- What we'll be doing this eveni
ng
is listening to artists, 13 of t
hem,
who were instrumental, major
forces
in the history of country music,
and what better guide for those
13 samples
than the man who literally wrote
the book
on country music,Country nMu
sic USAin 1968
and still going strong, that boo
k
and its various editions.
And is also Professor of History
Emeritus
from Tulane University.
He has a show, as you no doubt
know,
a country music show on radio
station WORT,
and perhaps above all, he's also
a practitioner of the art of cou
ntry music.
And a pleasure to see you ag
ain, Bill Malone.
(audience clapping) - Thank you.
Thank you.
- Well let's start in East Texa
s, where you started.
And country music is something
that's not just an academic ki
nd of latter-day construct
for you, it's something that
comes right out of your bones,
and you were even telling me abo
ut hollering earlier.
- Yeah, I always like to tell peo
ple that I was a fan
of country music long before I be
came a student of it.
And I grew up in a household
that listened
to the battery radio every mornin
g.
We heard the hillbillies coming o
ut of Dallas
and Forth Worth and Tulsa, Shreve
port, and locally.
And before that, my mother sang
the old songs.
I don't know where she got them,
because she was singing the
old-time songs
before she ever had a radio.
So I grew up in country music cu
lture
and I just was privileged to be a
ble
to write about the subject.
When it came time to do a do
ctoral dissertation
at the University of Texas, this
was back in 1960
after I'd passed the prelim.
I had no idea what I would writ
e on,
but most people I knew
were writing on pretty dull subj
ects that they hated.
(all laughing)
But I sang all the time, and so m
y supervisor
knew that I loved the music
and that I knew a lot of songs,
so one day on a trip to Houston
to see a football game,
just out of the blue he said,
"You love this music so much,
"why don't you write a history
of Nashville publishing?"
That's the way he phrased it,
but of course I was delighted,
because I didn't know that anybod
y
could write a doctoral dissertat
ion
on something they liked.
(all laughing)
- It's the first time I've heard
of it.
- So that's the way it happened.
I expanded it well beyond publi
shing
and wrote the entire history of t
he music,
and it was published in 1968
, and as you said
it celebrated its 50th anniversar
y just last year.
- That's-- - Thank you.
(audience clapping)
- Worthy of acclaim.
Well now as we all know, it's a b
ig country,
and a lot of the country is in
the upper Midwest
or the northwest part of the coun
try or the northeast,
but when we talk about country mu
sic,
we're talking about something el
se.
- Well it was stamped as a south
ern phenomenon
when it began to develop commerci
ally,
and its most influential performe
rs over the years
have been people like Roy Acuff
from Tennessee,
Bob Wills from Texas, Hank Willi
ams from Alabama
and on and on.
And these Southerners who made t
he first recordings
and first radio broadcasts
sort of stamped their image on t
he music,
and it's had that image ever sin
ce.
Of course, the performers come f
rom everywhere.
And the audience is certainly
worldwide,
even when the music was first re
corded in the 1920s,
records were being sold in t
he British Isles,
in New Zealand, Australia, Afric
a,
so the music has always had
a worldwide base.
- You were mentioning a little w
hile ago,
before we went on camera, about
Africa and Jimmie Rodgers.
- Yeah, Jimmie Rodgers, as w
e'll mention
in a few minutes, was the first
great commercial performer.
He's now called the Father of Co
untry Music,
because he was so influential
in creating styles and inspiring
other musicians.
But his records were made in
the late 1920s
by what was then called the Vict
or Talking Machine Company,
later on RCA Victor.
Those records were distributed ar
ound the world,
even in Africa, and there was a
group in Africa,
the Kipsigis tribe in eastern
Africa, who embraced his music
and they sort of converted Jimmie
Rodgers
into a deity, half man, half deit
y.
(audience laughs)
They loved his yodeling.
It was unlike anything they'd
ever heard.
- I'll bet it was.
- And many years later, anthr
opologists
came through that part of the wo
rld
and collected music from them,
and one song they were doing was
called "Chemirocha."
(audience laughing)
So the music,
for one thing, it just sort of
gave a romantic picture of Ameri
ca,
a country that was based on rural
roots
and still clung to those roots
as it developed into a superpowe
r.
- Now before we get into our fir
st artist
that we'll be sampling,
how would you characterize countr
y music?
- Well nowadays it's hard to char
acterize,
because it's been so swallowed up
by pop styles
that what you hear is virtually
indistinguishable,
in my humble opinion.
(audience laughing)
The so-called country music toda
y
is really indistinguishable from
other forms of pop rock.
But in its beginnings, say from t
he early 1920s
until, at least through the '80s
,
the music still carried with it
what I think was a distinct work
ing-class edge.
When you heard the music, you th
ought that that performer,
he knows what he's talking about.
He's lived the life that he's si
nging about,
and that life was based on rural
people
who had moved to town, away f
rom agriculture
into blue collar work and then t
o industrial work,
and they carried their music
with them,
and the music changed as they ch
anged.
And you could still call it coun
try,
although it was far from the r
ural sound
that we're going to hear in this
first record.
- Well this first record, how ma
ny of you all
have heard of the Skillet Licker
s?
(audience members clap sporadi
cally)
(laughs) Not even as many as I th
ought,
but they were an important force
in early country music. - Th
e Skillet Lickers,
they were sort of a humorous sel
f-deprecation
of their culture.
How many of you grew up soppi
ng your biscuit
in a pan of gravy
(audience laughing)
or your syrup, you sopped your s
yrup the same way?
