Country music Bands Arizona

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The staff at Dierks Bentley's Whiskey Row in Tempe.

Benjamin Leatherman

Practically every Western film one can think of has at least one saloon scene, a place where the sound of honky-tonk piano creates the mood, where the town folk mix with the cowboys and ranchers, the gamblers and outlaws rub shoulders with the marshal and his deputies, and the mustachioed bartenders sling the whiskey shots and the draft beers.

After all, a good saloon is the epicenter of a neighborhood, a small town or a big city, and the Valley — a country town if there ever was one — has a ton of good saloons to choose from when you want to get duded up in your Levi's, Tony Lamas and a Stetson, and pull up a bar stool for a longneck, kick up your heels for some boot-scootin, ' or simply hang out, shoot some pool, and listen to a smokin' good country band. There are also a few nightclub-style joints around the Valley, like the Whiskey Row joints in Scottsdale and Tempe that are owned by homegrown country star Dierks Bentley.

You'll find both in our list of the 10 best country bars in the Valley, which includes several rootin' tootin' spots where one might imagine John Wayne (if he weren't presently a ghost rider in the sky) dropping by for a brew after a day out on the range plugging the bad guys full of lead, as well as a few of the more new-fangled spots.

The Silver Pony in south Phoenix.

A dyed-in-the-wool good ol' boy neighborhood dive, The Silver Pony is that rarest of beasts, a country joint that occasionally features live local original country music from the likes of honky-tonk twang faves Junction 10 in lieu of the live acts that play the usual Top 40 country covers in most of the Valley's other country bars. Drop in for the great live music, warble some karaoke in Spanish or English, do some two-steppin, ' shoot some pool, or just hang out and down a few cheap ice-cold brews. CHRIS HANSEN ORF