{"id":11597,"date":"2012-01-17T16:08:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T21:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=11597"},"modified":"2012-01-17T16:08:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-17T21:08:42","slug":"once-and-for-all-country-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/once-and-for-all-country-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"Once and for All<\/em>: Who Launched Country Rock?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the recent Laura Nyro<\/strong> thread<\/a> Townsman alexmagic<\/strong> made some hyperbolic statements regarding Mike Nesmith<\/strong>. (Seriously, Mike Nesmith \u201cis the most indefensible omission from the Hall of Fame?\u201d I think I could successfully defend his exclusion from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as easily as I could defend his exclusion from the Baseball Hall of Fame.)\u00a0However,\u00a0he touched on one point\u00a0that I think the uni-mind that is Rock Town Hall should explore, to whit, the thought that Mike Nesmith is \u201coften given credit for launching the ‘country rock’ genre.\u201d<\/p>\n

There seem to be a lot of candidates for that. There are The Byrds<\/strong>, whose Notorious Byrd Brothers<\/em> showed a bit of country and was released in January 1968, or the more often cited Sweetheart of the Rodeo<\/em>, released in August, 1968. The latter made it all the way to #77 on Billboard and featured a number by another candidate for country rock launcher, Bob Dylan<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cYou Ain\u2019t Goin\u2019 Nowhere.\u201d<\/p>