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Country Music, Essay Example

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Music is the melody and the language of our hearts. It is an external manifestation of the aspirations, love, sorrow that we feel. It is like the words in our heart finds its way in music, and it is the best form of relaxation and well being for times immemorial. Our topic is however, a particular division of musical fraternity called the Country Music. As the name suggests, country music has a rich aroma of the feelings and sentiments of a rural image; it reminds us of the mountains, lush green meadows, the beautiful little country house, yellow sunshine and happy people and the guitar. So we would evaluate the following questions in our knowledge quest of country music.

A few lines of a country song, “ Have a little love on a little honeymoon, you got a little dish and a little spoon, a little bitty house and a little bitty yard, a little bitty dog and a little bitty car, Well, it’s alright to be a little bitty… A little hometown in a big old city, Might as well share, might as well smile; Life goes on for a little bitty while.”

The Origin of Country Music
The Beginning of Country Music
Grand Ole Opry
Singing Cowboy
Country Rock

The Origin of Country Music: Bristol, Tennessee are said to be the “Birthplace of Country music”, as per the 1998 United States Congress resolution. Country music was firstly characterized a gobbled set of words put in a melody, naïve, stereotype and tangy, to cater to a particular fraction of audience. It was termed cliché, as musicians played the same tunes with different set of words. These were a set of impartial judgments and mixed feelings that affected the growth of country music at birth, but its chastity and flavor could not have prevent the minds and hearts of hundreds of Americans and it became the most popular music forms in the 20 th Century. It came to be a big success and eventually ranked as the best selling music after the rock or pop music. The musical journey of country music spans from the 19 th century, with its subsequent changes and ordeal, and its different genre that has shaped and developed in the next 100 years of its birth.

The musical instruments used in the different phases of country music would give us a better insight to its physical journey. The first instrument that started country music was the fiddle (violin), which was very popular as it was easy to make, cheap and comfortable to carry. Preliminary it was the sole lead instrument, but with preceding time and popularity, new accessories added to the list, to further enrich the flavor of the music. The introduction of banjo, brought by the slaves in South America, became a popular form of instrument during the 1800. Then during 1900, guitar came into existence, used mainly for the rhythmic styles but later gained momentum as it started to carry new styles and forms of music. Soon it became the most popular form of mass instrument. Contemporary classical music soon transcended in the use of electric guitar and other parallel added instruments like the dobro, dulcimer, the autoharp, mandolin, zither, steel and bass guitar. You can also get the flavor of instruments like accordion, piano, harmonica, washboards or drums, which later added to give the hip hop in the country music flavor.

Country music has its roots influenced and introduced by the European settlers. In ancient times, scripting the folklore and history in the form of stories and parables were quite popular. People loved to hear history in short rhythmic tales and to make it more audible and famous, melody was synchronized. When America had the influx of British settlers, they imbibed the tradition of presenting history through music. It is said that country music was a first used by the settlers in Appalachian Mountains, to describe the vehement ordeal and difficult in livelihood that they faced. Music was the only form way to express their hardships. However, the sad and passive forms of melody eventually gave way to rhythm, fervor and energy. The ballads and music of the British Isles changed to music of joy and vitality. It soon left behind the shadows of mysticism, sad and monotonous epilogue… America soon adopted country music to be happy, chiastic and full of enthusiasm. The transformation was probably an effect of the rise of Victorian age, and the happy go lucky nature of American lifestyle. Country music became more concrete, focusing on real and current issues of the period. It was no longer stipulated for a limited rural audience, but attained a mass stature, narrating the events of the country as well as of the world.

