Rugged Stuff
Rugged Stuff
A Rednecktified Texapino in Big Sky Country
Neal McCoy has a distinctive ethnic heritage of Filipino on his mother’s side and Texas-Irish on his father’s side, and he refers to himself as a ‘Texapino.’ (He’s in good company, as Ruggs with roots in the Philippines can be found from the balmy Bay Area on up to the frozen wastes of Minnesota.) [more]
Rugged Stuff
Neal McCoy, Real McCoy, Schmeal ShmcShmoy
In a country-musical landscape full of drugstore cowboys and wannabe rednecks, there’s a singer from east Texas who is the real McCoy. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I had to grimace even as I wrote the tail-end of that intro line. But like it or not, corn is my bread and butter.) [more]
Rugged Stuff
GOP, Party of the Rich
John Rich is perfectly entitled to write and perform a song promoting John McCain, and you and I are perfectly entitled to be influenced not one whit by Rich’s support of McCain. (And don’t think that by this statement, you can infer my political leanings. Unless you know me pretty darned well, and probably even then, whatever you think about where I stand politically, you’re wrong.) [more]
Rugged Stuff
Put Some Kid Rock in your Country?
As much as I like country music (and I really like country music), I’m not quite as hard-core as the gal in The Blues Brothers, who says they’ve got both kinds of music: country and Western. Instead, I’ll occasionally flip the radio dial over to some smooth jazz, or classic rock, even ambient and new age once in a while. (Yes, radio dial… the CD player in my vehicle is broken.) [more]
Rugged Stuff
Remembering Jerry Reed
Country music-maker Jerry Reed passed away recently. Rugged Stuff remembers the late Guitar Man, from his roles as an entertainer to his interesting, if convoluted, connections to the Rocky Mountain region. [more]