That's where the Skillet Licker
s got their name.
But they were a group of country
boys
from North Georgia, and they pla
yed a brand of music
that had existed in that par
t of the world
since it was settled by peopl
e from Europe,
and the music borrowed heavily
from the African sources
that lay around it.
And they played for house partie
s.
One thing I need to say to m
aybe set a context
for this first record, becaus
e it kind of,
we hear the music making a trans
ition
from its rural roots into somethi
ng
a little bit more sophisticated,
something more urban.
Country music is more recent tha
n one might think.
As far as human history is conce
rned
it only dates back to the 1920s,
and even then it took a long time
to really evolve into the bi
g business entity
that we know today.
But it was, and ever since the w
ord,
it was a folk phenomenon made by
rural people,
working class people, who just m
ade music
for their own consumption, for th
eir own enjoyment.
They played at home, they pla
yed in church,
they played in community places
and had local audiences.
I'm sure very few of them, up int
o the early 1920s,
ever had any idea that this musi
c
could have a larger audience,
that anybody anywhere else might
listen to it.
So, listen closely when we h
ear this record.
This is a Skillet Lickers from a
round 1928,
playing an old British song calle
d "Soldier's Joy"
that dates from the mid-18th cen
tury.
And at the very beginning, Clayto
n McMichen,
one of the fiddlers, he says, he
had a spoken introduction
and he gives you this flavor of
what it was like
to make music for your neighbors
, just in your own home,
just by clearing out a space for
dancers.
So why don't we take a listen to
that now.
- "Soldier's Joy."
- [Clayton] Well folks, here
we are again,
the Skillet Lickers, red hot and
raring to go.
Going to play you another little
tune this morning.
Want you to grab that gal and
shake a foot and moan.
Don't you let 'em dance on y
our new carpet,
you make 'em roll it up.
("Soldier's Joy" by the Skille
t Lickers)
♪ Chicken in a bread tray scratc
hin' out dough ♪
♪ Granny will your dog bite
, no child no ♪
♪ Ladies in the center and
gents catch air ♪
♪ Hold her Newt, don't let her
rare ♪
(audience clapping)
- I think we're going to see some
toe tapping tonight, Bill.
- Music like that was made all ov
er North America,
but particularly in southern com
munities,
from the Atlantic coast all the
way through East Texas.
- [Norman] And sometimes these
were family acts.
- Yeah.
- Like with the-- - like The Car
ter Family,
The Monroe Brothers, just tradit
ion that's endured.
The Ken Burns people play the son
g,
which we'll hear at the end
of this segment,
called "Will the Circle Be Unbrok
en"
and they play that repeatedly to
show
that's because the music is a fam
ily music.
Not only that it unites the music
ians
with their audience, who have sim
ilar values,
but the music created a traditio
n
that was handed down from genera
tion to generation,
like Johnny Cash, for example,
married June Carter, who was the
daughter
of Maybelle Carter, the trio
that we're going
to hear in the next segment.
- What can you tell us about thi
s song?
- As I said, these people who ma
de this music
were just local people, farm
ers, coal miners,
textile workers, just regular fol
ks.
But the music they made came
from everywhere.
A good fiddler wasn't concerned
with where a song came from.
He didn't care, it could come fro
m a operatic aria,
or it could come from a minstrel
show
or a vaudeville show or a medic
ine show.
It didn't make any difference.
Or from New York City's Tin Pan A
lley.
If they liked the song, they
would do it.
They would make it their own.
The Carter Family was made u
p of A.P. Carter
and his wife Sarah and their sist
er-in-law Maybelle,
who lived in the little community
of Maces Spring in southweste
rn Virginia.
And they played just for the ho
me folks,
until one day in August 1927,
a New York talent scout name
d Ralph Peer
came to Bristol, Tennessee
after having advertised that
he was coming.
So people came from all over the
southern mountains
to audition for Mr. Peer, hoping
that they could record
for the Victor Talking Machin
e Company.
So in August 1927, the Carter F
amily
made their first records.
The one we're going to hear was
not
in that very first session, that
came a little bit later,
but it was an old pop song,
a pop song I think probably first
introduced
in New York City and then somehow
it made its way out into the h
interlands
and was taken over by rural peopl
e.
It originally was known as "I'll
Twine 'Mid the Ringlets,"
but the Carter Family called it t
he "Wildwood Flower."
("Wildwood Flower" by The Carter
Family)
♪ Oh I'll twine with my mingles
and waving black hair ♪
♪ With the roses so red and th
e lilies so fair ♪
♪ And the myrtles so bright with
the emerald dew ♪
♪ The pail and the leader and ey
es look like blue ♪
- That song was composed by a fel
la from Wisconsin
who died in Elkton, is it Elkhor
n?
- Elkhorn.
- J.P. Webster, who wrote "In th
e Sweet By and By,"
one of the most popular gospel s
ongs.
But that's that style, that in
strumental style we heard,
was made by the guitar played
by Maybelle.
She played the melody with her th
umb
and then provided the rhythm wit
h her fingers,
and there was an autoharp played
by Sarah in the background.
But that Carter Family lick,
as it was called,
is still endures today, ther
e's still people
who try to emulate it.
- Well of course a guitar, and to
some extent, I guess,
the autoharp too, mainstays of c
ountry music.
But where's the yodel come in?
(audience laughing)
- Well there's been all kind
s of speculation.
Just about every occupational gro
up in America
has some kind of yodel that disti
nguished them.
