re: #8 b.d.

OK..flame war commence…

The Grateful Dead were country.

Little Feat and The Band would top the Country charts if they released their stuff today.

Kudos for people trying to dissolve that barrier.

But none of those bands were “country western.” CW is a very specific type of cheap sentimental music, by the likes of Merle Haggard, Lee Greenwood, etc., often with a right wing slant. The kind of music they featured on “Hee Haw.”

That’s why I say Americana is not the same as “country western.”