Some CDs just sound right on the old vacuum tube-driven stereo cabinet in the basement. It mellows sharp edges, warms high notes in a retro sort of way, glowing a soft yellow all the while. That doesn’t matter too much most of the time, but when it comes to Girl Howdy’s Honky Tonk Hair, the vibe is just right.
The more I listen to the disc, the more certain I am of the notion that old-school country has suffered undeserved dismissal. Country music has always floated, at best, on the margins of respectability. It’s the music of hillbillies, goat-ropers, and, as my self-professed “broken-down Arkansas hillbilly” father says, “gully jumpers.” It’s never been music for wine tastings.
From its rough-hewn hillbilly beginnings, country has turned to something nearly indistinguishable from any other hyper-produced, stadium-filling genre. The modern popular version of country mostly deserves rafts of scorn, landing as it does between soulless over-production and recycled pop-rock with boots on. It’s a shame, though, that the current lackluster incarnations of the form carry the potential to eclipse, especially for new fans, the humble and soulful music they sprang from. Shania Twain and Kenny Chesney are only vaguely descendants of Hank Williams, Sr. and Patsy Cline.
Girl Howdy represents something entirely different from modern country glitz. Like few other bands in the Valley, it offers dedication to the kind of country that calls for matching shirts, and it brings to its two-stepping fans an exquisitely played, virtuosic retro country without smoke machines, choreography or pitch correction. Put with that lyrics like, “Well, Tammy Faye says with a knowing nod/ the higher the hair the closer to God/ and all I know is that if that’s true/ I’m already in heaven and enjoyin’ the view,” and you’ve got a recipe for honky tonk paradise circa 1957.
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The women (and two men) of Girl Howdy play music that caters to the kind of fan who’s prone to dig deeply into genre, to buy box sets of obscure, banjo-toting country progenitors and to know who delivers quality lap steel playing two states away.
As a Texan who grew up around old-fashioned sounds, I thought I was fully stocked with knowledge of the hillbilly musical universe. But in talking music with Girl Howdy’s steel player, Rose Sinclair, I’ve found out just how wide the world of old and new players of vintage sounds remains, and that plenty of gems lie undiscovered.
It’s the same with the many subgenres and regional scenes that percolate in the Valley. They may not be as front and center as the Northampton-centric purveyors of original pop, but scratch the surface, and you discover whole networks of players and listeners devoted to specialized sounds.
Conversing with Sinclair led me to one of the Valley’s major devotees of old country: Saturdays at 1 p.m. on Springfield Technical Community College station WTCC (90.7 FM), you can listen to Dave Helman’s Country Corner, a show focusing on vintage country and bluegrass music. The show’s selections mostly stop in the early ’60s, Helman explained last week, because after that, “country went uptown.”
He’s the kind of guy who can pull off wearing refined cowboy duds (that wonderfully Western brand of jacket, for instance, with panelled shoulders and stitched black lines), and he’s crafting his own lap steel. Clearly, he knows his stuff.
At his countrycornermusic.com, you’ll find information about the kind of events that regularly take place off the beaten path: Helman books a coffeehouse series at the South Hadley Falls Congregational Church aimed at providing an outlet for country and bluegrass fans deprived of summer festivals, both locals and those who arrive from Maine, New York and Connecticut. “It is one of the longest-running strictly old-time country and bluegrass coffee houses in the region,” Helman says.
March 20 saw Acoustic Blue take the stage, and the next show on the schedule for certain is May 8, with the Spinney Brothers coming all the way from Nova Scotia to make a little noise.
Fans of vintage country sounds may not have grand expectations of replacing Shania Twain and Kenny Chesney with the likes of Girl Howdy, but it’s one of the Valley’s best features that scenes like theirs just keep right on, regardless of the dictates of musical fashion.