We know about the Mexican grito,
for example,
the Cajun ah-ee, the cowboy yell,
and my daddy as, I told you
before the program
started today, used to go ou
t on the porch every morning
when we lived in the country
and just holler
at the top of his voice.
- [Norman] Some nights are like
that.
(audience laughing)
- Yeah, just letting off steam,
letting the world know that he w
as ready to go, you know.
And there are hollering cont
ests in the South.
There's all kinds of them.
But we like to think that the yod
el
may have come from some folk
source like that,
but I think it's generally accept
ed
that the yodel came from the Swi
ss.
Professional Swiss entertainers
came to the United States
in the mid 19th century and tour
ed
throughout the nation and popula
rized the yodel,
and young men began trying to emu
late what they'd heard.
Jimmie Rodgers, of course, is the
person
who really put it across.
- [Norman] The yodeling brakeman?
- That very same recording sessio
n
in Bristol, Tennessee, August
1927,
a young tubercular ex-railroad
worker from Mississippi,
he came down from Asheville, Nor
th Carolina,
where he'd been living for a whi
le,
he auditioned for Ralph Peer, an
d he did a couple of songs.
And Peer took the music back
up to New York
and began selling a few records,
and then he brought Jimmie up t
o Camden, New Jersey,
which was the headquarters of th
e Talking Machine Company,
and then Jimmie began recording
the songs
that have endured.
The one we're going to hear give
s you a good example
of the influence that Jimmie
Rodgers exerted.
We're going to hear a little bit
of Dixieland jazz,
we're going to hear a Hawaiian g
uitar,
we're going to hear Jimmie's Swis
s-inspired yodel,
and we're going to the blues,
which was very popular at that ti
me
and which influenced all white co
untry musicians.
And above all, we're going to get
a little glimpse
of how important the railroad was
to country musicians and to their
fans.
The railroad just symbolized so m
any great things.
It symbolized escape, for one th
ing,
escape from farm drudgery and is
olation of rural life.
- Yeah, just that freedom of trav
el around the country,
free if you could get away with
it.
- One reason why railroad songs
have continued to be popular to t
his day.
So why don't we listen to "Waitin
g for a Train?"
- Jimmie Rodgers. - 1928.
(Jimmie imitates train whistle)
- Imitation train whistle.
(slow jazz music)
Here comes the jazz band.
The Hawaiian guitar.
♪ All around the water tanks wa
iting for a train ♪
♪ A thousand miles away from ho
me ♪
♪ Sleeping in the rain ♪
♪ I walked up to a brakeman ♪
♪ To give him a line of talk ♪
♪ He says if you've got money
♪
♪ I'll see that you don't walk ♪
♪ I haven't got a nickel ♪
♪ Not a penny can I show ♪
♪ Get off, get off, you railroad
bum ♪
♪ He slammed the boxcar door ♪
♪ Yodel aiee, aiee, oh lay ee
♪
(slow jazz music)
He brought all kinds of styl
es into the music,
and he inspired his listeners.
And as late as the 1970s, with M
erle Haggard,
people were still imitating what
Jimmie Rodgers
had done many years before.
I think he richly deserves that
title
of the Father of Country Music.
- Well, when we get to somebody l
ike Bob Wills,
now we start seeing cowboy hat
s come out
instead of people just dressing
up in their Sunday best.
- Yeah, these musicians, they did
n't know
exactly what to call themselves o
r how to dress
or how to behave.
They were just, as I said, local
working-class people
who were trying to make it i
n show business,
and eventually they hit up on
the cowboy
as the most respectable image th
ey could utilize.
Because everybody loves cowboys.
And, you know, we've overcome
the blemishes
of the cowboy personality and em
phasized only
the freedom, the independence and
the courage.
- And the working man. - Yeah
.
So Bob Wills, as you mentioned,
was a fiddler from central Texas.
He grew up in a family that h
ad fiddlers
on both sides of the family for
many generations back.
But in addition to the rural musi
c,
the rural hoedowns that he grew u
p with,
he loved pop music.
He particularly loved Bessie Smi
th.
He loved any kind of jazz, any
kind of blues he could hear,
and so he created, along with som
e other folks,
of course, not by himself, bu
t with some other musicians,
he created a music that was real
ly right for dancing
and he was popular all over t
he dance halls
of Texas and Louisiana and Ok
lahoma,
particularly the oil areas of
those states.
And eventually, well after Worl
d War II,
music began to refer to the
this style of music
that he had created as Western s
wing,
because it grew up in the we
sternmost part of the South,
and it eventually became even mo
re popular in California
with all the Okies who moved ther
e
right before and during World War
II.
- Well you had, I guess by 1935
and these records
were going to be broadcast nation
wide by then.
By 1935, you had the swing era st
arting
with Benny Goodman and the big ba
nds,
but I gather Western swing actual
ly
gave the big bands a run for th
eir money
in the '30s. - They did.
Yeah, during the Depression,
that was one of the few places
where a musician could find a job
.
Bob Wills was very popular wo
rking out of Tulsa, Oklahoma
for the most part.
He played dances every night
of the week.
He made Columbia Records.
He played over radio station
KVOO in Tulsa.
So a young man who loved jazz who
wanted a job.
He was happy to get a job with B
ob Wills.
And the one thing that made i
t possible, too,
for these, not only the radio tha
t
exhibited their music everywhere
,
it was the fact that electricity
was making an impact.
Guitarists were beginning to
experiment
with electrification.
- Yeah, the Les Paul phenomenon.
