Comments on: 20 Easy Rules for Writing about Country the Way the Pros Do It!

by: Ian Miller

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:32:44 +0000

I found this linked from Derrick Bostrom’s blog, and (even if it was written 12 years ago) I feel exactly the same way about the state of how the “rock bias” fosters condescension towards country/hillbilly/what-have-you. I think that it is possible to love something purely on it’s own merits, even if it’s sentiment makes you uncomfortable (OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE is one thing. but THE FIGHTIN’ SIDE OF ME is something a bit more serious), and it seems that a lot of rock fans have great difficulty with that, having to place it in the comfort zone of “irony” to justify their enjoyment. Not to get all pedantic or anything, but country music’s emotional directness is one of it’s greatest strengths, even if one’s reaction to that directness is being troubled by it’s content.

Anyway, thanks!

by: livingin

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:05:51 +0000

Ooops. I meant Love, God and MURDER, not Death, in my comment above…

When’s my book coming out? Well, that’s a good question. It won’t be until I write it, that’s for sure, so quite awhile I’m afraid. But it’s good to know, Don, that there’ll be someone interested in reading it when it does. Thanks.

by: Roy

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 16:44:10 +0000

Yesterday, I put on The Rambler, one of the weirdest and best Cash albums from the ’60s. Have you guys heard that? A concept record about a road trip between a fisherman and a “rambler”, with skits in between songs. There’s one moment where the fisherman demands the rambler turn off the preacher on the radio. “I bet he makes a lot of money!” the fisherman says. But the rambler won’t have any of that, and still wants to believe in salvation, though the rest of the album is very bleak and secular. It’s a perfect and really complex fusion of the tension David is talking about.

by: don

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 16:21:26 +0000

Looking fwd to your book on countrypolitan, when’s it coming out?

by: livingin

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 15:31:38 +0000

Thanks for writing back, Don. You’re right . And I agree that the gospel side isn’t the single essence of the Cash sensibility, but I do think the ongoing tension between the gospel side and the darker, more worldly side is very much something like his essence as an artist. (This reminds me that I need to add some of my Cash pieces to our Heroes section…)

But amen to your comment on tabloid reductionism, Don. I think that Cash series that came out awhile back, the one with a volume each devoted to Love, God and Death is one example of what you’re talking about–making death into one third of the Cash equation is tabloid reductionsim of the highest order.

by: don

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 00:49:28 +0000

But it’s not all that *specifically* apparent in every song (not to me, and I’m a preacher’s son, readin’ his Bible for many a year), and it’s not the essence of his own sensiblity, though it is a crucial part (and Sam was right, in that audition, as depicted in the movie, based on Cash’s autobiographical recounting)to sense that Cash wasn’t really singing his own song, not quite yet)(he also said he couldn’t sell gospel, so it wasn’t just Sam looking deep, but maybe he just didn’t think Cash was that good a gospel singer, was the implication) But I know what she means about some rock-based writers overdoing it, like with the tabloid reductionism.(Not that some country-only writers don’t do that too).

by: livingin

Wed, 31 May 2006 14:33:07 +0000

Hey Don: Actually this is David Cantrwell here at Living in Stereo. I’d just posted Cheryl’s piece because I admired it. So I can’t respond for her, nor have I seen Walk the Line, but…

Cash’s Christianity is essential to an understanding his work. He long said that his big reason for leaving Sun was that Phillips wouldn’t let him record a gospel album. At Columbia, he made certain he was always cutting some gospel sides; in fact, I can’t think of a Cash album in the sixties and seventies, the period that includes most of his best work, that didn’t include at least one gospel cut. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d never cut a gosepl-less album, and, of course, live he did even more gospel. Does leaving all of this out of the Cash story, or even just downplaying its significance, count as wrong? Well, it’s at least innacurate, incomplete, caricatured…

by: don

Tue, 30 May 2006 21:41:21 +0000

Hi Cheryl, I used to subscribe to Twangin! when it was a zine; you were an inspiration. But my subsequent writing (for Voice, thefreelancementalists, and charlotte.creativeloafing) probably fits some of what you’re talking about, because your zine didn’t try to pretend it didn’t know about the Velvets as well as the Mekons as well as Merle as well as Freakwater, and I don’t see what’s wrong about emphasizing the rock appeal of some country artists, long as you don’t leave out significant differences, when they *are* significant. Johnny Cash’s Bible study isn’t always apparent in his music, and Sam Phillips’ comment in Walk The Line, about his gospel rendition (at least at that audition) not going deep enough, rings true re some of his later work. (And then Johnny says, “Okay! I wrote this in the Air Force, you got something against the Air Force?” Sam: “No.” Johnny: “Well I do!” (sings “I Walk The Line.”) And the pissed-off, rocknroll-associated attitude under the surface of this song (in this audition) gets him onto Sun, and rationalizes the rock-associated tilt of this movie, which does simplfy his life, quite a bit, but as biopics go is pretty well-founded. So, I don’t think writing with rockhead ears, as I do, nec means you’re wrong.

by: Charles

Sat, 27 May 2006 04:50:29 +0000

That rules…