Country Music Radio Full of Pro-War Songs

[CShine]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Country music artists are hardly united in their support of the war in Iraq — but you'd never know it from listening to the radio. While Toby Keith, Darryl Worley and Charlie Daniels have scored hits with patriotic, war-themed songs, others such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Nanci Griffith released anti-war, or at least questioning, songs that went nowhere.

"Country radio does enough research that they understand listeners are supportive of the military in Iraq and just don't want to get involved with those songs," said John Hart, president of Nashville-based Bullseye Marketing Research. "I work with 32 stations, and I have not seen one test any of these anti-war songs."

But the patriotic tunes that were everywhere at the beginning of the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have slowed. John Michael Montgomery's touching "Letters from Home" is the only current chart hit with a war theme, and it is neither an angry call to arms nor a love letter to America. Hart believes the flag-waving songs reached a saturation point. He also says the continuing hostilities in Iraq and recent prison abuse scandal may have tempered the enthusiasm expressed early in the conflict.

"I think right now the labels and radio feel they have come to a line in the sand where they need to slow down," Hart said. "And the artists are hesitant to release anything right now that they think might be overkill."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=495&ncid=689&e=4&u=/ap/20040609/ap_en_mu/music_country_patriotism

[David__77]

1. Overkill indeed.

The racism is so sharply expressed. It's horrible.

[mac56]

2. Further proof that "new country" is krep.

Overweened, warmed-over crappy pop with slide guitars. With these major themes: lost love, patriotism, nostalgia, and "lookit how hard I work".

Johnny Cash never would have succumbed to this.

[johnnie]

45. Here was Johnny's salute to the Nashville establishment

The caption reads:
"American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support."

I have a postcard of this someone sent me when it came out.

[realcountrymusic]

73. Originally

this was a full page ad in Billboard to pitch Cash's first AR recording.

The photo is from either the San Quentin or Folsom shows recorded in the 60s, and had never been released before, as I recall. Cash wasn't giving the finger to Nashville then, but he was in the later ad.

RCM

[johnnie]

75. Yes

I forget the concert it was from also. It is because he kept telling the cameramen to stay away and let the prisoners watch the show. They wouldn't listen to him so he flipped them off. The picture I posted was indeed from the Billboard ad, but I received a postcard that was also issued at the time.

[WLKjr]

83. There is a difference

between Country and New Country.

Examples:

Country artists used to sing about rough times, about getting so drunk because they were so lonely and heartbroken over a woman or talking about how they were going to show the man that she isn't taking his crap anymore and going to stay faithful to him, etc etc ect., you know, stuff most anyone could relate to. Things that would make you laugh and cry.


New Country artists sing about whipping someones ass(preferably arabs)getting drunk before and after or just stay that way for the rest of thier life, or thinking they are the authority on patriotism and sole flag owners, pump up the military and are all for war, but yet wont join up themselves. You know, stuff that makes you get all teary eyed with fake patriotism and wnat to go fuck up an arab and do it with a gun.


That's my take on it, and your right mac56, its just "Overweened, warmed-over crappy pop with slide guitars." couldn't have said it better!

[HuckleB]

3. "Country Music Radio" doesn't play real country music anymore.

So Willie, Merle and the others don't get played, regardless of the tunes they put out.

[The Stranger]

4. That is because this is a racist, bigoted war.

Christian Fundamentalism is just a new cover for ol' fashioned racism, hatred and bigotry.

[sniffa]

5. rednecks are more patriotic?

[AlCzervik]

8. I'd say full of jingoism

and also opportunists. you gotta hand it to them, they say a huge money making opportunity and they took it. The absolute worst song I've heard from this genre so far is IRAQ AND I ROLL by Clint Black, really he should be flogged just for putting it out.

[sniffa]

9. my god

i totaLLy read "pro war" and either read it as "patriotic" or i equated it with one another. i feeL dirty.

[AlCzervik]

10. sniffy my love

i will send you some antibacterial soap and scalding hot water.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

23. Clint Black is Saddam Level Swine! Country has a taken...

a well deserved beating in recent years, once Sept 11 came along, they decided to help their sinking sales by taking advantage of our national tradgedy!!!

[keithyboy]

52. Screw them all! I listen to Gordon Lightfoot and BJ Thomas and Mowtown

artists from the 60s and 70s. Best music ever written!

