Country Music Blog: Bob Wills

Events are underway in Los Angeles as the Recording Academy prepares for the 50th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday (Feb. 10). A Grammy is one of the ultimate achievements in music, though if you listened to rhetoric in Nashville, most years someone writes it off as a lame exercise.Country artists have voiced opposition to the Grammys -- saying they don't present enough country awards or country performances on television -- for years. Tanya Tucker made such a claim in the early ‘90s, Toby Keith did it this decade, and practically all of Music Row got mad at the Academy last year when the only country artists on the show, Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood, were featured in a tribute to the Eagles and Bob Wills. They performed none of their own material.

The anger demonstrates pride in the genre, a good thing. It also shows a certain provincialism, not such a good thing, though realistically Music City fights a huge L.A. provincialism that's built into the process. The anger is also fueled by dollars, which is just a fact of life.

While viewers watch awards shows for entertainment, the industry gets behind them as a promotional tool. If your artist wins a Grammy or a CMA Award, it can mean more press, more sales and higher concert prices. If an artist performs, it can particularly fuel a spike in sales.

So country executives want all the slots they can get. But so do the classical, jazz, Christian and gospel folks. Somebody is always unhappy with the process.

Increasing the antagonism, the Grammys don't line up with the other country awards shows. More than any other genre, country relies on radio to reach its audience, and the CMA and ACM award shows reflect that very much. Most years, the Grammys throw non-radio hits into the nominations mix, giving space to artists whose current work doesn't get much radio play -- this year, that includes Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Vince Gill and the Time Jumpers -- and sometimes giving actual trophies to people without country radio hits, such as the Dixie Chicks last year, Alison Krauss & Union Station in 2006 and Loretta Lynn the year before.

I personally find it refreshing, but I probably come from a naïve place. I'm very aware of the bottom line, but I still care most about the quality of the product, which is what every awards show -- not just the Grammys -- should reflect.

We’ve still got a war going on. So where are the pro-war songs now? What’s happened to the kind of flag-waving, ass-kicking, score-settling sentiments that had crowds cheering and pumping their fists in the air back when Alan Jackson was still puzzled about the difference between Iraq and Iran? Whether it’s “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Over There” or lyrical war cries of more recent vintage, there’s something really nasty and deceptive about songs that glorify combat, that hold it up as a bold adventure and a glorious clash between pure good and unalloyed evil. It’s harder to impart a festive mood to suicide bombings, beheadings, torture, the slaughter of civilians and another sprinkling of white crosses at Arlington.

The most memorable country songs of World War II, at least to me, are those that coped with the harsh realities of war and its aftermath -- Ernest Tubb’s “Soldier’s Last Letter,” Gene Autry’s “At Mail Call Today,” Floyd Tillman’s “Each Night at Nine,” Bob Wills’ “Silver Dew on the Bluegrass Tonight” and “White Cross on Okinawa” and Merle Travis’ “No Vacancy.” The Korean War yielded such durable and honest goods as Jimmy Osborne’s “God Please Protect America” and the Jean Shepard-Ferlin Husky duet, “A Dear John Letter.” But it was on-the-spot television rather than songs that conveyed the horrors of the Vietnam War, although plenty of songs were written about it. Who can forget “Ballad of the Green Berets”? Well, just about everybody, I suspect.

The last war song of any stature to emerge from country music was Darryl Worley’s “I Just Came Back From a War,” which the singer wrote after performing in combat zones and witnessing the political and psychological complexities involved. In the song, a soldier ruminates about returning from "a place where they hated me and everything I stand for ... a land where our brothers are dying for others who don't even care anymore.” It’s not exactly a recruitment ditty. Compare that to Worley’s earlier gung-ho hit, “Have You Forgotten,” and you’ll see the difference between beating the drums and counting the costs. Maybe that’s why nobody’s singing about war these days -- and why they shouldn’t sing about it so enthusiastically the next time.

If there's one thing I can't stand about living in Nashville, it's the lack of music venues where people simply go out to have fun and let their hair down. Too often, the crowd consists of music industry-types who would prefer to analyse, sitting in their chairs, arms-folded and generally giving out bad vibes. Fortunately, there is a place in Nashville where this kind of attitude is not tolerated -- just go right downtown to the heart of the tourist strip and you'll find Lower Broadway with all its glittering neon signs and hard-core honky-tonk venues. If, like me, you want to two-step to your country music, then this is the place for you! The first time I visited Lower Broadway, I walked by each venue and was shocked to see the bands playing in the window -- it felt like Amsterdam and Nashville had found a weird common ground. There were no red lights here, only the occasional flashing blue from a police car, but the idea is to get you to mosey on inside and get some of what you want. It's that very upfront attitude that I admire about this street -- people know what they want and they are going to enjoy it!

Generally speaking, it is pretty safe down here -- for all the folks drinking and carousing, it's actually quite impressive that I've never seen a fight either in the bars or on the street. Tourists and locals of all ages blend seamlessly, as they did on Wednesday night in Legends -- a bar which honours Nashville's heroes of yesteryear. The walls are decked with gold records from people like Kitty Wells and Charley Pride, and various paintings of country music icons stare out from the walls, letting me know what this music is built on. I got up and played fiddle with Mike Siler who performs there every week -- classic Bob Wills-style swing with a cracking band that includes legendary steel player John Hughey (his weeping licks can be found on hits by Conway Twitty and Vince Gill, amongst others). Someone in the audience threw a dollar into the tip jar and requested "Roly Poly" -- I knew I was on Lower Broadway!

Were it not for my early start in the morning, I could have stayed on Broadway and floated in and out of the bars. Roberts is a venue just a few steps away and another fine supporter of real country music -- also the home of honky-tonk upstarts BR549. You'll also find a record store that stays open late, some dodgy karaoke bars filled with folks singing Randy Travis songs and generally speaking lots of good ol' country music. So, next time you visit Music City, be sure to while away the hours listening to the roots of country music. Thanks to the tourists, this local has a great place to hang out.

Fifteen years ago, Garth Brooks was hands-down the biggest thing in country music, so when he did a three-night stand at the America West Arena in Phoenix, he naturally sold out each show. Little did he know that one of the people watching him that first night would later end up at Capitol Records, the same label for whom Garth recorded at the time.

“He just gave every ounce of energy when he was out there, and when he walked off stage, he staggered,” Dierks Bentley told me in 2005, recalling that concert. “It blew me away how much energy he put in his show. I learned a lot from him and he became an influence in that way.”

Dierks picked up influences from a lot of different areas -- he played the bluegrass circuit when he first moved to Nashville, built his band with the same instrumentation as Buck Owens, but has also dropped in an AC/DC riff in his live set. In that way, he’s like Garth, who cited Kiss and Queen alongside George Strait among his influences. George likewise picked up on artists as diverse as Bob Wills, Merle Haggard and Frank Sinatra. Meanwhile, Merle has paid homage to country pioneer Jimmie Rodgers and pop singer Bing Crosby as major influences.

It’s kind of funny when you hear critics say that modern country music doesn’t really sound country anymore. Newer artists such as Jason Aldean, Cole Deggs & the Lonesome and Little Big Town are indeed allowing a lot of pop and rock influences into their sound, though when you line them up against current hit-makers such as Linkin Park or Beyoncé, their country roots are clear. I doubt that either Garth or Dierks were thinking about those issues when Dierks went to the arena on July 19, 1992. But it turns out they were both at a different place in their process of stepping into a country music tradition: salting the genre with a little outside flavor.