Since its inception, country music has had an ongoing tug of war between
traditional sounds and musical styles that borrow from existing pop structures.
Colt Ford, who blends hip-hop-influenced recitation with country instrumentation,
has taken the debate to a new level, though he might inadvertently be carrying on a longheld country tradition.
Historically, country has found its audience largely among adults, though many of the genre’s listeners didn’t grow up listening to the format. Instead,
they often discovered it in the decade after high school graduation when they heard age-relevant lyrics mixed with influences from the music of their youth.
That’s what occurred when such Urban Cowboy era artists as Mickey Gilley and Eddie Rabbitt connected mature storylines with pop-influenced melodies.
It played out again when such artists as Shania Twain and Garth Brooks blended elements of arena rock with adult subject matter in the ’90s.
Ford has successfully paired banjos and fiddles with rapped lyrics, spending two weeks in the top 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart with his latest
release, “Chicken & Biscuits.” Since his debut in 2009, he’s sold nearly 245,000 albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan, an improbable number for an artist
on an independent label who receives relatively little airplay.
You can now get all 3 of Colt Ford's videos: No Trash in My Trailer, Buck 'Em and Mr. Goodtime on Itunes for just $1.49 each.
