Meet the writers

J.R. Journey

Hello, my name is J.R. Journey.  I am a longtime country music fan and hail from the Buckeye State.  I have been a country fan since I was 9 years old when I first saw Reba McEntire steamroll the courtroom in her video for ‘Take It Back’. And I’ve been hooked ever since. My favorite artists include Reba, George Strait, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty, The Dixie Chicks, Wynonna, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and many, many more …

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Occasional Hope

Hi. I post on a few other places as Occasional Hope, but my real name is Lisa. I live in England, which is a hard place to be a country fan, but I’ve loved country music since I first started listening to it as a teenager in the late 80s.

I tend to prefer the more traditional end of mainstream, with some bluegrass and singer-songwriter artists. All-time favourites include George Jones, Gene Watson, Randy Travis, Keith Whitley and Patty Loveless, but it’s hard to limit it to a few, and I’m always looking for good new artists. Things I love about country music are the emotion (there’s nothing like a real broken-hearted lost love country song), the range of subject matter (it’s hard to think of a subject which hasn’t been tackled in at least one country song), and the sound of the voices, harmonies and instrumentation.

Thanks to J.R. and the guys for inviting me to join the team here.

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Razor X

Hello, everyone.  My name is Rob, but most of you probably know me as “Razor X” from The 9513 and the other country music blogs.  I live in New Jersey and have been a huge fan of country music all my life.  I started listening to it in 1980, which was the Year of the Urban Cowboy, but was also a time when some of the legends of the genre could still be heard on the radio.   Some of my favorite artists are Randy Travis, George Strait, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, and Merle Haggard.  I look forward to discussing them and all the other great artists with you.

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Jonathan Pappalardo

Hello all. My name is Jonathan Pappalardo and I fell in love with country music at six years old when I first heard Lorrie Morgan sing “What Part of No.” I don’t remember when I went from fandom to obsession, but country music been the one constant in my life. It doesn’t matter if it’s as old as the hills, or just recorded in Nashville this morning, I love everything about the genre.

My favorite country singers are Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, George Strait, Alan Jackson, Faith Hill, Dixie Chicks, and The Judds, to name a few. As for contemporary artists, I really like Sugarland, Luke Bryan, Carrie Underwood, and Miranda Lambert. I usually prefer the more traditional leaning stuff to the rock-infused country of late.

I’m really excited to be joining the team and want to thank J.R. for this opportunity. I look forward to sharing my love of country music with all of you.

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Paul Dennis

As a service brat I moved around quite a bit. I attended 17 different schools between starting first grade in Jacksonville, FL and graduating from a Department of Defense school in London, England. We didn’t move quite that often but it was a time of rapid population growth along the eastern seaboard and frequent school redistricting. At one point, while living in Maryland, I was bussed over an hour to a junior high school, with two junior high schools within easy walking distance – this farce in the name of desegregation.

I went to Stetson University in Deland, FL, graduated in six semesters, started law school and then decided I didn’t want to be a lawyer.

I started purchasing LPs in 1968. Before that I had purchased some 45s, but mostly I didn’t have any money. The first three LPs I purchased were Country Charley Pride, According to My Heart by Jim Reeves and Skip a Rope by Henson Cargill. I don’t know how many LPS and CDs I’ve accumulated – I’d guess that it is around 9000 items. About two thirds of my collection is Country, then 1/6 jazz and 1/6 everything else.

Among the newer artists my favorites are Brad Paisley, Amber Digby, Jamey Johnson and Justin Trevino. My absolute favorites are Ernest Tubb, Buck Owens, Connie Smith, Jean Shepard, Loretta Lynn, Ray Price, Carl Smith, Charley Pride, Webb Pierce, Gene Watson and Merle Haggard. Considering all aspects of his career, I regard Merle Haggard as the greatest country artist ever. Ray Price, Gene Watson and Connie Smith are the greatest county vocalists. Storms of Life by Randy Travis is my candidate for the best country album ever.

I sometimes perform before audiences, always with a live band, never karaoke. I have a repertoire of over 100 songs. Other than “Long Slow Kisses”, the Jeff Bates hit from a few years ago, all my songs are from before 1980. I have often been tempted to have the drummer sit out while I sing, but other than on some acoustic or bluegrass songs, I haven’t done it.

I regard melody and harmony as the two essential elements of music. Rhythm should support the melody and harmony (and lyrics, if any). With too much of today’s music, if you eliminated the rhythm tracks, you’d have nothing left. Obviously, REAL country music should feature at least two of the following instruments: fiddle, steel guitar (or dobro), banjo, and mandolin.