- And so on this next record, we
're going to hear
the recording that probably did
more than any other
to popularize the electric s
teel guitar,
and of course that's become cent
ral to country music,
to its sound and to its whole ima
ge.
- [Norman] The "Steel Guitar Rag?
"
- "Steel Guitar Rag."
- [Bob] Look out, friends, here'
s Leon,
take it away, boys, take it away
.
(upbeat guitar music)
Ah, everybody dance now.
(upbeat guitar music)
Ah, swinging, Mr. Leon, swinging
.
(upbeat guitar music)
Ya!
(upbeat guitar music)
Ya!
♪ We got Al Strickland now ♪
(upbeat piano music)
- That's very eclectic, isn't it
?
(chuckles) There's a lot of thing
s going on there.
That, I don't know what to c
all it, exactly,
that exuberant commentary from Bo
b Wills
is kind of unique to him, isn't
it?
- Yeah, I think he may have gotte
n that
from black music, you hear some
of that in the earlier bands
but he was the first country mu
sician, as far as I know,
who would shout out at his musici
ans, you know.
Everything was improvised.
When he wanted the trumpet player
to take a break,
he would point at him, and he
better be ready.
You better play something a litt
le bit different
than what you played before.
- Now, before these recordings
were made
for all this country music,
it wasn't quite so important to h
ave a great voice
or even necessarily to sing on ke
y in some cases.
- I'm offended.
(all laughing)
- But I gather occasionally ther
e were performers who,
without being really strong voca
lists artistically speaking,
still were very successful.
- You're leading into Ernest Tub
b, aren't you?
- I kind of am, yeah.
Rumor has it he was inclined
to sing flat.
- Well Ernest Tubb himself, he w
as also from Texas,
he often said that the reason tha
t he was so popular
is because when people heard
him sing,
they said, "I can do that."
(all laughing)
Right, 'cause I personally think
if he was
better than that self-deprecation
,
but he did have a distinctive
voice,
and I think that one reason why p
eople
like these voices, whether they s
ang on key or not,
is because they just seemed to be
real.
They really reflected the wo
rking-class lives
and people who were really singin
g
about what they knew, what t
hey believed in.
Ernest Tubb is representative tod
ay
of the honky-tonk tradition.
In the 1930s, after the repe
al of Prohibition,
this music began to move into da
nce halls
and barrooms all over America,
and of course, obviously, the mu
sic had to change
as it moved into this environment
.
A lot of the themes would change
,
you wouldn't hear as many songs a
bout mama
and the church as you had in the
past.
Not as many of the old sentim
ental love songs,
but you'd hear songs about drinki
ng
and about dancing and about the
experiences
that real people had.
And so, when we hear this record
,
we'll hear sort of an embryonic v
ersion
of the honky-tonk style as it,
of course it became much more
full-blown
over the years, as all of the
instruments
became electrified, as drums
were introduced
and bass and all that sort of thi
ng,
but this is a nice little introdu
ction
to the incipient honky-tonk style
.
- This be "Walking the Floor Over
You?"
- "Walking the Floor Over You."
(soft country music)
♪ You left me and you went away
♪
♪ You said that you'd be bac
k in just a day ♪
♪ You've broken your promise an
d you've left me here alone ♪
♪ I don't why you did, dear,♪
♪ but I do know that you're gone
♪
♪ I'm walking the floor over you
♪
♪ I can't sleep a wink, that is
true ♪
♪ I'm hoping and I'm praying♪
♪ as my heart breaks right in t
wo ♪
♪ Walking the floor over you ♪
♪ Ah, pick it out, Smitty ♪
(lively steel guitar)
That was his ticket to the G
rand Ole Opry.
- Ah, the Grand Ole Opry, and we
haven't talked
about the Grand Ole Opry, but th
at was
one of the real linchpins, wasn'
t it?
Of establishing a reputation for
a country performer.
- Beginning about 1924, first
in Chicago at WLS,
and then in Nashville at WSM, 19
25,
and Atlanta, other places, ra
dio stations
began to have Saturday night
variety shows
which attempted to evoke the spir
it of rural America
back in the days when people met
in community gatherings.
And they called them barn dances
or jamborees
or shindigs, but by 1942, the Gr
and Ole Opry
in Nashville was already begi
nning to be
the premier radio country show i
n America.
- There are also a fair numb
er of brother acts
when you get through the history
of country music.
The Louvin Brothers being some t
hat added
some instrumental sounds that I
think
were not so often heard befo
re, if at all.
- I've always been partial
to what's called the brother du
et sound.
I know that some, I guess growin
g up as brothers
in the same family, pronouncing
words the same way,
maybe having similar vocal timber
s,
knowing each other so well,
lent them a particular vocal
blend
that very few acts had.
There are people like the Bolick
brothers,
known as The Blue Sky Boys, the
Monroe brothers,
Bill and Charlie, The Callahan B
rothers,
the Shelton Brothers, on and on
and on.
And we're going to play two of t
he great brother acts
of all time tonight.
And some people think the Louvin
Brothers,
the real name for Loudermilk.
They grew up in northern Alabama
,
and they began making their recor
ds
right after World War II,
and they had the great high teno
r type of vocal sound,
which is very appealing to m
any people.
But one thing I also liked about
them
was their penchant for old-time s
ongs
at a time when the music was movi
ng
closer and closer to pop music,
beginning to lose its rural
distinctiveness,
they clung to that sound and I lo
ved it.
We're going to hear a song called
"In the Pines,"
which really shows what they coul
d do.
- And this brings in the mandolin
, too, right?
- Ira Louvin played the mandolin
.
