Geoff and Magne

Google and listen to an artist named Phil Vasser. He is a friend of mine and one of the top country artists out. He does a very cool mixture of Billy Joel/Elton John influenced country pop.
You see, I don't feel that music is about change as much as about adaptation. We all are influenced by things and gather all that either conciously or uncoinsiously. Then we take it to the next logical step.
I was a Ray Charles, Motown and Eagles nut so my music, has a very up front voice, huge harmonies, and a funk groove, while keeping the language and structure within the country market place.
That is what the majority of artists are doing now. If you have an artist, they are influenced by about a 8-10 year span of music. We are all interested about 12 years old and learn about music from there. Some earlier, some later, but most are about that. Around 13-14 we start playing and by 17 are pretty serious about it. So what we hear on the radio, coupled with our parents, older siblings, etc. make up the basis for our musical legacy.
The artists I mentioned all are like that. Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry, grew up being around Eddie's brother John Micheal Montgomery's band, learning songs like "Sweet Home Alabama" and other Southern rock standards. So that is their biggest influences.
Little Big Town are two girls and two guys, and if you are not an ABBA fan (Sorry Magne) you are probably going to be hitting the musical pinicle around 1977 with the Rumor's album. So that is going to be one of the biggest common threads of them when they form a group.
There is a television show called "Cross roads" where they have the country acts perform live with their heros. Wynonna Judd was with Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. Jason Aldeen just did one with Aerosmith, and the latest was Taylor Swift and Def Leopard. Very interesting.
Magne, the joke of Darius Rucker and Hootie and Blowfish is just that, a joke. Darius WAS Hootie and the Blowfish. I was talking to him about a month ago in town and he is starting to get the "Didn't you used to be Hootie?" stuff. And it is actually kind of funny, that I didn't really care for him as Hootie, but I like him very much on his country stuff. I can't define why. I think rock lends itself to a lot of redundancy. That "Only Wanna Be with you" song, drove me crazy because I thought his voice sounded like a frog in it. But his song "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" I like very much. Weird how your perception changes. No reason, just does some time.

Good to hear from you guys.

MAB