[riverwalker]

24. Iraq and I Roll

(I was hoping you were kidding about this, but it's a real song.) Oh gawwwwd. :puke: "smart bombs kill stupid people" ????
All I see are piles of dead children Clint, and you sing a freakin' song about it, you disgusting ghoul.

You can wave your signs and protest

against America taking a stand,

the stands America's taking

are the reason that you can.

If everyone would go for peace

there'd be no need for war.

But we can't ignore the devil,

he'll keep coming back for more.



Some see this in black and white,

others only gray.

We're not begging for a fight,

no matter what they say.

We have the resolution

that should put 'em all to shame.

It's a different kind of deadline

when I'm called in the game.



Iraq, I rack 'em up and I roll,

I'm back and I'm a hi-tech GI Joe.

I pray for peace, prepare for war

and I never will forget ~

there's no price too high for freedom

so be careful where you tread.

This terror isn't man to man,

they can be no more than cowards.

If they won't show us their weapons

we might have to show them ours.



Now it might be a smart bomb,

they find stupid people too.

If you stand with the likes of Saddam,

well, one might just find you.

Iraq, I rack 'em up and I roll,

I'm back and I'm a hi-tech GI Joe.

I got infrared, I got GPS,

I got that good old fashioned lead.

No price too high for freedom,

so be careful where you tread.

Now you can come along

or you can stay behind

or you can get out of the way.

But our troops take out the garbage

for the good old USA.


Iraq, I rack 'em up and I roll.

for the USA.

[AlCzervik]

26. It is so bad that i too

thought it couldnt be real.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

27. Demolish the Grand Ole Opry!!!!

Replace it with a French Car Dealership!!!

I HATE COUNTRY!!!!

It's the music of Hitler!!!!

[saigon68]

38. It is the music of Hitler

My country "right or wrong". Its also white racist--- Kill the Rag heads and sand niggers.

[realcountrymusic]

50. Just plain ignorant

Just kill all the rednecks, huh?

The music of Hitler was what many of you would probably call "good" music. Bach, Mozart, Wagner, Mahler, yes. And jazz enjoyed a remarkable popularity with elites of the 3d Reich.

RCM

[PROGRESSIVE1]

61. "Ku Klux Kountry"!!!

Kountry is the music of the facsists!!!

[0007]

58. Country Western is all the same.....'tis about women they lost

and the ones they gonna get, 'tis all about loneliness, and sex starved desires to cover depressions of reality and a reason to get drunk and do the things one wouldn't do sober.....and most importantly to act like a real Man or Women!

[americanstranger]

28. I was writing better shit than that in 7th grade.

And I'm still writing better shit than that.

http://www.blah3.com/mp3/andromeda.php

-as

[hatrack]

68. My God. This can't possibly be real

I'm on my knees praying for the genius of "In America" by Charlie Daniels.

[KamaAina]

70. Looks like you're gonna be down there a while

The Pod People got Charlie Daniels quite a few years ago -- shortly after "In America" came out, actually. Now he's just another fundie android, sad to say.

[TahitiNut]

48. Tools. Fools. Jokes. What a difference revisionist history makes.

It's amazing how the myth of backwoods "patriotism" has taken hold through the Disneyfication of history. Almost nothing could be further from the truth.

In both WW1 and WW2, the "backwoods" was notorious for draft evasion and tax evasion. Indeed, when the Manhatten Project folks were looking for laborers not yet enlisted or conscripted to help build the Hanford and Los Alamos sites, they focused on the "backwoods" of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennesee, and adjacent regions to find young, able-bodied men to employ. Thus, the communities around these sites are populated by vast majorities of people who now trace their ancestry back two generations to the "hill country".

Patriots? Bullshit.

[Spiffarino]

6. You call that music?

My 2 cents: "Country" music stopped being the music of the country a long time ago. Now - with a few notable exceptions - it's become watered-down, soulless, bubblegum pop, only sometimes with a xenophobic edge.

Where is Uncle Dave Macon when you need him?

Big bee sucks the blossom
Little bee makes the honey
Poor man makes the cotton and corn
The rich man sees the money

[DUJunkie]

13. Hey gtrump!!!

welcome to abroad.:toast:

[DinahMoeHum]

71. Welcome to DU, gtrump!! But isn't that verse from Bob Wills'

"Take Me To Tulsa" ???

Jim Hightower loves to quote that verse, BTW.


