Paul Fitzpatrick: June 2025

I read this week that tickets for Beyonce’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ tour are no longer selling like the proverbial hotcakes.

Whilst Beyonce’s PR team are blaming resellers and touts for scooping up thousands of tickets and reselling them for exorbitant prices, industry insiders are speculating that it’s a backlash towards Bey’s new Country-Pop direction…. with claims that the ‘Beyhive loyal’ want less pedal steel and more funky horns.

When you see the eye watering price of the tickets, you’ll probably settle on the former as an explanation.

Before the Eagles came along with their Bluegrassy, Tequila Sunrisey brand of country rock I was never much interested in Country & Western (C&W), although, for as long as I can remember, C&W music has been incredibly popular in the West of Scotland.

One of the biggest-selling UK album artists in the 70s was country star Jim Reeves who passed away in 1964 when an aircraft he was piloting crashed enroute to Nashville.

Gentleman Jim was a country crooner with a velvet voice, the perfect companion for our parents’ generation to sing along with on a Saturday night after a few drams. Truth be told, most homes in the 70s with a gramophone had a Jim Reeves album lurking close by.
I remember being miffed that this old cowboy was taking up space in the album charts alongside Bowie, Floyd and Zep but I was painfully unaware of the sweeping popularity of Country music back then, even though artists like Tammy Wynette, Billie Jo Spears and Charlie Rich were regularly topping the charts.  

We had our own C&W pin-up in Scotland… Sydney Devine (or ‘Ten Woodbine’ as he was affectionately known).
Devine, a rhinestone cowboy from Lanarkshire was so popular that he held a place in the Guinness Book of Records for an unmatched run of sell out shows at the Glasgow Pavilion – 43 years on the trot, not bad for a Caledonian Cowboy from Cleland.

Four thousand miles east of Nashville, in a little ole town called Govan, Glasgow has its own country hotspot… the ‘Grand Ole Opry’ which opened in 1974 and is still going strong today. I got invited to go there once in the 90s and it was like being transported to the set of Blazing Saddles.
The venue had a bit of a revival when it was featured in the 2018 movie “Wild Rose’, a story about a local girl who sings in the ’Grand Ole Opry’ house band and has aspirations of being a C&W star in Nashville.
 
If you’re wondering where a cowpoke and his gal can get rodeo ready, then worry not, there’s always been a Western Wear trading post in Glasgow where cowboys and cowgirls can saddle up. ‘Skin Style’ was a fixture in the Trongate for many years and ‘Cowpeople’ in the Barra’s, has picked up the mantle.

I’ve long held a theory that it was the West of Scotland’s love of cowboy movies that fuelled our obsession with Americana and the cowboy lifestyle. John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Kirk Douglas were seldom off our rented tellies in the 50s, 60s & 70s, fighting injuns or gunnin’ down bad guys in black.
Glasgow even had its own version of the Wild West…. George Square on a Friday night after the dancing.

If you’re worrying about Beyonce’s dalliance with country, there’s really no need. The lady knows an opportunity when she sees one and country music is currently big business. Indeed, her album ‘Cowboy Carter‘ won the Grammy for Best Album of the year and Best Country Album of the year, and her Cowboy Carter tour is projected to gross north of $300 million.
And if that’s not enough, just in case her post office account needs topping up, jeans giants Levis came calling, to feature her and her new persona in a global advertising campaign.

I never actually realised how many sub-genres there are within country music with Bluegrass, Outlaw, Country-Pop, Country-Rock, Honky Tonk and Cowpunk all nestling under the country umbrella… Cowpunk is a new one to me but I’m led to believe there are hordes of Nashville Pussy fans out there.

Apart from the odd Johnny Cash song here or Glen Campbell song there, I don’t listen to a lot of traditional country music, “Wichita Lineman” apart, my favourite country sounding songs are more of the country-rock variety and Steely Dan who are more Jazz Fusion than Honkytonk, recorded a few belters like “Pearl of the Quarter” and “Brooklyn (owes the charmer under me)” with Jeff Skunk Baxter on pedal steel guitar, that had me reaching for a pair of cowboy boots.

Interestingly, a friend of mine with similar musical tastes embarked on a ‘musical road trip’ in America recently, called The Blues Highway (Highway 61). It takes in Memphis, Muscle Shoals, New Orleans and Nashville and the thing he came back raving about was the live music in Nashville, loads of different bars with live music on tap, all times of the day.

Until I make that trip, I’ll just have to make do with my old country favourites on the playlist below….