The beginning of country music: As country music gained its popularity in America, there was a dearth of professional musicians. Since the introduction of country music, it was local and traditional in nature. Every village has its own story and own set of lyrics, closer to their heart. But the acceptance of such a marginalized talent in the global scenario was a matter of surprise. Musicians, fiddlers were invited on local occasions, marriages and cattle drives to sing on the occasion. Appreciation and applaud were mostly the essential part on behalf to showcase their talents. However, with the passage of time these melodies were carried from one place to another by nomads, visitors and settlers. Little attempt and efforts were taken to preserve the original, old country music.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. started to sell guitars all throughout the country, coupled with sheet music and song books. Mighty publicity stunts and advertisements led to the evolution of new brand of singers and country music became widely popularized. It was easily accessible and made the learning process easier. The mandolin also developed with it. Young singers emerged and gave a new dimension to country music. Northern America was largely influenced and small bands emerged; they took money to perform and sing country music. Monetary association led to a widespread affiliation and people started to take it as a profession. The new benchmark of earning money lured the gentry from socializing their talent instead of restricting it in the boundaries of their home. This spawned the new set of “hillbilly” performers in 1920. It was named after a musician known as Al Hopkins, who named his brand hillbilly as they were the occupants of North Carolina and Virginia.

The popularity of the phonograph, provided the opportunity to buy records of favorite singers. The songs of that period had an essence of classical and orchesteral arrangements. The new wave in the country music was brought about by two Texan fiddlers, Alexander Campbell and Henry Gilland, who travelled all the way from Atlanta to Ney York, in pursuit of recording their album. It was named “Ragtime Annie.” Then came a string of singers like John Carson. He was from Georgia and was selected to record for a company named Okek Phonograph Corporation in 1923. He recorded two songs “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane” and “The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster’s Going to Crow.” The company was unsure about his coarse voice and felt that the record would be a disaster. However, it was a major hit and people loved the form of music.

Then comes the era of commercialization, in which country music received its much awaited acknowledgement as one of the finest forms of music in the world. . In 1927, Ralph Peer, took the onus to set up a recording studio in Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee border and publicly announced large number of musicians to join the group. There was large participation from the musicians living in the rural areas, because they could never imagined to be paid for the passion of their life, it was more than expected, that music could pay as well. At the end of 1924, Columbia Records started producing country music records and then there was a series of record giants pursuing good country music. They wanted to further add to the traditional songs, so that the market appeal increases and penetrates further in American hearts and minds.

Vernon Dalhart was the first superstar in American country music history. His album in 1916, “ The Wreck of the old 97” were among the popular ones. There followed a series of singers like the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and so on.

However, soon the scenario changed and there was a major depression after 1920. There was economic turmoil and people could not afford on buying records. So during 1930 radio became a powerful medium of music and people could hear their favorite music. Then came famous shows like “National Barn Dance”, the “Wheeling Jamboree, “Grand Ole Opry” followed by Grand Opera. Eventually there were stars like Dr. Humphrey Bates, Gully Jumpers, Jimmy Thompson, Uncle Dave Macon, and Roy Acuff and so on. The Grand Ole Opry played a significant role in the shaping of the country music history and is responsible for opening the avenues of music to the next generations.

Singing Cowboys and Western Swing

In the 20 th century, old cowboy songs, which were mainly inspirational works of brave deeds, heroism, and patriotism ..Attributes of such feelings were expressed in the songs. They took an important part in the Hollywood movies and gained large amount of exposure. Movies has the technology of sound, so cowboy songs were added to make the movies more appealing. Thus songs which were mainly sung during rearing of cattle, got a permanent place in the history of movie cinema. Carl T. Sprague had the first recorded album and is considered to the the first singing cowboy. His album was known as “When the Work’s Al Done This Fall” which had a record sale of 900,000 copies and introduced the new trend in country music.

Country Rock: In the late 1960, American music leaped new heights. Country music got the touch of rock..the transformation from the old, traditional gospels to one that creates the resonance in music. From the sentimental journey to a more hip hop journey, to suit to the young generation. Thus old wine in a new bottle, country music was packaged in a new, style and genre known as the country rock. The famous country rock singers are The Byrds, Clarence White, The Eagles and so on.

Works Cited

Sabine Keevil, (2002) Guitars & Cadillacs, Thinking Dog Publishing, , Last Retrieved on October 26, 2009.