:kick:

[struggle4progress]

7. Musicians United to Win Without War

<snip>
We believe that this planned invasion might be playing right into the hands of Al Qaeda and others, who will use it as an excuse to rally anti-American and anti-Western sentiment despite no great love for Saddam on their parts.
<snip>
http://www.moveon.org/musiciansunited/

with a list of artists

[Democat]

11. Clear Channel decides what gets played, not the artists

The artists can write all the songs they want, but the Republican controlled radio owners decide what gets played.

[wabeewoman]

18. This pro-bush email was on my

local clear channel today(I don't listen to them but was in my husbands truck) and these 2 DJ's started reading this story about this girl that lost her mother on 9-11 and how bush hugged her. (gag a maggot-if it was meant to be "special" it missed the mark IMHO)Reading it they said the line 9-11 and 'that changed everything' and I burst out laughing realizing this was a repug talking point and the whole thing was bush propaganda.I'm going to email them and send them a Kerry story and ask for equal time. Here is the link to the story and the picture: http://www.bigdandbubba.com/nicknacks/embracing_ashley.htm

[cybildisobedience]

44. exactly right

That's the first thing I thought of when I read that -- how can a song gain popularity if it never sees the light of day?

[KamaAina]

72. Note that that news article mentions Cheap Channel not once

there is one coy reference to "labels and radio", without a mention of who owns a huge chunk of all country radio stations.

[Jacobin]

12. It's like Vietnam

"Ah'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee....etc etc, love my flag, don't burn our draft cards, blah blah blah"

Very convenient cannon fodder for the military industrial complex.
Easily roused to "patriotic" bloodlust passions, stupid and don't question authority.

[realcountrymusic]

33. Hey wait a minute

Merle Haggard, who wrote "Okie" back in '73, has said this about that song: (in the Onion AVClub interview -- and don't mistake "The Onion" for a joke -- this is a real interview with a great artist):

O: How do you feel about being closely identified with the politics of "Okie From Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side Of Me" now?


MH: Oh, I must have been an idiot. It's documentation of the uneducated that lived in America at the time, and I mirror that. I always have. Staying in touch with the working class... but it's pretty easy to lie to me. You could lie to me. They had me in a film called Wag The Dog because of "Okie From Muskogee" and my close scrutiny of the people that are being shitted. I've become self-educated since I wrote that song. But it still has a very timely description.

In the same interview, Haggard also said:

O: Did you vote in the last election?


MH: Yeah, yeah, I did. And I don't know, I wasn't happy with the count myself. I thought it was pretty damn obvious that we had a situation there where it made no difference what the American public thought. They intended to be in office, and they are in office. That's the bottom line, and we've been manipulated. I feel really violated as a citizen.


Full interview is at:
http://www.theavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=3709&f=1

Don't go knocking all of country music and musicians. Some on this thread are displaying the very ignorance and racism they are decrying. Working-class white folks aren't all ignorant "redneck" scum, and a lot of people who think that way are as bigoted in their own way as those they insult. I spent the better part of my 20s as a road musician playing country music across the nation, and I met plenty of thoughtful, critical, politically savvy country fans. Blame Clear Channel and the very narrow-minded record business, but Toby Keith ain't country and Merle Haggard most certainly is, and he's on our side.

Your credibility as a progressive goes down the crapper when you stereotype people as racists because they're white and poor. The left NEEDS to win the support of country music fans -- the working white poor in this nation -- to govern with any kind of mandate, and giving up on that goal is both stupid and elitist.

Realcountrymusic

[sadiesworld]

46. Well said...

and welcome to DU! :hi:

Please don't be turned off by the generalizations. Most don't mean to engage in stereotyping, it is just a form of shorthand. But you'll see that for yourself soon enough.

Again, welcome. :toast:

[realcountrymusic]

51. Problematic for me

If I were to offer that defense for all the average Americans who "generalize" about Muslims or Arabs, would that be acceptable? A stereotype is a stereotype, and racism is racism. Snobbish insulting, often racist and classist (anti poor white, to be precise) arguments aren't shorthand for anything except the ignorance of the person who uses them. If people here said the same things about Arabs or African Americans, others would be all over them and they would probably be banned from the board.

I'll repeat: progressives who disdain working-class people because they are white or poorly educated don't deserve to call themselves progressive in the first place. We live up to the very stereotypes the right tosses at us -- elitist snobs who look down our educated noses at average folks. We play into the classic "divide and conquer" by race, and the *real* "class warfare" -- promulgated by the right -- of American society. We let potent symbols -- flag, God, military, labor, and country music -- slip from our own grasp, and beyond our ability to help define and shape their meaning.

