Showing posts with label jimmie rodgers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jimmie rodgers. Show all posts

Thursday, September 26, 2019

What I Learned From The First Three Episodes of "Country Music"


Somebody in those first episodes uttered something like, "Country music is about looking back...to a better time..." I thought, yes, that's very astute. I wasn't looking back in 1968 or 1974, but I have devoted an entire blog to looking back. Partly it's reminiscence, but it's also my attempt to ensure that certain artists and influences are not forgotten. Pop culture forges ahead, relentlessly; but to truly understand music, one should steep themselves in what came before. All music, whether artists realize it or not, is stirred by those who plowed the road.

I'm no expert ~ there's lots I learned from Ken Burns' series I didn't know. I knew how Ralph Peer ventured into Appalachia with his rudimentary equipment and found The Carter Family. And I know that country music had to start somewhere ~ thus The Carters. I didn't know, but I suspected The Carters didn't exactly write all those songs they recorded, and they didn't. Copyright was a foreign concept in the nineteen thirties. I also learned that melodies were exchanged like candy drops back then, and no one seemed to mind. It was just the way of music. Woody Guthrie stole the melody to This Land Is Your Land from The Carters' "When The World's On Fire", which was no doubt stolen from some unsuspecting hillbilly's lost-forever original composition. The Carters weren't "all that", except for Maybelle, who could definitely pick a mean acoustic guitar. They were, however, one of the very first.

I learned that hillbillies can call each other hillbillies, but otherwise it's an epithet. It's sort of how I feel when somebody says, "country and western music". It's like nails on a chalkboard.

I learned that Bob Wills had a keen eye for talent, but a bad eye for wives (which numbered about five). It would have been nice had Ken featured some of Bob's music. Whoever authored the episode, it seems, had a distinct preference for Gene Autry, and therefore, an inordinate number of minutes were devoted to this singing cowboy who was apparently as influential to kids in the thirties as Elvis movies were to me in the early sixties (that is to say, we just didn't know any better).

I gained a grudging respect for Roy Acuff, who I'd always viewed with a modicum of disdain. Turns out, Roy was a record-selling phenomenon; and even he admitted he wasn't the world's greatest singer. He was the best ambassador country music ever had, according to the series; and I now get that.

Ernest Tubb was bigger than I realized. I saw Tubb in concert; one of those one-offs that my best friend Alice and I bought tickets for sometime around 1967 because it was the only game in town.

I knew that Merle Haggard idolized Jimmie Rodgers ~ he did record a tribute album, after all. I was of a mind that all Rodgers' songs basically sounded the same (they did), but my husband pointed out that he was actually doing the blues. All the stars from that era, just like Merle, worshiped Rodgers. I do like California Blues (as performed by Merle), but all that yodeling can only be tolerated for so long. It was a different time.

I learned that Bill Monroe was a first-class asshole; but I rather respect that. He had high standards, but mostly he was just an asshole. There was a time I detested bluegrass music ~ now I like some. And Monroe invented it. How many people can claim to have invented a genre of music?

The Maddox Brothers and Rose were simply a name to me before I watched this series. I still don't get the attraction ~ I guess you had to be there ~ but if they helped to influence the Bakersfield Sound, many many kudos to them.

Kitty Wells got a mini-shout-out, even though she deserved more. She was the first mainstream female country star. (Alice and I also saw a Kitty Wells concert ~ again, we saw anyone who came to town, truly.)

The biggest impact for me of the first three episodes was the story of Hank Williams. I knew that Hank wrote some elegant country songs, plus some awesome up-tempo giddy ones, like "Settin' The Woods On Fire" and "Jambalaya". I knew that the end was tragic. I didn't know what a sad soul Hank was. When I watched the clips of Williams performing, all I saw was sorrow. Maybe the best songs are written from pain ~ if that's true, no wonder we have so many Williams classics. Hank was a "hillbilly" and a poet, even if that flummoxes certain culture snobs.

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry
 
I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind the clouds
To hide its face and cry
 
Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die
That means he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry
 
The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry






Yes, I'm watching somewhat out of order ~ I have watched half of Episode Five now and I'm anxious. I hope they got it right. That was my era; I'll know if they messed it up. I don't recall ever watching a series and being half-fascinated, half on-edge; hungry for new knowledge, ready to pounce when they botch it.

