I’ve been watching the the new Ken Burns documentary, “Country Music,” lately on PBS.

The show suggests that country music has a common thread that spans each its iterations. The music offers lyrics that make the listener become an active partner.

Such stories were originally found in everyday life, though they gradually became cliché. Around the late 1960s or early 1970s, the rock explosion – the folk revival – began to exert an influence on the music coming out of Nashville.

To this day, I am amazed at the transformation – how the mega today’s county music stars resemble the heavy-metal hair bands from the 1980’s.

Yes, country has gone far away from its roots, which is why a Tennessee band out of Memphis began making a sound that can be described as alternative country blended with the Memphis blues. Or just call it country punk.

Lucero brought their sound to the Top Hat to a clearly country audience. It was just too bad there weren’t more Mellennials in the crowd. Today’s pop music could use a similar disruption.