Pathetic. And it arms the enemy.

My 2 cents, adjusted for inflation.

RCM

[sadiesworld]

63. You're correct, of course.

My previous post only compounds the very real peoblem you've identified. :)

[glitch]

69. excellent post - welcome to DU!

From a fan of Merle and Willie and Bach and Beethoven and Muddy and Louie and EmmyLou and Bonnie.
People limit themselves with stereotypes.

[w4rma]

14. Clear Channel. (nt)

[hippywife]

15. Not this station outta Clinton, TN

and you can listen for free via the internet:

http://wdvx.com/main.html

Good old fashioned bluegrass, appalachian country, and Americana.

:) :) :)

[rednek_Liberal]

17. Hey Hippywife....

you would appreciate this station too http://wncw.org/
Wed. is GD Radio hour of course , but then a local dude(Uncle Dave) spins more Dead all night. Thir daytime fare is local and regional bluegrass, country, americana and everything else.

[hippywife]

19. Thanx!

Looks like some great playlists. Had to find new listening venues on the net now that my fav, KPIG, is no longer streaming for free. They went with REAL ONE and subscription service and from all reports it doesn't work alot of the time. I ain't payin' for something that don't work.

Thanx to Clear Channel, DMCA, and CARP for fucking it up for all the rest of us. :(

[TankLV]

16. I used to enjoy country music when I first moved to Vegas in '96.

Since the coup and then the invasion of Iraq by the NAZI bush* regime, I can't stand to listen to the repuke war mongering love fest.

I like urban radio and jazz now, again.

[CTLawGuy]

20. Country music=

lowest form of music, lower than Britney Spears.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

29. I must agree with you!!!

Country Sits below Britney!

[sofa king]

66. Or perhaps another way to say it is that...

Britney Spears gyrates on Charlie Daniels' face.

Try and get that awful picture out of your minds--hahaahaha!

[hadrons]

21. Pro-War songs by Chickenhawk Artists ....

nuff said

[PROGRESSIVE1]

22. Again, I must express my disdain for Country "Music"!!!

There are a few that I respect: Willie Nelson, The Cash Family, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, and a few others.

What does this quote from Darryl "warmonger" Worley mean:

"They made a pretty strong statement about the president, and we haven't heard much of them on country radio either. There is a silent majority in this country, and it is a whole lot stronger than people might think."

Demolish the Grand Ole Opry and put up a Renault Dealership!!!

[biftonnorton]

40. Gotta Get Some BR549

Check out BR 549. They have been quietly famous in Nash for a long time, and now are beginning to get the national exposure they deserve. They are traditional but not limited by tradition.

[CTLawGuy]

43. is that an abortion drug

?

[northofdenali]

77. No, it's a reference (a band, I believe)

to the old TV show "Hee Haw", phone number BR-549.

[wabeewoman]

55. Darryl Worley is an idiot!

I like good country music (modern with a beat not a twang) but the song Darryl Worley wrote tying 9-11 and Iraq still gets quite a bit of airplay and it is a total lie. Makes me furious and I turn off any station I hear it on. Some 'musicians' are just oportunists making the most of the current situation. Toby Keith is mining the military for all he is worth...

[DeepModem Mom]

25. Country music serves the Bushies in other ways --

I like to listen to some of it, but it's disturbing to me that so many country songs glorify lives of limited hopes and little expectation of achievement. When people are satisfied with their lot in life, however bereft, it leaves all the goodies, and all the wealth, to the Bushies and their cronies. Even Poppy pretended to be a big fan, feigning a well-publicized love of pork rinds --

[Norton]

34. HEY!!!

This thread cannot be valid until someone says "Three cheers for The Dixie Chicks!!!!" The best little trouble-makers this or that side of the Mississippi! I especially loved Natalie's T-shirt salute to Toby "Idiot-Boy" Keith. It just said "F.Y.T.K."
Great girls!!!!!!!!!!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

30. Just as the fundies claim soul rights to Christianity

So the warmongers have taken over Country music. It is no longer "Country", it is "Cunt Tree".

Anti-war Country artists are once again forced into the "Folk" genre as the "music" industry becomes less and less about music.

