Country music has come a long way. Some may say too long of a way, as the country music of modern country radio and country music awards shows doesn’t reflect the country music that began with Hank Williams and rolled through the late 1980s with Cash, Nelson, Jennings and Kristofferson. Some may say it’s more like bad pop music, scoring a square-john parking-lot party for people in cowboy hats and Daisy Dukes.
But don’t let anyone tell you there’s no good country music being made because for every new-country artist like Florida Georgia Line or Luke Combs there’s a Cale Tyson or Charlie Crockett, the latter two musicians written about in this column in the past and currently flying the flag of classic country music Williams first hoisted decades ago.
There’s also loads of fans, country music lovers with a fondness for the classic honky-tonkers in Williams or Roy Acuff, the outlaws, the rough and tumble Texas songwriters in Guy Clark and Billy Joe Shaver, and the numerous dudes making up the indie roots and country scene of East Nashville. One such fan lives and breathes it, hosting a classic country show on local radio station KDUR while moving ahead with his own musical pursuits. Local Nathan Schmidt is a DJ, illustrator for hire with work seen at Studio & and in the pages of DGO Magazine, and musician who has performed seasonally at Durango Farmers Market as well as playing shows at both the cidery and brewery in Mancos. Schmidt will also soon get into the studio to record his debut EP of classic country and gritty folk.
He’s come a long musical way in a short time for someone who, pre-college, had little interest in music. Aside from an early love of Gene Pitney’s “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Vallance,” music was put in the backseat until a classic country radio show on a station in Manhattan, Kansas, piqued an interest.
“I don’t know if it was something I was feeling that day or what the case was, but I couldn’t turn it off. Of course, I knew who Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash were, but I had never really tuned in,” Schmidt said. “When I was growing up, country was Garth Brooks, but that never spoke to me. It wasn’t until hearing Hank Williams and Patsy Cline and becoming familiar with that, and I loved it. I absolutely loved it.”
College also led to the purchase of a pawn-shop guitar, and Schmidt was well on his way into the world of music. And just like people have used Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page to work backward in the world of blues to discover Lightnin’ Hopkins or Robert Johnson, Schmidt worked backward from names like Nelson and Cash to discover the lesser known but equally important and influential crop of country musicians.
“You start getting into it and you discover Merle Haggard or Willie doing ‘Poncho and Lefty,’ right? You find out they didn’t write it, Townes Van Zandt wrote it, well who is he?” Schmidt said. “You start opening up all these doors to some more of the cult following for some of these musicians. Then you found out who wrote all these hits, the Kristoffersons and Prines, and it opens up all new doors to discovering more and more music.”
A pandemic and forced quarantine found Schmidt writing more tunes and playing more at home, and at the nudging of friend Stephen Sellers, who plays bass in local old-time outfit Six Dollar String Band, Schmidt will head into the studio later this winter to lay down a record.
“I have a batch of songs, maybe not a full record, but at least get the EP done,” he said. “I’m excited to do it, and I think it’s going to be a real fun project.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