Charlie Louvin played the guitar,
and sometimes they would join the
other instruments,
but that was their basic instrume
ntal sound.
And this is an old song, been re
corded many, many times.
And it's been recorded long befo
re the Louvin Brothers
ever did it, but I think it reall
y shows
their sound very well, and I real
ly,
I love the lonesome sound of it.
Back in the pines, where the sun
never shines.
And shiver when the cold wind bl
ows.
("In the Pines")
♪ In the pines, in the pines, wh
ere the sun never shines ♪
♪ And you shiver when the cold w
ind blows ♪
♪ Little girl, little girl, what
have I done ♪
♪ That's made you treat me so
♪
♪ You caused me to weep, you've
caused me to moan ♪
♪ You've caused me to leave my
home ♪
♪ In the pines, in the pines, wh
ere the sun never shines ♪
♪ And you shiver when the cold w
ind blows ♪
♪ Ooh hoo, ooh hoo, hoo, woo ho
o ♪
♪ Ooh hoo, woo ooh, ooh hoo ♪
(steel guitar and mandolin music
)
- Fairly well-pronounced waltz rh
ythm to that one.
You pretty much know what kind of
dance
you're expected to dance to that
if it's on the jukebox someplace.
And that was the Louvin Brothers.
That act, like I suppose all brot
her acts,
sooner or later, did break up, th
ough.
- Well most of these brother grou
ps
made beautiful harmony when t
hey sang,
but they often fought like cats a
nd dogs, you know.
(Norman and audience laughing)
Very few of them ever managed
to go through an entire career
without breaking up violently.
That was true of the Louvins and
true of the Monroes
and a lot of other groups.
- Well speaking of the Monroes,
that's that other Bill whose name
I've been avoiding
saying all night, (laughs) lest w
e get confused.
It would be tempting to think of
bluegrass
as something, again, that has th
is long history,
unknown origins and all this,
but in fact, Bill Monroe's credit
ed as inventing bluegrass.
- Yeah, there are not many mus
icians
that you can point to and say
they created particular style,
but in his case, it was true.
Didn't do it by himself, again, b
ut he made
the most important ingredients to
it.
- And still very much with us
in a very distinctive style
that of course requires a high
level of musicianship, too.
- Yeah bluegrass is sometimes th
ought of as being
a very sort of ancient style
of music.
Born in the Appalachians, which
it wasn't.
It was born in many different pl
aces.
But it didn't really take a shap
e until a few years
right after World War II.
Bill Monroe had a band in his na
tive state of Kentucky
which he called The Blue Grass B
oys.
It was named after his native s
tate.
And it was two words, blue and g
rass.
But then over the years, as his r
ecords circulated
and as he became well-known thro
ugh the Grand Ole Opry
performances, people began imitat
ing what he did.
They loved his sky-high tenor,
the hard-driving sound of his ban
d,
the bluesy fiddling provided
by Chubby Wise
and that first band.
So between say 1945 and 1947,
enough people began to imitate t
hat style
and create bands of their own
that people began to refer to the
bluegrass style,
but that was just one word.
But the fella who did most to po
pularize it
around the world was a young man
from western North Carolina name
d Earl Scruggs.
- Earl Scruggs, yeah.
- He played the five-string banj
o with three fingers,
very syncopated style, and althou
gh other people
had done it before, nobody'd eve
r introduced it
to the public like he did.
So I don't think there's any ques
tion,
but in my opinion it was Bill
Monroe
with his overall band and Scrugg
s with the five-string banjo
which made the bluegrass sound di
stinctive.
- And we'll see the image of B
ill Monroe
on the left and his brother Char
lie on the right,
and of course they, as you said,
were part of a brother act, but
it got a lot bigger
than that, and what would we lik
e to hear
from Bill Monroe and company?
- This song is called "It's Migh
ty Dark to Travel."
It has just about every ingredie
nt
that one finds in classic bluegr
ass music.
But one thing, it's done in a har
d-driving style.
The instruments take on their
own solo passages,
and that way it's sort of lik
e Dixieland jazz.
You'll hear the fiddle, Bill
Monroe's mandolin,
and Earl Scruggs' five-string
banjo,
and you'll hear this high duet ha
rmony
that you heard with the Louvin B
rothers
and other brother acts,
so they brought a lot of ingredi
ents together.
And there's the lonesome imagery
in the lyrics, too.
"It's Mighty Dark to Travel," Bil
l Monroe.
(upbeat bluegrass music)
♪ It's mighty dark for me to tr
avel ♪
♪ For my sweetheart, she is gon
e ♪
♪ The road is rough and fill
ed with gravel ♪
♪ But I must journey on and on ♪
♪ Ah, it's mighty dark to travel
♪
(upbeat bluegrass music)
♪ To me she was a little angel ♪
♪ Sent down to me from God above
♪
♪ 'Cause on the day that I f
irst met her ♪
♪ Then I told her of my love ♪
♪ It's mighty dark for me to tr
avel ♪
♪ For my sweetheart, she is gon
e ♪
♪ The road is rough and fill
ed with gravel ♪
♪ But I must journey on and on ♪
- The thing about bluegrass is i
t's a wonder
none of the instruments catc
h fire.
(all laughing)
- That's one reason why it attra
cted
a lot of young musicians, not on
ly in this country
but around the world.
They loved the virtuosity of the
se musicians.
'Cause some people loved the sort
of old-timey
mountain imagery you hear in the
music,
so I think it was those two
things together.