Next on TV: Fox News presents the Kristian Kunt-tree Koalition awards for outstanding Arab-bashing tunes.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

31. HAHAHA!

[goforit]

32. BRING on the Dixie Chicks!!!!....They'll set them straight!!!

Hope those Pro-war songs plummet all sales!!!

[AlFrankenFan]

79. Damn straight!

n/t

[wackywill]

35. Play em backwards and they are anti war.

Now if I could just figure out how to play a CD backwards.

[realcountrymusic]

36. Here's how

Just put it in the CD player upside down.

Seriously, country music at its best is as good as the blues, from which it is not all that distinct. And I don't mean "bluegrass," which is country made safe for middle class people, at least in these post-O Brother days.

When progressives disparage the working class, they are fools who live up to the charge that they are elitist snobs. Country music is just like the flag, or Jesus. Don't let the right claim it as their property and define patriotism on their own terms. Country has a progressive -- even radical - heritage and even today that heritage is alive. Willie Nelson just did a major live broadcast on national TV. I've met and interviewed him. He's as progressive a person as I've *ever* met -- he didn't want to talk music, he wanted to talk politics -- farm policy, marijuana law reform, checking police power. He has the trust and loyalty of a lot of people the left should want to address and communicate with. If Kerry has any sense, he'll at least ASK Willie to perform at the convention, though Willie may be still a Naderite, as he was until the end of the election season last time (like so many serious progressives). Think of what that would say to Americans who have been force-fed the "liberal elite" crap about the party?!!!

Now pardon me, I've got someone to (metaphorically) kill (to paraphrase the late, great Johnny Paycheck) -- by helping John Kerry win this damn election.

RealCountryMusic

[DaveSZ]

37. It's the "Two Minutes Hate" clear channel style

nt

[hippywife]

39. Thanx for showing

what you don't know about bluegrass. Thanks to that movie, this time-honored and incredible art form is being introduced to a whole group of people who never would have known about it or given it a listen otherwise. Don't blame it for the bastardization that Clear Channel marketing and sell out country artists have wrought.

And Willie Nelson has been a very strong supporter of and campaigner for Dennis Kucinich.

[realcountrymusic]

47. Yeah?

Didn't know Willie was behind DK, and hope he changes his mind on that one. Knowing Willie (which I do), I think he'll get on the bus this year. He's been pretty quiet about DK if that is the case, or it hasn't been well reported. I haven't talked to Willie in two years. I'll send an interview request to his people as we get closer to the election.

As for what I know about bluegrass, I've published extensively on the subject and played it professionally for many years. I suspect I know at least as much as you, but we interpret its history differently. I've had this argument so many times on country forums and listservs and in print that I should have seen it coming. Bluegrass fans hate to hear their music called an invented tradition, but it is.

"Bluegrass" is a coinage of Bill Monroe, a name given in the 40s to his particular inflection of what had become self-consciously nostalgic "old-timey" mountain music concieved and performed in urban settings for at least a decade prior, including Monroe and his brother, and Ralph and Carter Stanley and many other brother acts made up of Appalachian migrants to the cities of the industrial midwest. Far from being a "rural" music, it was in those days the "urban blues" -- fast, edgy, intense - of hillbilly migrants who had become urban proletarians. Though acoustic in texture, it adopted many of the performance conventions of the burgeoning electric musics of its milieu -- rock, honky-tonk, electric blues, and western swing. (In its formative days, the "electric/acoustic" polemic didn't even matter to most BG fans or musicians.) It struck a certain compromise between these aggressively "modern" forms (Lomax -- not Monroe, as most people think -- called it "folk music in overdrive") and the musical heritage of the specifically Appalachian migrant community that supported it in cities such as Detroit, Cincinnati, and Chicago. But it was not conceived of or interpreted as a "folk" or "traditional" style until the "folk revivalists" got their teeth into it (and "downhome" blues).

