The Bob Marley and Desmond Dekker of country music

As an old skinhead, I am a fan of reggae music or at least was so until a few years ago. I can't stand modern reggae or "ragga", as they call it, though I really liked Willie Nelson's reggae album.

Anyhow, whenever one says that one likes reggae, you get the usual reaction. "Oh, you like Bob Marley". Which I, in fact, don't particulary do. Sure, some of his 60's stuff was great, but when he progressed to his rastafarian, drug-fuelled crap, it just got too druggie for my taste.

I do appreciate his role in spreading reggae music to a wider audience though, he was a fantastic embassador for the genre. It's just, I think, a bit arrogant to believe that the whole genre starts and ends with one man. I am a far bigger fan of Desmond Dekker, who was the first Jamaican reggae artist with a major smash hit abroad (no, I don't count Millie, cos she was ska and not reggae) and Toots or Jimmy Cliff.

Lately, it has been popular to like Johnny Cash and you get a lot of people talking about Johnny as people talk about Bob. You tell them you like country music and people say "Oh, I love Johnny Cash". Good for them, Johnny Cash was a genious, but can you truly claim to love a genre if you've only heard one man's music?

When it comes to country music, the Desmond Dekker of country is Hank Williams sr and Johnny Cash was the Bob Marley in my book any day. Johnny revolutionised country and brought it a social commentary it hadn't had since the days of Woody Guthrie, although Johnny was definitely not a bloody commie, like Woody was.

The social commentary bit is another reason why I think Johnny as the Bob of country and why I think Hank was the Desmond Dekker. Like Des, Hank stuck to easy listening like themes, most often about broken hearts and misery and never took the step into radical stuff. As a beacon of light for country music in a time when country was not all that it was to become after him, Hank changed a lot of things in the scene and is still an inspiration for many young artists.