Country Music Blues

In my opinion, "country" music is nowhere near what it used to be. When I was a kid, they were called singers, as opposed to nowadays, when they're called performers, largely due to their antics on stage during live concerts, which generally involve more shouting and obscenities than actual singing. In the 60's and 70's, the country music singers sang meaningful songs of lost love, prison, and alcohol, forcing many of us to switch to "Rock and Roll", wherein you couldn't understand the words anyway, but at least it wasn't as depressing as country, plus many of us learned how to play the "air guitar" by listening to rock music, though I'm not sure if I have any friends who make a living from it. I stayed fairly true to the country music throughout high school, straying to rock only occasionally, and I miss the old songs that told stories within them. Tom T. Hall was known as the story-teller back then, but it didn't really matter, because all the country artists told a story in each song, and you could understand what they were saying without punching it up on youtube and searching for "lyrics". I don't really know what time period it was when country music and rock music seemingly inter-mingled and became one and the same, but if anybody's got an old "time-machine" laying around that they're not using, I would be happy to go back and and try to stop it, via stern warnings and lectures. It's getting worse every day too! Now we have songs about people praying for flower pots falling on your head, and songs about "big dogs", "hillbilly bones", and "rain", none of which would have been sung about by Johnny Cash, Vern Gosdin, or George Jones, all of whom were able to have successful music careers by just standing there and singing, without the aid of fireworks, obscenities, or half naked women appearing in their videos. I believe that the only thing keeping country music alive right now, is the female artists, such as Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Taylor Swift, and Laura Bell Bundy, all of whom sing songs that have little to do with standard country music, but do a good job of making up for it by being pretty. I would go to a Carrie Underwood concert even if she were a deaf mute. Only out of respect, of course.