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Sturm and Twang
Monday, June 23, 2008
Country music's obsessions -- drinking, cheating, God and death -- are the obsessions of America as a whole, says author Dana Jennings. His book "Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music" is part memoir, part tribute to twang's golden years. He joins us to talk about the importance of classic country in his family and in the country.
Our blog: John Schaefer Muses on Country Music's Appeal
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It was Gram Parsons that led me to the Country Palace. Gram introduced me to George Jones, who in this writer's humble opinion is really the cream of the crop. We all think Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, yet George Jones was the natural evolution of Williams. A better singer, more complex arrangements and yet still operating within the thematic framework. Everyone talks about the 40's and the 50's. It was the late sixties when this genre really reached its pinnacle. George Jones & Loretta Lynn are my Williams and Cline...
Upstate New York is also a hotbed of country music, and I don't mean hippie bluegrass. Check out the Ron Dee Voo roadhouse near Grand Gorge on a Saturday night (Delaware County), it's a real slice of Appalachian life.
i don't think johnny cash is 'classic country'. he's pop country. or rock-country.
The aggie/country world was an incredibly violent, alcoholic place. Bars could be death traps. In 1970 I lived next to the most murderous block in the city--W. 85th between Columbus and Amsterdam.
But that was urban, and I had spent time in Tenn., so I was not really surprised to see what the most murderous county in the nation was then--Cocke County, TN, hill country in the Smokies.
Said one lawman on TV: "Some of these people just never learned how to back up."
I know what Jennings means about not chaning anything in his life. I do computer/white collar work and have for years, but it's the years as a blue collar hard scrabble, hard- drinking auto mechanic (and listening to country music as well Beethoven) that I identify to after all these years.
It left an indelible mark on my insides.
Jennings is a literary mastermind. I couldn't put down his novel. Do yourself a favor and go purchase this gem: Sing Me Back Home.
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