As much as I tried to hide my heritage growing up in the 1970s, my parents made sure I would know the latest country & Western music hits. Country music was the center of our lives, and that was that. In retrospect my parents’ love of progressive country music—electric steel guitar, fiddles, and a shuffle beat, not Bluegrass a’tall—is an endearing legacy, different from my peers whose parents twenty years older listened to our type of denim rock, hard rock and bubble gum pop music.
For as long as I can remember to the day my mother died, country music radio was the audible backdrop in our home and car. My folks enjoyed listening to songs of heartache, romance, sexual longing, downhome recollections, gospel, night life two-steppers, and the occasional Boogie Woogie honky tonker ala Jerry Lee Lewis. All those early Rock n Roll stars somehow ended up playing on country stations rather than rock.
My parents’ love of country music goes back to their roots in rural Oklahoma. I never noticed when my Dad dressed up to go to a restaurant, his shirts were always Western style. My mother’s brothers formed a Western swing band in the 1950s and played nightclubs every weekend in a four-state region spanning from Amarillo. And our summer family reunions were unique with live music: country all day and rock late at night.
Act naturally
Saturday nights were the worst growing up when my parents were set on watching country music TV showdown: beginning in the afternoon with Cowboy Weaver, then Hee Haw, the Wilburn Brothers, Grand Ole Opry and finally Porter Wagoner featuring his beautiful buxom girl singer Dolly Parton. Oh it was a hoot. As I’d pass through the living room, I’d roll my eyes, cringing from the first twangs of the guitar to the lonesome vibrations of the steel and the ridiculously upbeat Orange Blossom Special.
Can’t say I was a fan of any of it.
Yet here lately, from the black-and-white recesses of my preschool mind in the 1960s, I recall the timbre of some legendary country singers: Ray Price, Buck Owens, George Jones. Must’ve heard them from birth. My parents were not just fans of country music but knew a lot about the entertainers themselves. They knew who wrote which song, like Willie Nelson wrote Crazy, Kris Kristofferson wrote For the Good Times, Tom T. Hall wrote Harper Valley PTA. They knew obscure songwriters like David Allen Coe and Lefty Frizzell. They weren’t big fans of Hank Williams, if you can believe it, or Loretta Lynn yet loved Conway Twitty. See how hard it is to get a read on my folks? [I get it now. They really had a lot of taste when it came to country music.]
As the Grand Ole Opry is celebrating 100 years of country music entertainment, starting on radio in 1925 then naturally TV, I thought of the era which marked my knowledge and understanding of this rural genre. American country music is a direct descendent of folk songs passed from generation to generation among British, Scotch & Irish people with a little French, German and Italian—but not much. American country music that was born in Appalachia would never feature the accordion, the most European of musical instruments. The banjo, from West Africa, became a staple folk and then country music instrument over here. Those who picked and strummed it needed to wear picks on the ends of their fingers. The instrument is really loud, best played outdoors. In the early years of country music, an ensemble included string bass and acoustic guitar. Drums were not a historic part of American folk and country music. Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys were the first to include a drum set in their country swing music and at the Grand Ole Opry. The rest is country & Western music history. Country music that was rooted in the South was heard nationwide by the 1940s.
But in my youth, the brand was boring. Nasal tones and twang didn’t do much for my ears. Country had to compete with some mighty fine rock music from The Beatles (who actually covered Buck Owens’ Act Naturally sang by Ringo Star) to Pink Floyd. Then bands like The Eagles and the Allman Brothers brought country rock and blues full circle, paving the way for the refined sound and rock beat of country music today.
The big country hits when I was growing up, however, were quite influential: The Pill, King of the Road, Stand by Your Man, Ode to Billie Joe, A Boy Named Sue, Take This Job and Shove It, Rocky Top, Gentle on My Mind, Rocky Mountain High, Good Hearted Woman, Behind Closed Doors. Everybody, whether country music fan or not, knew these songs. I grew up listening to all that social commentary, tongue-in-cheek humor, Southern gothic tales, and blatant sexual overtones. But the overall message about the country songs from my youth has to do with freedom: having it, wanting it, or living without it.
Green Green Grass of Home
Talk about a country talker that traveled. It was recorded in the ’60s by Tom Jones, Porter Wagoner and Jerry Lee Lewis. The song, sad as a country song ever written, is about a man who returns to his hometown and sees the most important people in his life who’ve all gathered to greet him. Then he awakes in prison and remembers his fate as a condemned man. The people coming to greet him will be at his funeral and burial. The grass is not just green but ‘green green.’ Why is that? Perhaps in the country, the vast terrain as far as the eye can see is green and lush especially during the spring and early summer.
Years ago as a little girl riding in the back seat as Dad drove us away from the city suburbs and traffic every holiday to visit his folks in quiet Oklahoma, the song would play on the radio. It was a huge hit. Always upon entering Dad’s small country town where he grew up, he’d slow down the car to a roll, looking left and right, taking in the sights and changes if any, then pull into his parents’ simple wooden house at the end of a dirt road. In the ’60s there was still an outhouse behind it. He’d once again hug his aging parents, bring them some new appliance, like a stove, washing machine, clothes dryer or fridge, one year a pot-belly stove. He’d install them and make sure they worked properly then sit on the porch with his brothers, shoot the breeze, inhale familiar fresh country air, and later take in the sunshine while walking around the property to spot anything that needed fixing or improvement.
Through the years as I would be introduced to family funerals, music played a comforting role in the ceremonies—marking the departed relative’s final sentiments. As a kid of country music, I knew Green Green Grass of Home would be the perfect song for my Dad when he leaves this world and mine. Country music, after all, expresses the most heartbreaking and meaningful moments of our lives.