If you haven’t heard yet, Josh of Country Perspective announced yesterday via Twitter that the blog’s hiatus would probably be permanent. I acknowledged it on Twitter, but it wasn’t nearly all I wanted to say.
Country Perspective, and Josh and Derek, helped make this possible for me. When I was all but converted to a pop fan in late 2014 and early 2015, I found that blog and started hearing names like Jason Eady, Courtney Patton, Lindi Ortega…I could go on, but they are part of the reason I came back to country in the first place. When I grew passionate about doing this myself and started this blog in June 2015, they encouraged me. Josh and I didn’t always agree, but that was fine; when I posted a piece about genre lines in response and somewhat rebuttal to one of his, he posted it on Twitter, of all things. He was good like that, encouraging discussion and differences of opinion. Even if we differed somewhat in opinion, he was good at fostering that, and that’s something that not all blogs and writers strive for. He inspired me in a lot of ways, but that one has affected me the most.
Josh and Derek still continued to introduce me to music even after I started writing, indeed right up to the hiatus of Country Perspective. In addition to the artists I mentioned, I have them to thank for Kasey chambers, Sam Outlaw, and probably others I’m forgetting. They were both passionate about music and writing, and Josh, I can understand how that passion didn’t translate into running a blog. But thank you for sharing that passion with all of us.
Lastly, I want to thank Josh in particular, and this is a bit of a personal thing. He cared so much about his readers, and for me, that meant even more than it probably did to most. I remember asking on occasion what pictures or iTunes reviews said on his posts because my screen reader couldn’t read them. I remember him describing them; it got to where commenters would do that too, but it started with Josh. at one time, he had a podcast and said he would consider putting it on iTunes if that were more accessible than SoundCloud. I was one of his readers; yes, he may have, and probably did have, other blind readers, but because of one he listened. That’s not something you find everywhere, particularly with someone who has so many readers and commenters, and I am grateful for that.
So it makes me sad to say this, but for now, this is farewell to Country Perspective. Thanks for what you did for all of us. You will be missed.