Upon its *reinvention* as "folk" music during the 1960s, during which era it acquired a substantial fan base of college educated middle-class Northerners, it lost traction with its working-class and Southern-derived fan base, though it has always kept a substantial portion of such folks in its core audience, largely due to its persistent committment to gospel music and working-class Southerner's own participation in some of the same nostalgic fantasies about Appalachia as the cradle of American (white) folk traditionthat so moved a generation of white progressive folkies, such as Mike Seeger, who had so much to do with the rise of bluegrass to "folk" status. It lost out to the harder "urban blues" of honky-tonk for most rural-urban migrant workers and their children through the late 50s and 60s, then to country pop and rock and roll. Anyone in the BG trade would tell you that the BG business would not exist as a living genre with a market for recordings and major touring artists except for the middle-class educated fan base which has been its primary market since the late 60s, with a partial exception for the festival circuit. (BG festivals are rather amazing for the way they bring urban lefties and rural Christian conservatives together in relative harmony, except for the pot-smoking part and the praying part). Bluegrass is a lot like "downhome blues," music that doesn't really exist in its "traditional" form -- and really never did -- but that serves a primarily nostalgic construction of rusticity.

I'm not knocking the music in any abstract sense. I'm talking about the *social* history of the genre. You can read Cantwell's or Rosenberg's or Whisnant's or even Malone's books and read the same tale. O Brother Where Art Thou sealed the deal, though Allison Kraus certainly accelerated this process before that (although one could also credit her, and before her Ricky Skaggs and Marty Stuart) with having revived bluegrass's former identity as "mainstream" country pop music last achieved in the era of Flatt and Scruggs. You don't hear much bluegrass from pickup trucks in factory parking lots. You hear it from Volvos with Blaupunkt radios tuned to college radio stations. That doesn't make it good or bad. It makes it something quite separate from "country music" as the musical fare of a large swath of blue-collar small-town white America. Sure there's some significant overlap, largely held together by the odd alliance of fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist progressives one finds at a bluegrass (and lately a jam band) festival. But to think of bluegrass as the only "real country music" is an act of imagination quite as dramatic as saying the only "real" blues was played on acoustic guitars by elderly black men with no teeth living in a shack in Mississipi, or by young white men with perfect teeth living on the Lower East Side of New York.

To be clear: I *like* a lot of bluegrass, and i can pick it (mandolin, lead guitar, bass) pretty well when I have to (road musicians play anything they have to). I do get a bit tired of it after a couple of hours -- too much God and not enough reality for me. But then, I'm an urban white middle-class progressive with pretty good teeth (albeit no Volvo)-- of course I like bluegrass.

Not starting a flame war, just defending my point.

RealCountryMusic

[hippywife]

84. What I hear in Bluegrass

is that, even if it wasn't called "bluegrass" before Monroe coined that term, is that it is an evolutionary art form that dates back much farther than the last century. Just as jazz, blues, and rock have all evolved into various forms with newer instrumentations. In bluegrass I can even hear the immigrant strains of the Celtic tradition.

And yes, Willie supported Kucinich during the primaries. He, alonfg with other musicians, such as Bonnie Raitt, Patrick Simmons, Michael McDonald, and Ani DiFranco, gave several concerts with all proceeds going to Dennis' campaign. Dennis also worked with Willie and Neil Young on the Farm Aid concert last year.

http://www.kucinich.us/endorsements/endorsements/willie-nelson.php

Kerry wasn't the first choice for many of us, and supporting the presumptive democratic candidate now is not about changing our mind, only about getting rid of Bush.

[realcountrymusic]

53. Willie for Kerry

HippyWife (whose name makes my point) wrote:
"And Willie Nelson has been a very strong supporter of and campaigner for Dennis Kucinich."

According to another post on DU:

The Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee have rescheduled two fund-raising concerts that were supposed to happen this week -- but were postponed because of President Ronald Reagan's death.

The Los Angeles concert, starring Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Willie Nelson and Billy Crystal, will now take place on June 24. And the roster of performers for the July 8 concert in New York will be announced next week."

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C2

So Willie Nelson IS on the Kerry bus, as I suspected he would be, at least in terms of raising money for the DNC, which ain't going to back Kucinich at this point!

Now I'd LOVE to be in the green room with Willie and Barbara -- that could be interesting.

RCM

[Bridget Burke]

41. Did anyone actually read the article?

The title, in fact, is a lie. Country artists have written songs for & against the war. Certainly the pro-war songs are the only ones that have been heard on "Country" radio--but they aren't being heard very much nowadays.

Of course, anybody who knows anything about country music knows that commercial country stations are to be avoided for aesthetic reasons. There's so much more in country music, from the very beginnings to the newest rebels--that never gets played.

And if you hate country music, that's OK. John Tesh & Kenny G need to make a living!

