FALL 2024
ALL NEW FOLK ART SHOW
BY JAIMIE MUEHLHAUSEN
DETAILS COMING SOON!

TOP COUNTRY MUSICIANS OF ALL TIME

Who are your favorite country music stars of all time? Dolly Parton? Willie Nelson? Johnny Cash? Those are the easy ones. One thing you might not know about me is that I grew up in Oklahoma in a household in which music was a huge part of life. Soul music, country music, rock’n’roll, blues, and everything in between. Aretha’s Gold followed by the Red Headed Stranger on the record player. Hee Haw, Porter Wagoner, and The Glenn Campbell show were regularly on TV. Loretta and Dolly and Emmylou and Linda Ronstadt shared equal time on the turntable. Merle Haggard and George Jones were held in high esteem at my house. My first concert when I was a little kid was James Brown, followed the next year by Willie Nelson & Family, and then on to see Sly & the Family Stone and Dr. John later that fall. That era was the beginning of the outlaw country movement. When I was 16 and needed gas money, I worked the concession stand at Willie Nelson’s 4th of July picnic and saw one of Lynard Skynard’s last shows before the airplane crash. Waylon and Jerry Jeff were there too, along with Jessi Colter and others. In college in Stillwater, Oklahoma, we used to go two-steppin’ at the Cimarron Ballroom out in the boonies with the locals. They’ll steal your bottle of Jack if you don’t keep an eye on it. Garth Brooks was a doorman at one of my favorite college bars. I worked in the cool record store when Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam’s first albums came out within weeks of each other and made it okay to like country again. And I actually flew to Nashville and auditioned for a “Star Search” type country music show on the original Nashville Network (I was the first alternate but never got on the show). The Tulsa Sound and music tradition is absorbed into my soul so much that playing the legendary Cain’s Ballroom, where Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys did their radio show from in the 1940s, is one of the highlights of my life.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, me painting a Hank Williams or a Johnny Cash portrait isn’t jumping on a bandwagon or a trend. These are the musicians I grew up with, just as much as Van Halen, Boston, Lone Justice, Haircut One Hundred, Flock of Seagulls, The Psychadelic Furs, The Plimsouls, Talk Talk, The BoDeans, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Delbert McClinton, Ryan Adams, Shawn Colvin, Jason Isbell, or John Moreland.

So, I’m going to try to narrow things down to my Top 50 (or so) country musicians and paint them as a set of folk art icons. Who will make it? One thing’s for sure: you probably won’t be seeing Jason Aldean. Amirite?