Peter La Chapelle (2007), Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California , Last Retrieved on October 26, 2009.

Pete Stamper, (1999), It All Happened in Renfro Valley , Last Retrieved on October 26, 2009 Colin Escott, Routledge, 2002, Roadkill on the Three-Chord Highway, Last Retrieved on October 26, 2009

http://www.hit-country-music-lyrics.com/alan-jackson-lyrics-country.html

http://www.countrymusicplanet.com/history/

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How Nashville ‘Killed’ Traditional Country Music—and Then Reinvented It

The genre created by ‘hillbillies’ and folkies now speaks to pickup-driving suburbanites.

Dolly Parton performs at the Grand Ole Opry on April 23, 2005, as U.S. soldiers in Iraq watch via a live feed. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons .

By James C. Cobb | March 28, 2018

25 years ago, American Heritage writer Tony Scherman declared traditional country music dead and done with, asking, “How far from its social origins can an art form grow before it loses meaning?”

Scherman’s impassioned farewell created something of a stir—but he was not the first and certainly not the last of the music’s obituarists who erred in assuming that cultures and cultural forms survive by resisting change rather than accommodating it.

While the very name of “country” music emphasizes its cultural roots, it’s been shaped by commerce from the outset. The ballads and fiddle tunes favored by early emigrants from the British Isles might have constituted “folk music,” but by the end of the 19th century, as music writer Francis Davis observed, what a visiting folklorist might have seized on as “a supposedly authorless … song learned by ear for generations” could well have been picked up recently from a touring vaudevillian.

Even though early 20th-century country music pioneers—like A. P. Carter of the famed Carter Family—played and sang songs from an oral tradition stretching several centuries deep into British history and culture, they were not purist collectors but professional performers who often reconfigured awkward chords and arcane lyrics into a mix more palatable to live audiences and record producers.

Jimmie Rodgers, who is widely recognized today as “The Father of Country Music,” was one of the most truly innovative artists in American musical history. Rodgers made his recording breakthrough in July 1927, only five years after the first commercial country music record appeared. Punctuating his bluesy, black-sounding vocals with the melodic yodeling style he had learned from a traveling Swiss troupe, he also incorporated the Hawaiian steel guitar and the jazz trumpet of Louis Armstrong into recordings like his famous “ Blue Yodel No. 9 .” Though his life was cut tragically short by tuberculosis in 1933, his records sold 12 million copies over a six-year span.

Rodgers also led the way as country performers shucked their overalls in favor of the more romantic garb of the cowboy already popularized on the silver screen, a makeover embraced by recording executives who feared that the old “hillbilly” image was too evocative of the daily drudgery and deprivation of the Great Depression.

The Second World War brought some relief from that poverty, and changed the music in the process. The massive infusion of some $9 billion in wartime federal spending suddenly had the South sprouting not only military bases and defense plants but drinking and dancing establishments eager to relieve the locals of their newfound ready cash. These “honky tonks” (think “Bob’s Country Bunker” in The Blues Brothers ) presented some new musical challenges, chiefly that of simply penetrating the din of dancing, rattling beer bottles, and drunken conversation. In such raucous settings, the softer vocals and acoustic guitars of the old hillbilly string bands quickly proved no match for amplified instruments and the transcendent twang of the pedal steel guitar.

“Honky Tonk” music’s distinct sound came with place-appropriate lyrics, sometimes celebrating the fleeting but intense pleasures of a good buzz, but dwelling more often on the pangs of guilt and loss occasioned by habitual drunkenness, adulterous assignations, and dimly lit barroom romances that could not survive the light of day.

Honky Tonk’s themes were the stock-in-trade of performers like Ernest Tubb, whose 1941 rendition of “Walking the Floor Over You” became an instant classic. But they reached their apotheosis a few years later in the music of Hank Williams.

