{"id":2081,"date":"2010-08-23T01:11:41","date_gmt":"2010-08-23T01:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=2081"},"modified":"2010-08-24T16:10:26","modified_gmt":"2010-08-24T16:10:26","slug":"the-real-country-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2010-08\/the-real-country-no-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Country, No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s funny these days how we seem to have to delicately ask people if they are fans of country music.\u00a0 To begin, neither the asker nor the askee knows WHICH country music is being asked about.\u00a0 Each may wonder if the reference is to the dreck that has taken up the large majority of “country” radio station playlists over the last 20-30 years, or whether it is the stuff that resonates within like each word was sung in your soul?\u00a0 Having listened almost exclusively to real country music in utero and until the Beatles showed up on The Ed Sullivan Show, we have a definite affinity with real country music.\u00a0 We may not be able to define “real country music” (though we will try in the posts to come), but we know it when we hear it.<\/p>\n

And with that as an intro, we are going to intermittently post songs that we believe define “real country” music and put the rest of that soul-less crud to pasture.\u00a0 You may be surprised at times by what we consider to be real country.\u00a0 We hope so anyway.<\/p>\n

First up, for no particular reason, is Merle Haggard and his soaring ballad, If I Could Only Fly. <\/em>We know that Haggard voices some interesting opinions that can make you scratch your head and\/or groan.\u00a0\u00a0 But there is no denying that he has written and sung some great songs over the years.\u00a0\u00a0 This is one of those songs.\u00a0 You can really feel the regret and longing in this song.\u00a0 Check it out.<\/p>\n

Merle Haggard–If I Could Only Fly<\/em><\/p>\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/09-If-I-Could-Only-Fly.mp3|titles=09 If I Could Only Fly]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s funny these days how we seem to have to delicately ask people if they are fans of country music.\u00a0 To begin, neither the asker nor the askee knows WHICH country music is being asked about.\u00a0 Each may wonder if the reference is to the dreck that has taken up the large majority of “country” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}