Country Music

In one of my previous posts, the subject came up of what form of music is least represented in a CD format. It was agreed that it was
country. I am mostly referring to classic country (anything older than 30 years). If it's newer than 30 years, I am clueless. I
haven't found anything that covers country like Pat's database for Pop/Rock. Of course, there is Discogs & 45cat that I use often.
The Joel Whitburn books on Country & Western give me an idea of what I am looking for, but some country artists are terribly
underrepresented on CD in what I call Classic Country. Some country artists have a 10-12 song 'best of' CD when they should have a 30
or 40 track anthology. -Bill.

I brought this up a few years ago:

https://www.top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?
TID=9216&KW

Seems like nothing has changed! :-(

If the link does not work, the thread's topic was titled
"Country Single Edits/Mixes."

I worked in country radio from 1997 to 2004 and I was amazed at the
number of album/single version differences which included edits, early
fades, and also a few mix differences. It seemed like almost every other
single was different from the album version. TM Century GoldDisc for
the most part did great with using the single versions, at least for '90s
country.

Jody Thornton wrote: Prior to thrity years ago though, it seems there were not a LOT of single specific versions.

Other than singles that crossed over, how many copies did even a top 10 country single generate? Now maybe it was
different in regions where country music was much bigger than New England, but I don't recall seeing much in the ways of
country 45s in any record store I ever visited.

Of friends, co-workers or acquaintances of mine who were country music fans, few ever actually bought any records.

Edited by Hykker

Longtime reader that just registered to post in this forum. I’ve
gotten a LOT of great music info from this site over the years
and have great respect and admiration for the experts and
collectors that share their vast knowledge here.

Although I do enjoy older pop/Top 40 music too I’m primarily a
lifelong fan of country music. 40+ years in country radio both on-
air and as a program director. Very familiar with 20th century
country hits and have a huge personal library of country 45’s,
LP’s & CD’s.

Many radio promo 45’s, CD singles & compilations are in my
collection so hopefully I can answer some of the questions
concerning country single versions & radio edits as well as their
CD availability. As RichM921 noted in his post there were many
country single edits & remixes especially during the 1980’s &
90’s. I’m still discovering some of them to this day as my station
played the 45’s on the radio (or dubbed them to cartridge tapes)
so I did not do an A/B comparison to the album version for every
song. When CD singles became pervasive, we played those
until we transitioned to a digital system and played all music
from a hard drive.

Looking forward to participating in the conversation.

Edited by CountryPD