[realcountrymusic]

49. Right on!

I'm often amazed at which musics the people who have a knee-jerk hatred for country music DO like. As if maintream radio country were either the only or the worst or the most popular *dreck* out there (anyone here ever heard Brtiney Spears or those "boy band" vocal groups?). At least there is a lot of good country music. People who live in glass houses, etc.

Pop music is pop music, "alternative" or "mainstream," it's all a product. Elitism in the cause of popular music IS a vice. You can like what you like, but that doesn't make it better than what I like in any objective sense. And most pop music, including the "quality" stuff, is at best apolitical and at worst politically frightening. If overt politics is your standard for musical quality, you're down to a small fraction of the pop music market, even less of which is worth a damn.

On the otherhand, it's cool to see so many newly politicized acts in these days of Bush*. Check out punkvoter.com for a great sample:

http://www.punkvoter.com/ (great flash intro)

Also see:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0604/p11s01-almp.html

for a good article on the new protest music.

Maybe there IS hope. And don't overlook Steve Earle if you like protest music with a twang.

RealCM

[Laughing Mirror]

56. Excellent and accurate posts, realcountry

Thank you for defending the real country and "hillbilly" music (as we called Bluegrass in the Washington DC of my childhood in the 1950s and 60s, where the two forms tended to overlap on the five local AM and FM commercial radio stations which played country and bluegrass exclusively, and at the music festivals and county fairs and car dealership parking lots where bandstands would be set up on Saturday afternoons and the amazing fiddler Scotty Stoneman or the tubby old dean of Bluegrass, Mac Wiseman, could regularly be heard.)

Thank you also for calling attention to the progressive and even radical political elements that have always been a part of this music. I'm thinking not only of some of the music of the father of Country music, Jimmie Rodgers, but in my lifetime particularly of a wonderful old Grand Ole Opry honky tonk pianist Del Wood, now forgotten probably, but who marched in the Birmingham civil rights marches with Martin Luther King. I'm thinking of country crossover singer Skeeter Davis who was booted off the Opry stage for taking a political stance for Native Americans, I believe it was. She was told that the Opry was not a forum for politics. Those two progressives come to mind, but there were and are many others in this business.

You mentioned a few books, and I would like to mention, Can't You Hear Me Callin': The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass, by Richard D. Smith, for anyone interested in reading a wonderful biography of Bill Monroe.

Excellent informative posts, realcountry music. Welcome to the Democratic Underground!

[realcountrymusic]

64. Muchas Gracias

Been here a little while, posting for a couple of weeks. Nice memory call on Del Wood, who also *rocked* as a musician. And Skeeter, who could tear it up so hard she would have shaken the Opry down had she wished. Smith's Monroe book is indeed a good one.

Mine is out this summer. I'll keep you posted.

best

RCM

[BearFlagDemocrat]

57. I read the article

Country songs can essentially be characterized "pro-military" rather than "pro-war" per se.

And I hate country music AND John Tesh AND Kenny G. I like Rush (the band, not the Vulgar Pigboy), U2, Tori Amos and Nine Inch Nails (Johnny Cash jumped on Trent Reznor's bandwagon, after all).

[realcountrymusic]

62. Isn't Geddie Lee an Ayn Rand acolyte? And Trent jumbed on JOHHNY'S bandwag

Since we're attributing politics to bands, if I recall my halcyon days in junior high school, back when I used to play "Tom Sawyer" in really bad garage bands, Rush bassist and singer Geddie Lee was one of those loony Ayn Rand nuts, a rightwing philosophy one can detect in many of the band's lyrics (when they make any sense at all). Good musicians, though.

As for Cash and Reznor, you have it backwards. Johnny Cash invented the figure Reznor plays, and I believe I've read as much in interviews with Reznor. Cash was dressing in black, brooding, singing about murder and suicide, and issuing political statements in solidarity with prisoners, Native Americans, and the oppressed before Reznor was a gleam in his father's eye. Ric Danzig and other spokesmen for comntemporary punk/alternative music have said over and over agaiin that Cash is in many ways their model, forefather, and elder statesman. They fell over themselves to pay tribute to him, acknowledge him, and draw on his magic in the last years of his life (Danzig even produced the last 5 Cash records for his own American Recordings label). And speaking of U2, Bono does a fine duet with Cash on one of those records.

I forgot about U2. The one genuinely political majorpop band of the last decade and a half.

RCM

[He loved Big Brother]

76. "The one genuinely political majorpop band of the last decade and a half."

Don't forget Rage Against the Machine.