As befit the most quintessentially “country” performer of all time, Williams’ emotionally powerful songs seemed wholly genuine in the context of his tragic life. Yet his music was a subtle blend of hillbilly, honky tonk, and black instrumental and vocal influences. And some of his physical gestures and gyrations foreshadowed the performing style that would later establish Elvis Aron Presley as the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

With America’s teens buying rock ‘n’ roll hits by the fistful, Nashville recording gurus Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins set out to woo their frazzled parents with the notably de-twanged’ “Nashville Sound,” marked by soothing background vocals and smooth string arrangements where a single fiddle gave way to a chorus of violins. Featuring the silky vocals of artists like Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline, here was an “easy listening” version of country music tailored for crossing over into the mainstream adult pop market.

The music had been reinvented yet again, and, once more, rather than destroy country music tradition, this innovation would simply enter into it. “Crazy” and “I Fall to Pieces,” two of Patsy Cline’s biggest “crossover” hits in the pop market, now occupy the second and fourth spots respectively in About Country’s ranking of the top 500 country songs of all time. Reeves’s “He’ll Have to Go” rests at number nine. Not bad for a sound that hardcore honky-tonker Ernest Tubb declared inauthentic on arrival, allowing they could “do what they want to, but don’t call it country.”

Tubb might seem a bit out of place in anything resembling a Hegelian dialectic. But in echoing what others had said about his own reworked rendition of country music scarcely a generation earlier, he joined an ongoing process of interaction where each successive departure from tradition both provoked and shaped a counter-response. In this case the Nashville Sound brought forth the “neo-honky tonk” style of George Jones and later the “Bakersfield Sound” of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.

Much of the anxiety about changes in country music stems from its remarkably rapid transition from marginal cultural product to the perceived embodiment of fundamental American values. Such changes appeared to reach warp speed by the 1990s as Garth Brooks ditched long necks for piña coladas and blitzed the touring scene with concert extravaganzas that made the Super Bowl halftime show look like a third-grade Christmas pageant. Then Canadian-born Shania Twain took “crossover” to a new level, scoring big on the international as well as domestic pop charts with songs like “C’est La Vie,” which borrowed heavily from one-time Europop sensation ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” In protest, fed-up neo-traditionalists Alan Jackson and George Strait took center stage at the Academy of Country Music Awards Ceremony in 1999 for a duet bemoaning the “murder” of real country music down on Nashville’s “Music Row.” This somber pronouncement, mind you, came a full decade before the glaringly genre-ambivalent Taylor Swift began a 10-year run in which she was nominated for 26 Country Music Association Awards and won 12 of them.

Because of their interactive nature, clashes between the would-be challengers and defenders of tradition have inevitably led to syntheses of the two approaches, meaning the boundaries of what truly constitutes “mainstream” country music have been in constant flux for most of its history and never more so than now.

Today’s “bro country,” for example, is both hailed as the last great hope for keeping the “country” message in country music and condemned for rendering that message meaningless and superficial. Bro country combines hip-hop, country rock, and frequently—heaven help us!—electronic vocal tuning, with formulaic lyrics dedicated to hot women (preferably in cutoffs), drinking, partying, and most critically, fancy pickup trucks. Accordingly, Luke Bryan’s “That’s My Kind of Night” celebrates listening to “a country rock hip-hop mix tape” while sitting with your girl on the “diamond plate tailgate” of a “big black jacked up truck.”

Early country music fans would surely puzzle over Bryan’s desire to flee the cushy confines of suburbia for a few hours out in the boondocks with his new girlfriend in his garishly over-optioned pickup. But then, back in 1920, 75 percent of Southerners still lived in the countryside, while roughly the same portion today reside in metropolitan areas. Nor are today’s country music followers facing the grinding poverty so familiar to their great-grandparents: With Nielsen surveys showing median household incomes approximately 26 percent higher than the national average, country fans have little trouble swinging loans for luxuriously appointed trucks.