But bluegrass really became a na
tional phenomenon
in the late 1950s when young mus
icians
in places like Wisconsin and New
York and New Jersey
and California began trying thei
r hand at the music,
and now it's all over the world.
- So there is one man who is, we
ll, maybe a total of three,
depending upon how you would coun
t,
credited with being the King
of Country Music.
- Yeah, Roy Acuff was called the
king for a long time.
I think Dizzy Dean gave him that
title.
- [Norman] Dizzy Dean of all peo
ple, okay.
- Dizzy was a baseball commentat
or
for several years, and sometimes
he'd burst out
into the "Wabash Cannonball," and
he'd just,
he'd always mention Roy Acuff,
the King of Country Music.
But other people, they of cou
rse would say
Elvis Presley, all kinds of kings
.
- [Norman] There's lots of kings.
- But the one you're referring t
o,
I think, is Hank Williams.
- [Norman] I would think, yeah, m
m-hmm.
- Hank came along right afte
r World War II.
He was a country boy from Alabama
,
worked in the shipyards for a wh
ile during the war,
and then after the war was over,
started singing in honky-tonks,
blood buckets, they called them,
all over southern Alabama.
And one of the first independent
songwriters, too,
that had emerged.
One of the first to write his
own songs.
And he had a very astute manage
r named Fred Rose
who was a great songwriter on his
own in Nashville.
And Mr. Rose created a close rela
tionship
with Mitch Miller.
You all remember Mitch, I imagin
e, on television?
- Mitch Miller gets a lot less c
redit than he should.
He was actually an important figu
re in classical music
before he followed the bouncing b
all on television.
- Well Fred Rose would take some
Hank Williams songs
and songs from other country musi
cians,
he would give them to Mitch Mille
r
and Mitch would turn them ove
r to Doris Day
and Joanie Bennett and Guy Mi
tchell, and,
Tony Bennett, that's what I'm try
ing
to think of. - Tony Bennett, sure
.
- And Tony recorded two or three
Hank Williams songs,
so what you see in Hank Williams
,
not only a man who could sing tr
aditional country music
probably better than anybody who'
d ever sung it,
but he created songs which appe
aled to pop singers, as well.
So you begin to see what's called
the crossover phenomenon.
- Yeah, that's something that I f
ind fascinating,
is the number of songs associated
with a certain singer
that were written by another sin
ger
that you wouldn't associate with
that song,
and it seems to happen a lot.
And I would never have put Tony
Bennett
and Hank Williams in the same uni
verse, actually.
- Hank never, I don't know that
Hank would ever
have made it as a pop singer.
He's just such a deep-dyed rural
Alabama singer.
- [Norman] He had the twang, yea
h.
- But he came up with lyrics th
at were widely appealing,
and so country music really made
a big jump forward commercially
with his songs and songs that wer
e imitated.
And the one we're going to h
ear came out
right after he died.
He was found dead on January 1st,
1953.
He had written this song at the
end of 1952,
but it didn't really begin hittin
g the jukeboxes
and the radio stations until shor
tly after he died.
- At the age of 29.
- 29 years old, the hillbill
y Shakespeare.
Here he is doing "Your Cheati
ng Heart."
(melancholy music)
♪ Your cheating heart will make
you weep ♪
♪ You'll cry and cry and try to
sleep ♪
♪ But sleep won't come the whol
e night through ♪
♪ Your cheating heart will tell
on you ♪
♪ When tears come down like
falling rain ♪
♪ You'll toss around and call m
y name ♪
♪ You'll walk the floor the way
I do ♪
♪ Your cheating heart will tell
on you ♪
- Far as I'm concerned,
music could've stayed that way f
orever.
(all laughing)
(audience clapping)
- Now we come to another one of t
hose brother acts
that you mentioned, and well
this will take us
all the way up to about 1957
or so, I suppose.
But these brothers, fantastic wi
th the harmonies
and I suspect, as you said earli
er, Bill,
that had something to do with the
fact,
of course, that they worked very
closely together
so they were in a musical family
and raised performing music.
- Yeah, Phil and Don Everly.
They grew up in a country music
family.
Their daddy Ike Everly was a
highly-respected
finger style guitar player.
He played a little bit like M
aybelle Carter
with his thumb and fingers.
But the Everly Brothers themselve
s
never played that style.
They were attracted by Africa
n-American music,
like so many country musicians we
re.
They particularly were impressed
by Bo Diddley.
- [Norman] Bo Diddley!
- And you'll hear a little B
o Diddley lick
in the song that we're going to h
ear.
But in 1957,
they had a chance for a recordin
g contract
with Cadence Records, owned
by Archie Bleyer,
and so they went to Nashville,
they tried out several songs,
and they took a song written by F
elice and Boudleaux Bryant,
who were becoming the top songwr
iters
in Nashville at the time,
and nobody had any idea
the import of that recording,
because it introduced them to the
world at large.
It was "Bye Bye Love," and they
came,
course at the right time, they c
ame
right in the beginning of the
great youth revolution
of American music that had be
en introduced
by Elvis just a few years before
.
So there was an audience out ther
e waiting for it.
So you hear the country sound of
the Everly Brothers.
It was a duet sound that they le
arned
from older duet performers,
but they added a sort of a uptemp
oed
sparkling sound.
- And they crossed over beau
tifully, right.
I mean pop and country both.
- Very much so, their first song
s
landed at the top of all the majo
r charts of that time,
country, rhythm and blues, and p
op.
- [Norman] "Bye Bye Love."
