Missouri Valley, Iowa (NTCMA) - Bob Everhart, the President of the
National Traditional Country
Music Association, Inc., in existence since 1976, remarked after the CMA movement of their awards show to New York City....."The CMA certainly has finalized the urbanization of country music, however this trend has been going on for some time. Most rural folks, who we represent, have known for a very long time that the "Ole" in the name Grand Ole Opry, for instance, no longer exists. At the same time all of this is happening in the commercial world of country music, our annual festival (now in it's 31st year) had an incredible showing of high school and college age level participants this year. We are an acoustic music event devoted to the country music that had it's 'golden age' some time ago. It was (and is) a musical genre created by 'real' country folks for the purpose of entertainment, and for most players, simply the love of it. Today's country music world is made up of very wealthy participants buying their way into the genre, and of course changing it as they do. Our reason for existence is to somehow keep the incredible legacy of 'real' country music alive for generations that follow to understand what it really was, and is. Our festival is a seven-day affair, with ten sound stages and well over 600 performing musicians and singers, all of them devoted to the original 'sound' of country music. To say that this genre of music is no longer viable would be untrue, but it obviously does not have the marketability that today's modern country music has. Yet, the huge increase in our 'young' participants is very encouraging to us. We can see they are looking for the 'real' thing, and they find it in Missouri Valley, Iowa, the full week before Labor Day, every year." One of those participants at this year's festival was Cory Jeter, a hot acoustic guitar picker, from Harlan, Iowa. "There doesn't seem to be any guitar pickers in today's country music that make the impact as say Luther Perkins did for Johnny Cash, or Billy Byrd for Ernest Tubb, or Don Helms for Hank Williams. That 'hot' guitar lick just doesn't exist in today's very bland country musical art form. Bluegrass is way ahead of country music in so far as 'people' music is concerned." Jeter was awarded a
Martin acoustic guitar at this year's NTCMA festival, as well as several hours of recording studio time at a top studio to further his musical career.
Dennis Devine, known as the number one
Johnny Cash fan, a personal friend, and long time supporter of Cash's music helped establish the first 'tribute' show to Cash at the NTCMA festival. The whole concept was to present Cash's music in the format he was working on when he passed away. It had to be acoustic, and it had to be as authentic as possible. "Walk The Line,' is a great film of Johnny and June Carter Cash, but it is only a small part of this great man's life. When he realized at the end of his days, how much young people admired his work, he was determined to get back to the studio and record as much as he possibly could. He did it acoustically, and he did it magnificently, to the very end. When we set up his first 'acoustic' tribute, with his brother
Tommy Cash as our star attraction, we made it very clear to all the participants, it has to pick up where Johnny left off. This was not a tribute show to Luther Perkins, it is a tribute show to
Johnny Cash in all his entirety."
Devine is busy working on the 2006 tribute show, and anyone that ever worked with Cash, or had anything to do with his music, is on the potential invitation list. Bob Everhart, the NTCMA President and festival director, is also somewhat surprised in youth reaction to old time country music. "Several years ago I was one of the featured performers on a traditional country and bluegrass festival in Angiers, France. Tony Rice, Mark O'Connor, Jerry Douglas, being a few top performers on that festival. When I finished my part of the show, I was inundated by young French who called my music 'primitive rock-a-billy.' I couldn't quite make the connection, because what I was doing was the 'Wabash Cannonball,' and the "Orange Blossom Special' on an acoustic 12-string guitar. It certainly set well with them however, and I realized then how diligently the young can become in seeking out a musical art form that they not only like, but they can see as sincere, honest, and established for something other than profit." Even mid-west local radio beams out the sounds of golden country music. KWMT in Fort Dodge, Iowa, a Clear-Channel station, still broadcasts the 'real' sounds of 'real' country artists according to Disc Jockey Hall of Famer, Dale Eichor. "I'm very fortunate to have been in country music in it's infancy, as well as it's golden years. Young people today like our golden classics just as much as our older listeners. I'm also very thankful the NTCMA is keeping the traditional sound of country music alive at their annual festival, and am quite proud of our own live stage show there, featuring those same great sounds." According to Everhart, "we just never stopped trying to do what rural
America wants and really likes. My wife
Sheila and I just appeared on the RFD-TV network (aimed primarily at a rural audience), on a program filmed in Minnesota called "Midwest Country." We did songs like "Redwing" and "Down In The Valley." Our e-mail was full of congratulatory wishes, about half of them from young people, nationwide. I guess in the music business, it's not all over until the fat lady sings, however with our Pioneer
Music Museum which is growing by leaps and bounds every year, and the contributions made toward it, we see our small part in preserving America's most precious legacy, the music of her rural folks, safe and growing." The festival Everhart refers to is the "National Old Time Country N' Bluegrass
Music Festival, Contest, and Pioneer Agricultural Expo." It will be held in 2006 at the Harrison County Fairgrounds in Missouri Valley, Iowa (August 28 through
September 3). More information is available from their website at: https://www.oldtimemusic.bigstep.com
