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Seven Steps to Piano Heaven: The Artistry of Sir Roland Hanna
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Country and Gospel Notes
by Charles Wolfe
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by Douglas A. Lee
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Country and Gospel Notes
by Charles Wolfe
The recent television series A Century of Country, produced for cable’s The Nashville Network by CBS News, was the most in-depth film documentary ever attempted on country music. Extending to thirteen episodes, it was well received by viewers and critics alike. Though each episode was assigned to a different veteran CBS producer, and though most of the producers knew little about country music, the series was unified by the general expertise and writing of Robert K. Oermann. A former librarian at the Country Music Foundation, Oermann has emerged as the dean of Nashville music journalists with a unique ability to bridge the gap between the historical and modern sides of country music. His ability to move effortlessly between intelligent commentary on a 1927 Carter Family recording and a 1998 video by Shania Twain made him the obvious choice to orchestrate the Century of Country series.
Now comes a book component of that series, A Century of Country: An Illustrated History of Country Music (TV Books, 1999; $39.95), authored by Oermann. It’s a big, sumptuous, lavishly illustrated volume that is based on the scripts for the series. There are a limited number of ways you can divide up the history of country music, and to some extent the organization here follows that of earlier histories by Malone, Shelton, Carr, et al. Some new wrinkles include more attention to the role of the commercial music industry—especially sheet music publishers—in the development of country. Oermann correctly stresses that country music has been, since its inception, more big business than quaint folk expression. There is a much-needed chapter on country songwriters, a subject too often consigned to footnotes, and chapters on how the music was impacted by Hollywood and television.
Another original feature is an “oral history” aspect in which new interviews, filmed especially for the series, are transcribed and included in the narrative. This technique works superbly when the subjects are talking about their own first-hand experiences, such as Buck Owens reminiscing about his early syndicated TV show. Problems occur, though, when young modern singers with “face appeal” are asked to reflect upon historical events about which they really have no special or even accurate knowledge. Marty Stuart, for instance, makes a great deal out of the Carter Family song “The Cyclone of Rye Cove” and implies that such event songs were typical Carter Family fare. This is simply wrong: the Carters hardly ever recorded event songs and the few times they did, they were not “spreading the news” about events but responding to a well-defined commercial tradition. The problem with doing “oral history” on these early years is that these days there are really very few performers still around who can share first-hand memories of the 1920s and 1930s. In addition, the TV producers, pandering to an audience that wants to see a constant parade of recognizable modern stars, felt they had to pepper even the historical shows with current figures. A sensitive and honest historian like Oermann who is trying to adapt this technique to a printed narrative faces many challenges. In the end, however, he overcomes these problems and produces a fresh, relevant, and brilliantly written survey of the music.
One of the inevitable chapters in most standard country histories is the one on “California Country” or “West Coast Country” where we learn about the likes of Cliffie Stone, Tex Ritter, Skeets MacDonald, Buck Owens, Glen Campbell, and Merle Haggard. Such token chapters sometimes leave the impression that the California scene was some kind of well-defined little phase that, for a few years in the 1960s, challenged Nashville’s claim as the center of country music. But the country music scene in California reaches well back into the 1920s, when classic string bands like The Crockett Family and The Beverly Hillbillies (from whence the name of the TV series came) established reputations over southern California radio and on Victrola records. Though sparked by waves of “invasions” like the one in the early 1940s when Bob Wills moved his base of operations from Texas to California, the California scene was in continual development through the 1940s and 1950s. The problem is that except for books on individual stars like Merle Haggard and Rose Maddox, no one had explored this rich scene in any cohesive detail. Gerald W. Haslam’s Workin’ Man Blues: Country Music in California (University of California Press, 1999; $29.95) smartly fills this void. A native of Oildale, in the state’s central valley, Haslam grew up in the music he writes about, and intersperses his formal history with a series of personal vignettes that highlight and invigorate the text. His meticulous research yields richly detailed accounts of figures like the colorful pioneer “Haywire Mac”; the tragic fate of Spade Cooley, the man who popularized the phrase “western swing”; promoters and producers like Capitol Records’ Lee Gillette and Ken Nelson and radio personalities like Foreman Phillips and Hank Penny; and modern singers like Owens, Haggard, and Dwight Yoakam. Interwoven are the stories of dozens of lesser figures who seldom get covered in any standard country histories, and throughout are a revealing series of vintage photos. Here is a wealth of new, fresh information, presented in a literate, readable narrative by someone who really cares about the music.