(uptempo country music)
♪ Bye bye love ♪
♪ Bye bye happiness ♪
♪ Hello loneliness ♪
♪ I think I'm going to cry ♪
♪ Bye bye love ♪
♪ Bye bye sweet caress ♪
♪ Hello emptiness ♪
♪ I feel like I could die ♪
♪ Bye bye my love, goodbye ♪
♪ There goes my baby with someo
ne new ♪
♪ She sure looks happy, I s
ure am blue ♪
♪ She was my baby 'til he steppe
d in ♪
♪ Goodbye to romance that m
ight have been ♪
♪ Bye bye love ♪
♪ Bye bye happiness ♪
♪ Hello loneliness ♪
♪ I think I'm going to ♪
(audience clapping)
- Now there was a British quarte
t
that referred to themselves as
the English Everly Brothers.
- [Bill] The Four Everlys, yeah.
- That's right, the Four Everlys
,
and that song that we just heard
, "Bye Bye Love"
influenced "Please Please Me," Th
e Beatles.
- And people like Graham Nash of
Crosby, Stills & Nash,
and of course they tell the stor
y too about Paul Simon.
He heard "Bye Bye Love," he wa
s just about 14 years old,
I think, in Queens, and he d
rove, not drove,
but he took two or three buses, s
ubways,
all across the city to his favori
te record store
and found "Bye Bye Love," took it
back home,
sat down, played it over and over
and over again,
and broke it.
(audience laughing)
Got back on the bus, went back.
(all laughing)
Got another copy.
So that's really where it all
began with him,
so this was a worldwide phen
omenon, too.
- We talked a little bit about im
age,
and these performers kind of deci
ding
whether they were going to be cow
boys or something else,
and you could have tremendous tal
ent, I guess,
and still not be quite sure what
niche
you were going to be in,
and therefore what image you woul
d project to--
- You don't know what the audien
ce wants.
You can never predict that. - Al
l of that.
But you'd take a singer who
had, for one thing,
these phenomenal low notes.
They just kind of make you shive
r.
Could have been a torch singer.
Was a torch singer, as it turned
out, eventually,
but started out having her mothe
r
make her cowgirl skirts for
her performances,
and there was nobody like Patsy C
line.
- Yeah, born Virginia Patterson
Hensley
in Winchester, Virginia,
and as a young aspiring coun
try singer,
she dressed like a cowgirl, and h
er managers
had to fight pretty hard to
get her to abandon that style.
She didn't really realize exactl
y what she had,
as far as vocal talents were
concerned.
But she came along when there wa
s beginning to be
an urge for singers how could si
ng both country and pop.
That was a reaction against rock
and roll
and against rockabilly.
The Nashville music industry fel
t that,
we're not going to survive this,
that young people are going to g
o in droves
to other musicians, they're not
going to listen
to these old fiddles and steel gu
itars
and that traditional country soun
d.
So people like Chet Atkins, a pr
oducer for RCA Victor,
began trying to create a sound th
at would preserve
the ambience of country music,
but nevertheless have a soun
d that would appeal
to a broad middle class audience
.
And of course that meant, in the
beginning,
doing away with the steel guitar
and the fiddle,
and bringing in background voices
and vibes
and just muted guitars, that
sort of thing.
And so he and some other producer
s
created what we now call a countr
y pop sound.
It was incredibly commercial,
but of course traditionalist
s like me
were a little bit skeptical of w
hat was happening.
But Patsy Cline, I think, is the
best example of that sound.
Maybe Jim Reeves, as a male sing
er,
but Patsy, from the distaff side
, she created a sound,
you know, you can hear Patsy
Cline's records
everywhere in America now.
Go into a restaurant someplace,
you'll hear Patsy Cline in t
he background.
And I guess most people don'
t think of her
as being country, but of course
that's what she thought she was.
- And popular with the Genera
tion Xers and Yers, too.
- And she hit the big time with
a lot of songs,
but particularly with the one we
're going to hear,
written by a out-of-work Texas
singer named Willie Nelson.
- Hearing this, this-- - This
is "Crazy."
(slow country music)
♪ Crazy ♪
♪ I'm crazy for feeling so lonel
y ♪
♪ I'm crazy ♪
♪ Crazy for feeling so blue ♪
♪ I knew you'd love me as l
ong as you wanted ♪
♪ And then someday ♪
♪ You'd leave me for somebody n
ew ♪
(audience clapping)
- Yeah.
- And another of those careers tr
agically short.
She lived to be just 30 years ol
d.
You know, airplane crash in 1963.
Well on the other hand, there is
a star
still very much with us, with con
siderable longevity
and a phenomenal number of songs
written to her credit
and performed, also very stable
home life
and a very shrewd businesswoman,
too, apparently.
Tell us about Dolly.
(all laughing)
- Patsy Cline made it possible
for singers like Dolly Parton
to thrive.
There'd been women performers
from the very beginning of count
ry music history,
but Patsy was the first supersta
r
who was able to make it on her o
wn.
She didn't necessarily arrang
e her own music,
but she was out there, her v
oice alone
was enough for her to make it.
But people like Loretta Lynn
and Tammy Wynette
and Dolly Parton I think now saw
that it was possible for women
not only to compete but to actual
ly excel in this music.
Many things about Dolly Part
on that I've always loved,
but one thing is her songwriting
ability.
I think that's often overlooked.
She's one of the best songwriters
in any genre, I think.
- Started out writing songs for
other performers
and then decided to start singin
g them herself.
- And she's funny, highly intelli
gent,
and just a great singer.