With pickups the nation’s best-selling vehicles, and commercials for them rife with country soundtracks and performers, it’s pretty clear that both Nashville and Detroit understand that the same folks are buttering their respective biscuits. Ironically enough, critics who focus on how far country music has moved away from what it was when first recorded nearly a century ago are in a real sense simply affirming how remarkably attuned it has remained to its ever-evolving base.

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What Reckoning?

Country music is exactly where it was last summer, when the dam on the industry’s ocean of racism supposedly broke. duh ..

“There’s something new in western swing music,” declared a 1975 article in the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle . “And it’s no gimmick … in fact it’s just a brand new sound by a lady named Ruby Falls. Miss Falls is black — and to my knowledge, this the first attempt at black female western swing music on record — or at least the first I’ve heard.”

Falls wasn’t the first Black woman to attempt a career in country music — just six years prior, Linda Martell’s “Color Him Father” rose to No. 22 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, a record that still stands — but the mid-’70s was a renaissance of sorts. Lenora Ross signed to RCA Nashville (Charley Pride’s label) in ’75, while Virginia Kirby, Barbara Cooper, and Falls launched independent careers. The press was supportive, as were many fans, but a lack of real traction stalled any forward movement. “If something doesn’t happen real soon I may have to change my name,” Falls said in 1979. “How do you think ‘Ruby Fails’ would sound?” Seven years later, Falls died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 40. An obituary written by the Associated Press noted that she’d left the music business and was working at a computer firm.

In the early ’90s, Cleve Francis, a Virginia-based cardiologist, took a swing at country music’s mainstream and was able to scratch out some early success, namely by self-financing a video for the song “Love Light.” The track was featured on Francis’s 1990 album Last Call for Love , released by the independent label Playback, and though the music itself didn’t garner much buzz, getting the “Love Light” video played on Country Music Television was enough to pique the interest of a Nashville label. But here’s where the story repeats itself: Francis’s last project was released in ’94; a few years later, he was back to practicing medicine full time. Before he left town, though, he kick-started what would become the Black Country Music Association, a group designed to provide community for Black country artists and, ideally, help them achieve tangible, sustainable success. “They let you into the restaurant, they let you be the first to do this or that,” Francis recently told Rolling Stone about the ways of the country-music industry. “Well, I figured, we can stop this. We can give other blacks an avenue to come in, through this organization.”

Aspiring artist and songwriter Frankie Staton took over the BCMA and , after reading a 1996 New York Times article that dismissed systemic racism and instead attributed the lack of Black artists in the genre to a lack of Black interest and talent (“Nashville’s new broadened constituency, which is both younger and better educated than in the past, makes such blanket dismissals hard to support,” wrote Bruce Feiler), decided to expand on the BCMA’s mission. For years she hosted Black country-music showcases, filling a stage with Black artists so undeniably good — so undeniably country — that they began to receive requests to take the show on the road. Nisha Jackson, the 1987 winner of TNN’s You Can Be a Star was a featured performer in February 1998. Despite winning the competition and landing a deal with Capitol Records in 1998, Jackson never actually became a star. She was dropped by the record label in 1990 and joined Staton’s showcases, hoping they would lead to a second-chance breakthrough.

Again, though, the measure of country music’s improvements never extended beyond the shallow, fleeting support of a handful of artists; the lines of (white) folks that spilled onto the sidewalk in front of the Bluebird Café for Staton’s showcases and the reporters who came to witness these would-be Black country stars and their rabid fans did nothing to force the hand of the industry. “We don’t know how to market you,” label execs said. “Country radio will never play you,” radio promoters said. “Country fans don’t want to listen to you,” program directors said. At the same time, Staton’s demonstrated proficiency in identifying and developing Black talent failed to materialize into a gig as an industry receptionist, let alone as an A&R rep. By the mid-aughts, she was juggling piano gigs at local restaurants and bars, piecing together enough cash to give her Black son the advantage of a private-school education in a still-segregated town. Black country singers Miko Marks and Rissi Palmer came to town soon after, their current outside-the-industry success ( via a nonprofit, Bay-area record label and an Apple-hosted podcast, respectively ) a clear rebuke of their all-too-familiar experiences in Nashville .

