give country music a chance.
Because I think if they found somebody that they related to
that they would really love it.
- The club owner when I was doing a show,
at one point with a group, it was a Christmas show
and I came and I did a couple songs and she got on stage
and she said, "I absolutely love your voice,
"I love what you're doing, please tell me it's not country."
(laughing) So, I said, no, that's country,
that's what it is.
- So I think there is just this wall that has been put up
that they think they don't like it from way back in the day
but when you go way back in the day,
all those songs are not about trucks and dogs, you know.
There are some brilliant lyrics that are out there.
- You go back to the old thing, 3 chords and the truth,
the biggest thing about country music,
the songs are always about real life.
(guitar case latch clicking)
- What do you think about country music Kate?
♪ It's all right with me.
I love country music, everything from Hank Williams
and Loretta Lynn to artists I grew up with in the 90s
like Garth Brooks.
- Oh I love me some Garth Brooks too.
And I love that country music lyrics
have like the everyday life vibe.
And hey, you can enjoy everything country music
by watching Ken Burns' documentary series
via our RMPBS passport.