Buddy Rich- Hater of Country Music to the Core
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Added on 2020-05-16
Buddy Rich- Hater of Country Music to the Core
Added on 2020-05-16
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Running head: BUDDY RICH: HATER OF COUNTRY MUSIC TO THE COREBUDDY RICH: HATER OF COUNTRY MUSIC TO THE COREName of the student:Name of the University:Author’s Note:
1BUDDY RICH: HATER OF COUNTRY MUSIC TO THE COREMusic, like all other art forms, has never been stagnant in only one place. With theevolution of humans, music has also continuously evolved and newer forms of music sprungfrom basic structures. Genres have given birth to other genres, that actively breathed life intonewer genres and all of these collectively reached out to even greater number of people. Whilesome music genres were restricted to certain groups and social structures, the newly developedgenres appealed to other social groups. Like blues, which was originally brought to the westernworld by the African plantation workers, gave birth to jazz, which was almost synonymous withthe most elite sections of the society. Buddy Rich was one of the most prolific and influentialdrummers of all time and a true jazz legend (McDonough 2017). His playing style and techniqueinfluenced and shaped the playing style of the countless other jazz drummers that were to idolizehim. However, being a human being, he held his own beliefs and had preferences towardsspecific genres and held dislike for others. Buddy Rich was not at all fond of country musicbecause of many reasons that were elaborated by himself on many occasions on differentinterviews and the current essay looks into the many facets that rendered his dislike towards thegenre of country music to be sanctified by himself (Wilson 2018).Jazz, in its purest form, even though is derived from blues, detached itself from its rootsin terms of being available or accessible by the mass. Jazz maintained a stature where it wasmeant to be only for the musically refined and those who did not possess any knowledge aboutcomplex musical theories could not appreciate the complicated playing techniques of jazz.Buddy Rich was a benchmark in not only jazz, but across any and every music genre. However,he had reservation against country music that he had highlighted in many different occasions.Buddy Rich expressed his discontent over the genre of country music publicly and dismissed theentire musical form to be “too simple” for everyone to learn and play (Milkowski 2018).Buddy believed in musical sophistication and his loathing of country music was not keptto himself by any means. Public interviews and talk shows were platforms which werebroadcasted across national and even international channels and these served as the places whereBuddy emphasized his disregard for the country western genre of music. Buddy argued thatcountry music was a giant step backwards, in a time when all other musical forms and otheraspects of life was moving ahead: people were landing on the moon, new technology was beinginvented, jazz was creating things and playing styles that were never imagined of before.
2BUDDY RICH: HATER OF COUNTRY MUSIC TO THE COREStanding from this place, it was his view that country music is too primitive and did not offer thelistener anything new to think about or be excited about. On the other hand, he argued, jazz hasgiven the world prolific musicians who have expanded the fields of music to extents that wereuncharted before.Despite his views on country music, it must be remembered that Buddy held a verynarrow view of country music overall. Musicians such as Chet Atkins, Hank Cochran, LucindaWilliams and John Denver have all made incredible additions to the world of music(McDonough 2017). Country music being simple is the exact thing that helps to attract a lot ofpeople. The dream like country music has the power to invoke nostalgia and hit a very personalplace with the listener which is often associated with fond memories (Milkowski 2018). Thishas helped country music artists to make sure that more people are attracted towards the musicbecause they can relate their beautiful childhood times with the music. Artists can tap into aplace within the listeners that gives them instant connection and the both can begin a journeytogether towards a dreamscape that can enable the listener to sit back and smile.On the other hand, jazz is all about complexity and technical virtuosity that shows of thecapabilities and the prowess of the player. However, it must be remembered that, complexitydoes not always mean “better”. A song can be tremendously complicated in terms of the timesignatures or the complexity of the rhythm sections, and still can lack the very passion and theheart that is the essential foundation of music to begin with. It should be remembered that bluesand soul artists had initially dismissed even jazz artists by saying that they only make noise andnot actual music. However, this view of jazz has since been changed and the prolific talent that isrequired to play jazz has long been acknowledged and incorporated into mainstream music(Rosario 2015).To understand Buddy’s perspectives on country music, we have to also understand thecontemporary social structures and the music scenes that were prevalent at that time. It was anactual fact that jazz had been experiencing somewhat of an ignorance and even legendary andsuperb instrumentalists were being overlooked. On the other side, country music had taken overthe western world and a number of artists and musicians had shot into fame who were essentiallyusing the same style and the same techniques as their baseline (Wilson 2018). Buddy’s dissentfor country comes from a suppressed anger and he mostly speaks up for a whole community of
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