Today, there are lots of people who, when asked about the current state of country music, will say that the industry is making “progress.” They forget that the story has already been written, that the script has a predetermined victor in its white male hero, that the illusion of anything contrary is only meant to keep things interesting — and only temporarily. For these people, the current crop of up-and-coming Black country artists and the subsequent support from the press looks like the hopeful rise of an egalitarian sun, the dawn of a new day in which country music will finally break free from its shameful past. They don’t consider that the country-music industry hasn’t made a single notable Black hire in the last year, that one of the earliest catalysts for country music’s “reckoning” — the changing of Lady Antebellum’s name to an abbreviated version … of the same name … that already belonged to the blues singer Lady A — is drenched in the insensitivity and nod to white supremacy it claimed to address . What’s worse, they don’t know the stories of Falls or Francis or Staton, how, despite their enthusiasm and expectation, they were pushed up against the same glaringly white walls that current artists face and were left broken from the impact. They can’t imagine the ways those artists were eventually brushed aside and, with cyclical predictability, expunged from collective memory. If they did , they would know better. And if they understood how perfectly history repeats itself, how the unexamined past is the best predictor of the future, they would see the suddenly Blacker awards-show stages and the swirling excitement for what it is — but, more crucially, what it isn’t.

The last year has shades of 1975 , of 1998, of 2007, when Palmer made her Opry debut and released the declarative “Country Girl,” which peaked at No. 54 on Billboard ’s Hot Country Songs chart. From summer 2020 through fall and early winter this year, country music went out of its way to lift new Black voices, to show a more progressive side of itself. Even the N-word video from Morgan Wallen , the industry’s platinum playboy, seemed to present only a minor hiccup. Leaked on February 2, the clip drew an immediate line in the sand settled beneath country music’s foundation and forced everyone to choose a side. They did, of course, and as quickly as there were artists and fans who denounced the word and behavior, declaring that it had no place in an industry working toward a more inclusive future and demanding Wallen’s accountability, there were others who took a different approach. There was the pointing of fingers to the N-word’s use in hip-hop, to Wallen’s excessive drinking, to the fact that the man whom Wallen referred to as a p***y-a** n****r was actually Wallen’s Black friend, his existence therefore absolving Wallen of any actual racism. The most significant of these voices, however, was the industry itself, a sign that, perhaps, country music was finally willing to rid itself of rot and hollow rhetoric. The ACMs declared Wallen ineligible for the in-process awards cycle; his music disappeared from terrestrial and satellite radio; his label, Big Loud, suspended him.

Meanwhile, the backlash from Wallen’s supporters was swift and furious. Already at the top of Billboard ’s 200 chart pre-N-word, Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album remained there for seven weeks after, buoyed by fans who streamed and purchased in record numbers. They called radio stations, asking that Wallen be reinstated while bemoaning “cancel culture.” And they hurled vicious cyber threats toward those within the industry who dared to call Wallen out, including Mickey Guyton and Maren Morris. In a video posted to social media on February 10, Wallen urged “those who still see something in me and have defended me” to stop, adding, “I fully accept any penalties I’m facing.” The defense didn’t stop, though, and a February 5 report that country-music execs believed Wallen’s banishment should last “for six months to a year or longer” started to seem like a wild overestimation for the artist with the biggest album in all of music — more significantly, for the artist who reached the pinnacle by way of a segregated industry that has always privately accepted the behavior that had now been caught on film.

