Lisa Strouss


V/A
Country Funk 1969 – 1975
Light in the Attic Records

The self-perpetuated myth about country is that somehow it is roots music, when in reality, country has always been on the cusp of the new, about trying combinations just to see what would sell, be it Hawaiian steel guitars, or creating western swing out of jazz elements, or Les Paul and Mary Ford making radical strides with electric guitars. So naturally, when rock music in the late sixties was going more “authentic,” albums sounding more and more like live recordings rather than studio concoctions, country music got a little weird, on the one hand adopting some of the raw driving rhythms of soul and rock but at the same time pulling back further into the studio, adding horns and session players that likely cut their teeth in movie soundtracks or even actual funk bands! Certainly some songs on here, like Gray Fox’s “Hawg Frog,” have a deep in-the-pocket tightness that evokes math-rock funk by bands like the Meters. But then again, maybe country had the funk all along—note how Link Wray and “Susie Q” star Dale Hawkins slide into this album’s lineup quite smoothly, reminding us that a little genre one might call “swamp rock” had been giving country sounds an in-the-pocket groove for at least a decade. Add that legacy to the one created with the “invention” of country rock by Gram Parsons and the Byrds, and it’s impossible to decide now whether this is country with rock and soul leanings, or the reverse. And what even makes these songs still “country?” Does a song become country-fied simply because the singer has a southern accent? Wah-jam “Stud Spider” by Tony Joe White is Ike Turner in all but complexion, and I suspect some of these cuts would keep the floor filled at a soul all-nighter. I reckon there’s only one way we can decide what to make of this genre:  Light in the Attic will just have to release more comps.

-D. M. Collins