And the song we're going to hear
is a very nostalgic song about gr
owing up very poor
in the mountains of east Tennesse
e,
in a large family that had to ma
ke do with what they had.
And of course it's about the same
time
as Loretta Lynn's "Coal Mine
r's Daughter"
and Merle Haggard's "Mama's Hu
ngry Eyes"
and songs like that.
So that's always been a very impo
rtant
slice of country music history,
the nostalgic songs about growin
g up
poor and working class.
But the song I'm referring to is
"Coat of Many Colors."
(slow country music)
♪ Back through the years I go
wandering once again ♪
♪ Back to the seasons of my yout
h ♪
♪ I recall a box of rags that s
omeone gave us ♪
♪ And how my mama put the rags t
o use ♪
♪ There were rags of many colors
♪
♪ But every piece was small ♪
♪ And I didn't have coat ♪
♪ And it was way down in the fa
ll ♪
♪ Mama sewed the rags together ♪
♪ Sewing every piece with love ♪
♪ She made my coat of many colo
rs ♪
♪ That I was so proud of ♪
♪ As she sewed, she told a story
♪
♪ From the Bible she had read
♪
♪ About a coat of many colors
♪
♪ Joseph wore and then she said
♪
♪ Perhaps this coat will bring y
ou ♪
♪ Good luck and happiness ♪
♪ And I just couldn't wait to we
ar it ♪
♪ And mama blessed it with a ki
ss ♪
♪ My coat of many colors that m
y mama made for me ♪
♪ Made only from rags, but I wo
re it so proudly ♪
♪ Although we had no money, I wa
s rich as I could be ♪
♪ In my coat of many ♪
(audience clapping)
- It seems that the superstar ag
e is upon us,
and that we see these superstars
sometimes
then combining and doing some gre
at duet work,
and you've selected one that fea
tures
a couple of those superstars.
- And I'm glad that we have p
eople like them
who are able to take the material
s of the past,
take the music of people that the
y had idolized
growing up, like Jimmie Rodgers
and Hank Williams,
but do something new with it, so
mething different.
The music they performed is
not a carbon copy of the past.
It's their own unique creations,
their own adaptation,
while using traditional themes.
You're referring to Willie Nelson
and Waylon Jennings.
- [Norman] "Don't Let Your Babie
s."
- Yeah, and I chose this song bec
ause it shows
the continuing appeal of the cowb
oy.
Although cowboy this guys is not
quite
as respectful as the old one.
- [Norman] This is a warning.
- Yeah, the cowboy that's just a
little bit apart
from conventional society.
- Little bit of the outlaw, yeah
.
- Good advice, your mamas, don't
let your babies
grow up to be cowboys.
(slow country music)
♪ Cowboys ain't easy to love an
d they're harder to hold ♪
♪ They'd rather give you a song
than diamonds or gold ♪
♪ Lonestar belt buckles and
old faded Levi's ♪
♪ And each night begins a new d
ay ♪
♪ If you don't understand him an
d he don't die young ♪
♪ He'll probably just ride away
♪
♪ Mamas don't let your babies gr
ow up to be cowboys ♪
♪ Don't let 'em pick guitars or
drive them old trucks ♪
♪ Let 'em be doctors and la
wyers and such ♪
♪ Mamas don't let your babies gr
ow up to be cowboys ♪
♪ 'Cause they never stay home an
d they're always alone ♪
♪ Even with someone they love
♪
- Well we mentioned early on thi
s great song
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken," a
nd it's appeared
in many guises over the course o
f time.
It was actually I think quite an
old English hymn
from turn of the 20th century.
- It was based on an American hy
mn
from around the 1890s.
There's a song called "Will the
Circle be Unbroken"
has the same chorus but with
verses, lyrics
that are very different from
the one
we're going to hear tonight.
- And we have chosen a group that
's not right away,
I think by most people, thou
ght of as a country group,
but certainly, again, crossed ove
r.
- Yeah I thought this would be a
n appropriate song
to end with, one thing because it
's a gospel song,
which we haven't had yet.
And the gospel tradition has run
through this music
from the very beginning.
It's always been a very symb
iotic relationship
between gospel music and secular
country music.
And the Ken Burns people used thi
s song repeatedly.
I'm not supposed to say what all
happens in the film,
but that is one thing that y
ou can look for.
You'll hear "Will the Circle Be
Unbroken."
And that's to illustrate the
ir theme
that this music has spun relatio
nships
that have endured over the gener
ations.
But between musicians and their
fans
and between musicians and later
generations of musicians,
have carried on the tradition.
And the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
were one of the first
outside groups, I guess you co
uld call 'em a rock group,
who seized upon country musi
c and performed it
and introduced it to another ge
neration.
So one reason why country music
has survived
and it's endured, it's got a
bigger audience
because of people like Graham Pa
rsons
and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
So they did this, I think about
1976,
they brought into the studio peop
le like Merle Travis
and Roy Acuff and Earl Scruggs,
and all the old-timers they c
ould find,
and they performed this song call
ed
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken."
(upbeat country music)
♪ I was standing by my window
♪
♪ On one cold and cloudy day ♪
♪ When I saw the hearse come ro
lling ♪
♪ For to carry my mother away
♪
♪ Will the circle be unbroken
♪
♪ By and by Lord, by and by ♪
♪ There's a better home a-waiti
ng ♪
♪ In the sky, Lord, in the sky ♪
- Well Bill, it's been a grea
t pleasure.
- Thank you, as always.
(audience clapping)
- Thank you all. - I thank everyb
ody
for spending an evening with us.
Thank you.