I think I've mentioned it before but I grew up around a very eclectic collection of music. My dad is a big classic rock fan with groups like the Beatles and the Doors, loves jazz and the crooners, and was my general introduction into Alt Rock with Green Day, No Doubt, and Weezer. My mom on the other hand was more of a pop fan; loving disco, singers like Madonna and the Pointer Sisters from the 80s, and general gravitates towards the happier sounding songs on the radio. She was also a huge musical fan and played a big role in making three out of her four children into the musical nerds that we are. And while I know there's plenty of musical tastes that my parents share, there are definitely the mom approved stations and the ones you can find my dad listening to. But for all of the various music you could find in our house, the one thing you really didn't hear much of was country. My mom had a couple of artists she enjoyed, usually the slightly more goofy ones like Toby Keith and Shania Twain, but it was rare to find country playing around our house. Which is a bit funny considering a good portion of her family are big country music fans, although not a terribly surprising trait considering I did grow up in good old Pennsyl-tucky. I'm pretty sure most of the exposure I really got to country was from visiting my grandparents' house. Now I don't know if my mild aversion to country stems from a lack of exposure to it or if I was just emulating my dad's disdain for the genre, but I have to admit there aren't too many artists or songs I enjoy from it.
Going through my posts, I'm fairly certain that tonight's sticker is the first country group I've come across in my research. Quite a few indie/alt rock bands, a couple of metal-ish groups, and a rapper or two but no country until tonight. Cordovas is a four (maybe five) man group out of the Nashville, TN area. They've been around since 2014 but are clearly starting to come into their own. Last summer they were not only featured on NPR's Songs We Love, they also made the Rolling Stone's list for the 10 New Country Artists You Need to Know. While they are still big fan favorites here in the states, they are also starting to tour over in Europe. Now I am certainly not a country expert but after listening through the album that's available on their site and the song that has been catching people's attention, I can see why they are a group people are keeping an eye on. For being a small group, they manage to create a very large presence that harkens back to a more classic country rock. Three of the members harmonize together in most of their songs, creating a very rich and complex sound around their lyrics. They play around with the music just enough to make it feel unrehearsed and like something you could just walk in on over on someone's back porch. This group does have a bit of that twang that has always defined country to me, but it's overall a very clean and streamline feeling. They don't quite fit that folky rock sound you'd find with Nathaniel Ratliff and the Night Sweats or the early Mumford & Sons but it's right along that border. I'll admit that if there was country group I'd start listening to, Cordovas would probably be it.
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Maggie Ondrey
An amateur photographer and writer capturing a small portion of the city. Archives
August 2017
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