Country music is everywhere, even in the erudite intellectual aeries of Europe... In fact, there's so much of the stuff, I barely know a fraction of it. This section includes a bunch of random bluegrass and country bands from across the European continent, although I'm aware there are many, many other artists and albums not currently on my radar. Also, separate sections exist for Germany and The United Kingdom and Ireland which have their own large, impressive country scenes, though many of those albums may also be included here. And trust me, once I crack the code and find all the records, France, Croatia and Lichtenstein will all get their own twang guides, too! (PS: I apologize for not being able to support umlauts and schwas and other special characters and for making all your languages look so very not right. I'm just not smart enough for all that technical-type stuff!)
This page covers the Letter "K."
EUROPEAN COUNTRY:
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J |
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
Q |
R |
S |
T |
U |
V |
W |
X, Y & Z |
Comps
UK Twang |
Germany |
Other Lands |
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Thanks
Bill Keith & Jim Collier "Bill Keith And Jim Collier" (Hexagone Records, 1979) (LP)
(Produced by Denis Phan, Bruno Menny & Jacques Subileau)
Sure, banjo pioneer Bill Keith was an American, but he seems to have taken regular vacations to France throughout the 1970s, where he jammed with various pickers from the local acoustic scene. He also brought along friends, in this case singer-guitarist Jim Collier and fiddler Kenny Kosek -- the trio also cut an album with French bluegrasser Jean Marie Redon on the same trip.
The locals include Jacques Peris (drums), Christian Seguret (guitar and mandolin), Henri Texier (bass) and steel player Lionel Wendling (who gets in some mighty tasty riffs, by the way...) Hardly strictly bluegrass by any means, this tres progressive disc careens into western swing and rock-flavored twang. C'est groovy!
Renate Kern "Und Draussen Geht Immer Der Wind" (BASF Records, 1975) (LP)
A West German pop singer, Renate Kern dabbled at times in American-style country music, as did many other Schlager artists... Where exactly the fine line lay between super-cheesy Euro-pop and maybe-less-cheesy Euro-twang, I really can't tell. Though this is the first of her albums that seems plausibly closer to the sleek Nashville countrypolitan of the era, it's still pretty dreadful and tacky. Not to be dismissive or culturally insensitive, but this is one hundred percent the kind of weird prefab pop you would hear oozing out of a marketplace stall when you were on vacation abroad and think, "Wait, is that the kind of music Germans listen to?" Or at least it was, before they discovered techno. Anyway, this isn't the first record I would recommend to a twangfan looking to broaden their horizons, although she did record some legit country stuff farther on down the line, including a few records using the nom du twang of Nancy Wood.
More Euro-Twang -- Letter "K"
Hick Music Index
