Rednecks, Racists and Reactionaries: Country Classics

Have you listened to David Byrne's (yes the Talking Head!) streaming radio yet? Why not?!? Every month he compiles a completely new playlist. This month he has compiled an amazing list of country classics. Here's how he describes it:

I’m defining classic country as pre-hippie-country, pre-alt-country, pre-outlaw-country — before Graham Parsons, Bob Dylan, Emmylou, Willie, the Flatlanders and scores of others made the genre accessible to folks who usually associated country music solely with rednecks, racists and reactionaries (hey, that would have made a good album title!) Those changes began in the late 60s and early 70s, so most of this stuff was done before that. I haven’t gone back to the real early rootsy stuff either, and there’s lots of incredible stuff left out, but it’s a pretty good sampling.