[realcountrymusic]

78. I said *pop* band

I love RATM, really do. But I'm talking about bands that sell millions of records and blanket the airwaves. U2 stands in class by itself. Plus most of the time they actually rock pretty hard. *October* changed my life back in my college days. I switched from bass to lead guitar because of what Edge was doing with ostinatos and harmonics, which sounded so new and cool to me. It was almost as powerful for me as *London Calling.*

Not to knock Rage. They rock hard and say so much.

RCM

[He loved Big Brother]

81. They blanketed the airwaves throughout my upbringing

They were no U2 in terms of record sales, but they did sell millions. Then again, I gew up in the 90s (I'm 25). RATM opened for U2 on their Pop tour save for a few shows. Wish I coulda caught one...I bet it was outstanding. Unfortunately, U2's opener when I saw them was Smash Mouth. :\

[chimpy the poopthrower]

59. I'm surprised how much I see that here.

I'm surprised at how often I see an article posted with many responses reacting to only the headline, even though the headline is contradicted by the actual content of the article. I guess it's true that a lot of people just read the headlines.

[Riptide]

42. Not a country song, but my new favorite song about Bush is....

"Idiot Son of An Asshole". Great song and catchy chorus!

http://www.ericblumrich.com/idiot.html

Probably won't get much play on country music stations.

[realcountrymusic]

54. As opposed to all those other progressive commerical music stations?

See? Why pick on country music here? What does the music format have to do with anything? This song won't receive airplay on ANY mainstream music station, format be damned. Name one strongly articulated protest song by any major artist (even one that does not use profanity) that has been widely played on any commercial stations belonging to any media conglomerate in the last 5 years, irrespective of genre format.

Then defend rock radio, AOR radio, or Contemporary Urban radio to me. What's so different about country?

RCM

[chimpy the poopthrower]

65. because it's more satisfying to be divisive

Everyone has to have someone to look down on, so we fall into the trap of thinking Christians, fat people, country music fans, people without a college education, people from rural areas, and so on, and so on are "the enemy". And then we let the right wing exploit these demographic differences and drive the wedge deeper.

[realcountrymusic]

74. Now that's music (to my ears)

Very well said.

RCM

[0007]

60. Riptide, I indeed enjoyed "Idiot Son of an Asshole"

Thanks

[T Bone]

67. Your flag decal won't get you Into Heaven any more

from a John Prine song, maybe the best country song ever--
link to full lyrics:
http://www.countrygoldusa.com/flag_decal.asp

Chorus
Oh but your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little wars.
Now Jesus he don't like killin'
No matter what the reason is for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.

Only a real station would have the balls to play this country song by John Prine.

link to full lyrics:
http://www.countrygoldusa.com/flag_decal.asp

What's sad is the song was written during the Vietnam era, but just as timely for today.

[Hobarticus]

80. Yes, fighting a war from a recording studio is very brave.

More jingoistic rhetoric to die by.

[WLKjr]

82. My mom and I argue over this

ALL THE TIME. She is a country music nut and has all of these cd's. I get mad as hell every time she listens to those songs and I remind her of what they are actually singing about to make a buck and how immoral country music has gotten in the past few years.

The only country I listen to and have EVER liked is bluegrass, and old time country (the cut off point is late 80's but with some exceptions, after that for some reason it sounds stupid and pointless to me).

FUTK and your warmonger songs you pussy, why don't you go fight??? oh yeah, you would prefere to only sing about it and make a buck off of someones elses suffering. Same goes for the rest of those stupid country singers and other 'artists' who write shit like "shockin yall" and many other retarded recordings.

[wjsander]

85. Pro-War songs are so much more more moving...

Who could forget: "Where were you (when the towers came down?)"
Or the classic: "Where were you (when Tillmen was killed?)"
Or the unforgetable: "Where were you (when the Berg's head was lopped off?)"

Oooh, makes me wanna kill me some Eye-Rack-Ees just thinkin 'bout it! YYYEEEEEE HAW!!!!

[liberalpress]

86. The referenced article is full of misrepresentations...

Modern Country Radio has NEVER played Merle Haggard, or Nanci Griffith and Willie had a recent hit with *A-Hem* Toby Keith.

By the way, Toby has, in an interview on GAC, admitted to being a Democrat wo questions the war, but the "liberal" press won't report that. So let's just feel free to use this thread to bash a genre of music you don't understand.