It can’t be overstated how much Wallen is but a symptom of country music’s chronic racism, and while he should be held fully accountable for his actions, the more critical care should be directed toward the industry that got him and itself in this mess. But that would require an admission of sickness, and at this point, there’s been none. In all of the months leading up to the Wallen incident and after, there has been no corporate penance. There was no commitment to the high-level hiring of Black folks who could have an immediate impact on the industry’s diversity issues; there wasn’t even an industry acknowledgement of its refusal to welcome the descendants of those who helped to create this genre, even as that exclusion became a harbor provided to card-carrying racists. The people who slip into Mickey Guyton’s mentions when she posts a video of her singing or a photo of her son, who call her the N-word and accuse her of trying to turn country music “ghetto”? They feel welcome here; they believe country music is their home. And for the last hundred years, the industry has agreed. It has stopped the architects and builders at the door, making them feel like unwanted guests and accepting only a handful for temporary stays, all while allowing the long-term occupants to turn something once shared and sacred into a shrine of their own sins.

It wasn’t a surprise, then, when the announcement came in, quietly, on a Friday afternoon, that the Country Music Association decided, just three and a half weeks post-N-word and sans press release, that Morgan Wallen’s eligibility would be “amended” for the 2021 awards cycle. Reports that Wallen had, perhaps, not quite “done the work” were already circulating: Wallen’s first public appearance was at Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N Roll Steakhouse of all places, and his faithful followers were continuing to spew their venom. To the CMA, however, it was important to maintain Wallen’s eligibility in the categories of Single, Song, Album, Musical Event, and Music Video of the Year, “so as not to limit opportunity for other credited collaborators.” Never mind that the list of collaborators on Dangerous is starkly white, as is the board that voted on this decision, save for Jimmie Allen. The CMA is the most prominent and prestigious organization in all of country music, with its self-appointed dedication “to bringing the poetry and emotion of Country Music to the world.” It plays a role in shaping the industry it’s all too happy to lead, as well as its surrounding community. So it’s also not surprising that, as of this writing, Wallen’s radio suspension has been largely revoked , his music once again spinning regularly, across nearly all of country radio.

The pat explanation for country music’s enduring racism is that, in the 1920s, the industry was designed that way, that Black people weren’t forced out as much as they were told we never belonged in the first place. The more truthful, more nuanced, answer is that the initial color line drawn by the industry has been repeatedly darkened over time, traced over and over by each new wave of industry executives. History may be written around the big events — the births and deaths, wars waged and won, the cases tried and laws passed — but it is made in the interim: the private conversations, the secret negotiations, the votes cast beyond the reach of photographers’ lenses and reporters’ pens.

When people say they want a family, they don’t suddenly manifest a 50-year wedding anniversary and three grown, well-adjusted children. They find partners with whom they must learn to coexist and get along; they are given kids who must be nurtured and taught and fed at inconvenient hours. Somehow, though, the decision-makers in country music who claim to want better believe this transformed industry will just magically appear, notwithstanding their constant support of the opposite. And this isn’t just happening on the corporate level. Of all of Wallen’s collaborators — whose creative output, the CMA has decided, is more important than a no-excuses stand against racism — only Jason Isbell, who wrote “Cover Me Up,” made an effort to publicly address his involvement with Dangerous , as well as his support of this long-overdue reckoning. “Wallen’s behavior is disgusting and horrifying,” he tweeted on February 3. “I think this is an opportunity for the country music industry to give that spot to somebody who deserves it, and there are lots of black artists who deserve it.” (On February 10, Isbell also announced that all of his revenue earned from Dangerous, up to that point, would be donated to the Nashville chapter of the NAACP.)

But if the mid-’70s and subsequent eras have shown us nothing else, opening up select spots for Black artists isn’t enough . Making room matters, but championing diversity without creating an environment in which it can actually flourish is an exercise in performative futility, a Juneteenth celebration without an honest assessment of the enduring effects of slavery — or earnest efforts to rectify them. Without structural change, those given “opportunity” are bound to fail, the “progress” destined to be short lived. And while no one in the modern industry can openly state that country music is still the exclusive domain of white folks, they can certainly create a safe space for racism and intolerance. In the case of the genre’s biggest artist — a man who became more successful after a drunken, hateful rage — they can also put on a good face and express their disgust. Then, just a few months later, they can act as if it never happened.