My writings will be focused mostly on the history of the music although I may do an album review if the mood hits me. I feel that the history of the genre is being lost, largely through corporate control of radio and the digital revolution of the 1980s. Too many country stations of the mid-1980s (and later) refused to play any music not available on compact disc. For the first decade of the CD era almost no older country music was available on CD, so radio was stuck with playing only new country music. Charley Pride was perhaps the biggest country star of the period 1958-1982 and almost none of his classic RCA recordings were available on CD until the late 1990s. Ditto for Buck Owens, Sonny James and Merle Haggard. Even today many of the stars of the 1970s such as Freddie Hart, Nat Stuckey, Kenny Price, Margo Smith and Jody Miller are scarcely available.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with the articles I write or to be particularly interested in the artists whose lives and/or music I feature. I am open to suggestions for future articles, although my number one criterion will be artists whose music I like, so don’t be suggesting articles on Rascal Flatts or Jason Aldean – those won’t happen !

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Megan Morrow

Hello, I’m Meg Morrow and a newbie at both blogging and country music. In my late 40s though, I’m not so new to life and perhaps that’s why country music has begun to appeal to me in the last few years. It’s all about the ups and downs, ins and outs of ordinary life. The songs that strike a chord with me usually tell a good story, dig into the heart of life experience, or are just — for lack of a better word – real (that includes real humor, too!).

I’ve loved Kathy Mattea for a long time, and have always gravitated toward artists with a folk flavor, good lyrics, and more of an acoustic sound. But I was bitten by the Reba bug in 2006 and haven’t been the same since!  I enjoy Trisha Yearwood, Dolly Parton, Sugarland, Miranda Lambert, Brooks & Dunn, Brad Paisley and Lee Ann Womack. I’m lovin’ what I learn here at My Kind of Country and look forward to learning more from you and with you about the music we love.

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Chris Dean

Hey guys! My name is Chris, if you didn’t catch that from my user name! You may have seen me lurking around as “Chris D.” on The 9513 and other country blogs. Outside of the internet, I play tennis, as well as working as a tennis coach, I am currently an Eagle Scout, and I love to speak French! I also watch way too much TV, especially Fringe, CSI (not Miami), Pushing Daisies, Survivor, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I also love to play video games, so I end up being very busy, especially considering that I’m still in school.

I actually didn’t like country music that much until recently; namely 2006. My parents raised me on country, but I never really cared, with the exception of knowing the words to most Shania Twain songs at a young age and random stuff like that. Then one day, I heard the song “Want To” by Sugarland on the radio, and I was instantly obsessed with it, and from there I was obsessed with the duo that sang it. I moved from Sugarland to Sara Evans, branching out from artist to artist until I found myself with artists like Kathy Mattea, Nickel Creek (Who I am listening to as I write this), and The Judds. I also have branched out to other genres with artists like Feist, Jazmine Sullivan, Adele, Radiohead, and even Mariah Carey. I like to think of myself as having fairly diverse musical tastes, and you would probably agree if you heard my ipod on shuffle, but I always seem to return to country music. I think I like it so much because it’s one of the only genres where I consistently am made to feel some emotion. I also like sad songs a lot, so that helps too.

My favorite artists within country are Sugarland, SHeDAISY, Trisha Yearwood, Lee Ann Womack, and The Dixie Chicks. If I had to choose a favorite album, I would pick There’s More Where That Came From by Lee Ann Womack. Unfortunately my favorite country song changes constantly, so I won’t say that here. I hope you enjoy hearing from me in the future!

Note: Chris Dean is currently on leave as he travels to Italy as a missionary for the Mormon church.  We applaud his selflessness, wish him only the best, and eagerly await his return to My Kind of Country as a staff-writer.

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Jordan Stacey

Kwe Kwe Skennenko:waken. In case you didn’t understand that first sentence it means “Hello, How are you?” in Kanienkeha, my native language. I am Jordan Michael Allan Kanenrake Stacey, but usually just go by Jordan. I am 19 years old and Native American. I live in Kahnawake, Quebec which is about 10 minutes from downtown Montreal.Both of my grandfathers were in country bands when they were younger, one of them almost got a record deal, and the other was once the biggest country act in eastern canada. By the time I was born they had both given up performing but they both raised me on country music. George Jones, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Keith Whitley, Alan Jackson, Jim Reeves, Tammy Wynett, Patsy Cline were the mainstays in my life. As I started discovering music on my own I started learning about Shania, Garth and Travis Tritt. I knew most of the words to all their songs but that was the extent of my music life. It was getting Brad Paisley’s Mud On The Tires album for christmas that set me off. By the end of January 2004 I had already collected 80 albums. Now I have over 14,000 songs on my iPod ranging from popular mainstream (Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley), to much more obscure stuff (Becky Schlegel, Tift Merritt).  My favorite artist is Terri Clark, my favorite album is her Fearless one, and my favorite song is the title track.

I want to thank all those who’s intros are above me for letting me join as an contributor here.