They sing in westerns, but they also have guns, bars, and saloon girls. They have "girls" in musicals, but these girls do different things, which most viewers recognize as the difference between one "genre" and another.
The same is true of musical genres. They use violins in a pop record, but not in the same way they do in a Sibelius symphony. They sing in opera, but in a different way from a musical.
The plots differ too. Musicals end in marriage, operas in death.
There are exceptions, of course. A western may not have a gunfight and a musical, like West Side Story, may end in death. But if a film shares many elements in common with other musicals, it's probably a musical. If a record shares elements in common with records by country stars like Hank Williams or George Jones, then it's country.
Of course, lines "blur." More than any artist, Elvis Presley started crossing boundaries.
Elvis blended many styles (Gospel, bluegrass, rockabilly, blues, pop, country), starting a "crossover" change that continues to this day.
At one time, no Country record could make the Billboard Pop chart, unless "covered" by a pop artist. Country sounded too "country" for most Americans outside the South.
But then the South was far different from what it is today. It was less another part of the country than another country, with different ways of speaking and different beliefs.
Coming from the hills of places like Kentucky, the music was first called "hillbilly," a blend word of "hill" and "billygoat." (Rockabilly was named the same way.) Its market was limited to the South, like Black rhythm records were limited to Black markets.
Later the name became Country and Western and, finally, Country. In fact, Country is to Country and Western what Rock is to Rock 'n' Roll--an updated form of the music.
Country has been called the white man's blues. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the Country vocal style is a "cry" in the throat. This may be hard to describe but easy to hear. That vocal style persists to this day, despite changes in the music.
Country music was close enough to the blues that none other than Ray Charles, whose blend of different musical styles rivals that of Presley, recorded an album called Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. Released in 1962, it stayed on the Billboard Pop charts for more than two years and at Number One for 14 weeks. It became one of the landmarks in music history.
In this way, a great Black artist made Country "respectable" in the Black community. Charles also showed that, at bottom, there was not much difference between the white man's cry and the black man's cry.
I Can't Stop Loving You, was written by Country star, Don Gibson and reached Number 81 on the Pop charts in 1958. Ray Charles' 1962 record was Number 1 for five weeks:
I can't stop loving you, I've made up my mind
To live in memories of the lonesome times.
I can't stop wanting you, it's useless to say
So I'll just live my life in dreams of yesterday.
Bridge: Those happy hours that we once knew
So long ago still make me blue
They say that time heals a broken heart
But time has stood still since we've been apart.
I can't stop loving you, I've made up my mind
To live in memories of the lonesome times.
I can't stop wanting you, it's useless to say.
So I'll just live my life in dreams of yesterday.
Even before Charles, Chet Atkins had started the "Nashville sound." This was a blend of Country and Pop styles. It was an attempt to make crossover records for the Pop charts.
Instead of the traditional banjo and acoustic guitar, Atkins used a piano, strings, and chorus. The point was to "clean up" the country style.
Country purists disliked these changes. But in the long run they sold Country to "mainstream" audiences. Soon they listened to Hank Williams instead of to cover copies of him.
A good example of the Nashville style is Jim Reeves, who had many crossover pop hits, such as He'll Have to Go (1960):
Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone
And let's pretend that we're together all alone
I'll tell the man to turn the jukebox way down low
And you can tell your friend there with you
He'll have to go
Whisper to me, tell me do you love me too ?
Or is he holding you the way I do ?
Though love is blind, make up your mind
I've got to know
Should I hang up or will you tell him
He'll have to go?
You can say the words I wanna hear
When you're with some other man
Do you want to answer yes or no
Darling, I will understand.
Many Country stylings are missing. There's no catch in the throat, but instead a smooth baritone. There's a tinkling piano but no twangy guitar. Instead of a homely subject, such as money or marital problems, there's romance.
Yet it's still Country. It can't be anything else. It's not Rock or Soul or the Blues.
Besides, the arrangement is "homely," though "urbanized." One has only to listen to other records from the same period to hear the difference. An Elvis Presley ballad has a distinctive bluesy edge, while still not being the Blues. A Johnny Mathis vocal uses soft falsetto: soulful, though not Soul.
Nor is Reeves' record Pop, though it was a crossover hit. It lacks a big orchestra arrangement to sound comfortably Pop. Instead, it's the Nashville sound.
There are no "hard and fast" rules here. People know Country when they hear it, like they know a science-fiction movie or a comedy. They cry when a drunk falls down in a melodrama like Written on the Wind and laugh when a drunk falls down in a Jim Carrey comedy.
Country has never been the same since the Nashville sound changed it. Once Country artists had the market, they kept it open. Some, like Dolly Parton, could go back to their roots and still have crossover hits. Others, like Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Shania Twain or the Dixie Chicks sell in the millions.
Yet many great Country records rarely make the pop charts. This is good. It means pure Country still exists.
George Jones is an example. If anyone doubts Country is the white man's Blues, they should listen to Jones' great records, like The Grand Tour, a maudlin song about a failed marriage. The singer takes the listener on a "guided tour" of his broken home:
Step right up, come right in. If you'd like the grand tour of the lonely house that once was home sweet home. I have nothing here to sell you. Just some things that I will tell you, some things I know will chill you to the bone. Over there, sits the chair, where she'd bring the paper to me and sit down on my knee and whisper, "Oh, I love you!" But now she's gone forever, and this old house will never be the same without the love that we once knew. Straight ahead, that's the bed, where we lay in love together and Lord knows we had a good thing going here. See her picture on the table. Don't it look like she'd be able just to touch me and say "Good morning, Dear"? There's her rings, all her things, and her clothes here in the closet like she left them when she tore my world apart. As you leave you'll see the nursery. Oh, she left without mercy, taking nothing but her baby and my heart. Step right up. Come on in.