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Essays on Country Music

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Essay Paper on Country Music

The roots of modern country music go back to post World War II America, a time of great shifts and changes in the social life of the country. For many, the casualties of war were followed by the social changes of the new era. The city (and its suburbs) became the core of America, and migration to these cities, easier credit (and the things it purchased), and the baby boom became new realities to which the culture had to adjust. It its essence, country music reflected the new concerns of its audience and the new secular order. Critics admit that it was at this time that country music began to develop, in Nashville, a critical mass artistically.

Country music can be defined as a unique music genre which reflects unique personal views and values of rural dwellers. Country music audience represents the population between the ages of 25 and 49. Audiences select their cultural or leisure texts from what is available to them, and the nature of the market is determined by much more than the constitutive qualities of its potential audience.

White country musicians, from Jimmie Rodgers to the present, have demonstrated a continuing fascination with black sounds, songs, styles and images. Elvis Presley took this fascination and made it popular far beyond the traditional boundaries of country music. In so doing, he underscored the black/white musical mix of modern country, as well as being the central figure in the creation of “rockabilly” as a country style early in his career Elvis Presley’s fusion of black and white music was a pop phase of interactions between black and white musicians in the American south. Although it can be argued that major influences on modern country include artists other than those found here, “it would be difficult not to recognize the import of Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and (yes) Elvis Presley as central architects of this “new” national music”. Monroe’s success has opened the doors for traditional performers as diverse as Flatt and Scruggs, Norman Blake, The New Grass Revival, The Whites, Ricky Scaggs and Alison Krauss. The main themes of country music are unsatisfactory love relationships, home and family, romantic relations, country and work.

The main feature of country music is that sometimes songs contain only a single theme, but, more often, they are crowded with several. Like popular music, the majority of country songs deal with love. Easily the single most prominent theme in country music is unsatisfactory love relations. An earlier study of popular music found expressions of romantic discord to be common. In country music, however, the audience not only knows that the singer is unhappy but is candidly told why. If satisfactory male-female relations are equated with good marriage, then unsatisfactory relations are most often associated with a marriage that is going, or has gone, wrong. Family relations, while not given anything like the attention devoted to male-female relations, are seen as equally complex. When set in an identifiable locale, these songs are most likely to tell of a farm family and rural life. It is no accident that family life is more likely to be better in the country; there is a positive agrarian image in country music. “Country” may be a recognizable physical location, but it is more than this; it is a state of mind, a way of life. Country music does not feature traditional work songs so much as it does songs about work. “The Workin’ Man Blues” and “One Piece At a Time” describe dull, repetitive physical labor “with the crew” or “at the factory.” There are no songs about school because only rich and prosperous family can afford to educate their children in college. Following Malone, no aspect of country music has received more attention than its patriotic theme. The aggressive militancy of the Vietnam era, when approximately 10 per cent of country music dealt with social and political issues. Country music has long defended the values of its audience, and its defense has been most aggressive when those values were most seriously challenged…

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Country Music Essay Examples

The identity of country music.

Country music has undergone many changes throughout the years, with an ever-changing identity difficult to pinpoint. Country artists still struggle with the thought of keeping their music conservative versus exploring new sounds to reach broader audiences. With its “honky tonk” melodies and twangy instruments, in...

Johnny Paycheck: the Country Outlaw Who Made a Mark in Country Music

Johnny Paycheck, his life, his songs, his hardships, and even his name, are all such great masterpieces that were revealed to the world. His existence has been a wonderful influence to many people. We are lucky enough to meet such a rare and glorious artist...

Red Dirt – One of the Genres of Country Music

Country music has evolved and changed over the past decades, but one genre that can be overlooked the most is red dirt. Red dirt is not as popular as the classics such as Garth Brooks or George Strait or even the new generation of Luke...

Country Music and Its Connotation with Social Status

Contrary to popular belief, country music is not as universally American as is often assumed. For many, in fact, the genre is almost taboo – those willing to publicly admit they enjoy country music are often ridiculed or written off, despite the continued presence of...

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