This column originally appeared November 19, 2000.
Listening to a recording of Ernest Tubb singing “Walking The Floor Over You” last week, I was reminded of just how much I long for country music.
To put it another way, the kissy-face, over-produced, soft-focus, computer-aided, everybody-is-good-looking music that’s passes for country these days is a long way from the straight-forward, American experience found in artists like Tubb, Roy Acuff, Merle Travis, Bob Wills, Floyd Tillman and Hank Williams who exploded on to the American airwaves (and every honky-tonk jukebox) in the 30s and 40s.
How much of a part of the American experience was it? Japanese soldiers taunted U.S. Marines in the Pacific in WWII with: “To hell with Franklin Roosevelt! To hell with Babe Ruth! To hell with Roy Acuff!”
Besides writing such classics as “Dark As A Dungeon” and “Sixteen Tons,” Merle Travis developed the “Travis Picking” guitar style that influenced Chet Atkins and generations of guitarists.
Bob Wills added brass, reeds and hollerin’ (Aaahh haahh!) to an old fiddle tune and created the classic “San Antonio Rose” in 1944. (On a local note, Wills and his Texas Playboys set the attendance record of 850 at the Gay Parita in Corona in the 40s.)
There’s no one better at the waltz-time, honky-tonk ballad than Floyd Tillman (“I Love You So Much It Hurts Me”). Country giant Willie Nelson credits Tillman as a major influence on his, behind-the-beat phrasing style.
Of course, Hank Williams epitomizes American country music. His songs that have a great story line that’s sometimes combined with a straight country melody, sometimes with country-blues. When Williams sang “Lovesick Blues” at his Grand Old Opry debut in 1949, he was called back for six encores.
The next three decades were some of the best years of country music. The artists? Marty Robbins, Buck Owens, Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold, Jimmy Dean, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Patsy Cline, Wanda Jackson, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Roger Miller, Merle Haggard, Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, Don Williams, Waylon Jennings and, of course, the incomparable Willie Nelson come to mind.
Apparently I’m not the only one concerned country may be losing its roots. The Country Legends Association was founded in 1997 to promote Traditional Country, Gospel and Bluegrass music. “Once, it might have been called mountain music, cowboy music, or hillbilly music, the names changing as the art form matured into what we now think of as, traditional, or classic, country music. It is the purpose and goal of the Country Legends Association to bring people of like mind together to join hands and hearts to preserve, restore and promote this unique part of Americana for the benefit of those who will follow.” (You can get more information on the association by calling 218-628-3003 or visiting their web site at www.clabranson.org.)
I have a cassette tape of country classics that I call my “Idle Hour Jukebox” because most all of them were 45s on the juke there in the late 60s.
On it are, among others, the songs “500 Miles,” “It Keeps Right On A Hurtin’,” “Together Again,” “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” “She’s Got You,” “Ode To Billie Joe,” “Statue Of A Fool,” “Chug-A-Lug,” “Born To Lose,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “What’s He Doin’ In My World?” “Devil Woman,” “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” “I Love You So Much It Hurts,” and “Funny How Time Slips Away.”
The tape gives me a certain solace as I ride the back roads in my Trendy Explorer singing along. Which is, of course, ironic, since most of the songs deal with the pain and broken dreams.
But hurtin’ along with classic country music is, for me, somehow uplifting. Maybe it’s because misery loves company. Maybe because it connects me with farmers, factory workers, cowboys, railroaders, truckers, and coal miners.
I suppose, in the end, my relationship with classic country is much the same as the one described by songwriter Hank Cochran in “She’s Got You,” the heartfelt ballad recorded by Patsy Cline: “I’ve got your memory. Or has it got me? I really don’t know ... but I know ... it won’t set me free.”
J.T. Knoll is a writer, speaker and prevention and wellness coordinator at Pittsburg State University. He also operates Knoll Training, Consulting & Counseling Services in Pittsburg. He can be reached at 231-0499 or jtknoll@swbell.net
PITTSBURG —