I forgive Ken for his obsession with Johnny Cash, as long as he gets the rest right.

Stay tuned (or, I guess I should. You've no doubt already watched it.)


















Thursday, October 11, 2018

Rockin' The Cradle


How far back does memory travel? I was born in 1955 and I readily admit I don't remember snoozing in my crib. I don't remember being bald, but I apparently was. I've always had hair problems. By the time I entered elementary school, my mom had obviously thrown up her hands. Photos of me from around that time tend to feature the high-bangs look. The remainder of my hair just lay in an unformed clump around my skull. I think moms in the early sixties were required to scissor bangs as close to their kids' scalps as possible.


Worse were the Toni home permanents. My mother, I'll admit, was not handy with hair, which is even more reason not to try to give her kid a perm. My philosophy of hair, then and now, is just leave me the hell alone. But I digress.

I think my earliest memory was of the time I almost drowned. I either remember it or the story was told so many times that I've simply imagined myself in that perilous situation. I think it's a memory. There was a coulee across the road from our farm, and I liked water. I really liked water. Today I can't imagine myself slashing through grassy, slimy weeds taller than me to reach a "pool", but I guess I was determined. My flashback is of lying on my back in water that was oddly warm and my entire family bending over from the bank, reaching for me. Five people. I can clearly see my eleven-year-old brother's face, and my dad's. My sisters and my mom were there, too. They all seemed peculiarly concerned. I was not. I definitely was not panicked. I frankly did not see what the big deal was. Didn't they know that I needed to do things? My nosy family assuredly killed my buzz. And, I guess, saved my life.

Musically, the charts chugged slowly. Songs hung around, a couple of years, generally. Perhaps it was because fewer records were released or simply that life moved at a slower pace. We had the opportunity to savor songs and imprint them upon our brains, which was not always optimal. We always think we remember the good songs, but we actually don't. We remember the annoying ones. The Buddy Holly tracks we only caught much later. I don't remember being cognizant of "That'll Be The Day" until sometime in the early seventies, when I purchased one of those compilation LP's, K-Tel's "Best Hits of Any Damn Era We Choose To Glom Together".

No, the songs I remember are essentially thanks to my dad and his infernal Magnavox kitchen radio.

Songs like this:


No wonder I wanted to drown myself.

By the time I entered kindergarten in 1960 and discovered that there was such a thing as "showing off" (or "show and tell", as my teacher called it), I was keen to bring records to class that I could perform to. My fellow students were mere onlookers as I executed my best dance moves. I'm guessing some of them pulled their cotton rugs from their cubbies and settled in for nap time as I sang about "making love to you".

 
My awareness of 1957 songs seems to have gelled about three years later (again, attributed to the slow gait of life).

My mom took me to my very first concert around that time, at the Grand Forks Armory. I don't know why she took me -- maybe my dad was busy -- because, frankly, Mom didn't like taking me places due to blushing embarrassment. We saw Marty Robbins and his band...the..."guys in the band"...(I have no idea what Marty's band was called). Mom and I sat in the third row and saw Marty perform this song:




When the show ended, Mom nudged me in the ribs and prodded me to go up and get Marty's autograph. I flatly refused. My thinking was, what if he speaks to me? I have never been a good talker. And, by the by, why didn't she queue up to get his signature? Don't be pushin' a five-year-old to do something you're scared to do for yourself. On the plus side, I did get a chance to see Marty Robbins again in concert, when I was in my twenties and had tow-heads of my own. Yes, Mom was there, too. I still didn't get his autograph. I will point out that she didn't, either.

I never liked this song, nor did I like Sonny James. I don't think Dad liked him much, either, but I definitely remember this track from '57:


And seriously? Five background singers? That's just egomaniacal.

You might only know Pat Boone from shilling for Relief Factor, and the obvious question is, Pat Boone is still alive? But he was using a sharp stick to scribble stuff in the grit in 1957:



I don't remember Elvis. I remember Rick(y) Nelson because he was on a TV show. I have a faint consciousness of Fats Domino and, most likely, the Everly Brothers.

This I remember, because who could ever forget?


My sisters could fill in the blanks better than I. They were older -- twelve and thirteen -- and at an age when music sheared like a knife. I was just a dumb toddler who took what was presented to me and called it "music".

Oh, and I remember some guy who people say "created" rock 'n roll:


I don't know about that. I guess I'd have to ask my dad.