The images are homely, seldom found in Pop or Rock. Then there's the steel guitar and that cry in the voice.
Even a Country artist with more crossover appeal, such as Reba McEntire, whose voice is nearer to Soul, keeps that Country cry in the voice, as in What Am I Gonna Do About You?:
The kid down the street mows the lawn every week
The neighbor next door fixed the roof where it leaked
The jobs going fine and the bills are all paid
And everyone thinks that I'm doin' ok
There's a guy down at work he's asked me out once or twice
I haven't said yes but I'm thinkin I might
Then on my way home I thought I saw you walk by
If only I could get you out of my mind
What in the world
Am I gonna do about you
Oh your memory keeps comin' back from out of the blue
Oh well I've tried and I've tried
But I still can't believe that we're through
So tell me what in the world am I gonna do about you
What am I gonna do about you
I went to the store but it wasn't much fun
It doesn't take long when you're shoppin' for one
And standing in line I thought I saw you walk in
And that's when it started all over again
What in the world
Am I gonna do about you
Oh your memory keeps coming back from out of the blue
Oh well I've tried and I've tried
But I still can't believe that we're through
So tell me what in the world am I gonna do about you
Darling what am I gonna do about you?
The dividing line between Country and other genres may be less clear than when the music was called "hillbilly," but no one doubts a dividing line. If nothing else, there's always the vocal twang of a Country singer. If not that, there's the cowboy boots and hat of the Country star, still seen even today on Country CD jacket covers, despite crossover sales of superstars like Garth Brooks. If, as with Jim Reeves, there's not even a country twang, there's always, as argued above, traces of Nashville.
Nothing is new, however, if one remembers that Jimmie Rodgers, credited with being the first Country star in the 1930s, blended jazz, pop, blues, and folk even then.
What may be new is the glamor of Country. By the 1970s, a great Country star like Dolly Parton could not only write and sing in the purest Country style, but could cross over into movies and pop with sex appeal.
Her title song for the Jane Fonda movie, 9 to 5 (1980), in which Parton also co-starred, is an example of her crossover success. It reached Number 1 on the Pop charts and stayed on the charts for weeks. In addition, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.
The arrangement, with heavy brass and a big beat, blends pop and soul music styles. There's not much that can be identified as Country music in this record, other than Parton's bankable Country star name, her face, and faint traces of her Country vocal style. Even the lyrics are more urban than country. (What's less Country than commuting to the job?) Yet it won the Grammy for Best Country and Western song (1981).
Pour myself a cup of ambition,
Yawn and stretch and try to come alive.
Jump in the shower, blood starts pumping
Out in the streets traffic starts jumping
With folks like me on the job from 9 to 5!
Workin 9 to 5 what a way to make a living,
Barely getting by,
It's all talkin and no giving
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it
Nine to five for service and devotion
You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion,
Want to move ahead but the boss won't seem to let me
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me!
They let you dream just to watch 'em shatter
You're just a step on the boss mans' ladder,
But you've got dreams he'll never take away
You're in the same boat wih a lot of your friend,
Waiting for the day your ship'll come in
The tide's gonna turn, and it'll all roll your way
Workin 9 to 5, what a way to make a living,
Barely gettin by,
It's all talkin and no giving
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it!
Nine to five -- yeah they got you where they want you
There's a better life, and you think about it, don't you
It's a rich man's game, no matter what they call it
And you spend your time putting money in his wallet.
Workin 9 to 5! What a way to make a living,
Barely gettin by,
It's all talkin and no giving
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it!
Despite changes in the music, there will be Country music as long as there is an American south. Some of this is more genre than culture. What's jazz without smoke rings and a lonely saxophone player, or Country without cowboy hats and boots and a spangled shirt?
Yet the music has many styles, such as Bluegrass and Rockabilly, as heard in the first records of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, and Johnny Cash. Later there was Country Rock, a blend of Rock and Country.
Besides Elvis, two Country singers who started this blend were the Everly Brothers. They invented Rock harmony, based on Hillbilly harmonies, as heard in Bluegrass.
Adding a beat and electric guitar (besides the usual acoustic guitar), and using teenage worries instead of homely troubles, the Everly's, like Elvis, helped sell Country sounds. Their influence can be heard in Simon and Garfunkel as well as The Beatles, who once punningly called themselves The Foreverlys.
Their first hit, Bye, Bye Love did to hillbilly harmony what Elvis' That's All Right did to the Blues, making it sound like a music for teenagers.
Their second hit, Wake Up Little Susie, with its magical acoustic guitar riff and teenage subject, shows how Country won crossover success:
Wake up little Susie, wake up!
Wake up little Susie, wake up!
The movie wasn't so hot,
It didn't have much of a plot
We fell asleep, our goose is cooked,
Our reputation is shot,
Wake up little Susie,
Wake up little Susie!
What are you gonna tell your mama, what you gonna tell your pa?
What are you gonna tell your friend when they say ooo la la?
Wake up little Susie, wake up little Susie!
Well I told your mama that you'd be in by ten
Now Susie, baby looks like we goofed again!
Wake up little Susie, wake up little Susie, we gotta go home.
Wake up little Susie, wake up!
Wake up little Susie, wake up!
The bullfrog's sound asleep,
Wake up little Susie and weep!
It's four o'clock and we're in trouble deep
Wake up little Susie, wake up little Susie!
But there are always "purists." Despite Elvis' great Country records, he has still not been inducted into the Country Hall of Fame. Yet he has been inducted into other Halls of Fame, such as Rock, Gospel, and R&B.
Old habits die hard for some people. But for others, there's no point in looking back. Whatever its changes, there'll always be Country.
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