Twang Nation – The Best In Americana Music
Americana & Roots Music & Culture
These country and Americana music classics go out to all you moms out there!
Johnny Paycheck (with Merle Haggard)- “Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoSKEhJvP2Y
Carter sisters & Johnny Cash – “Dear Mama”
Tammy Wynette – “(You Make Me Want To Be) A Mother”
Willie Nelson – “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys”
Justin Townes Earle “Mama’s Eyes”
Merle Haggard – “Mama Tried”
Labor Day originated in Canada from labor unions fighting for a nine-house work day. The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City as a result of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US military and US Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Strike. With our current animosity toward all things union, Labor Day has become little more than a reason for a car sale and a three-day last gasp of Summer vacation. Kind of a drag when you realize that we are working harder and getting less now than generations past…
Here are the top 10 songs I believe celebrate the working person as the backbone of America.
1. Work’in Man Blues – Merle Haggard – Still a staple in Merle’s set list and a must have in all the best honky-tonks and beer joints across America.
2. Can’t Make it Here – James McMurtry – In the recent economic downturn it’s become fashionable to pen songs about tough times for a quick buck. None come even close to the gritty heart of McMurtry’s tale of hard times.
3. 9 to 5 – Dolly Parton -This two Grammy Award winning crossover hit was the theme song to the hit film starring Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dabney Coleman. Leave it to Dolly to make cubicle drudgery sound so fun.
4. Take This Job and Shove It – Johnny Paycheck – Penned by David Allan Coe about the bitterness of a man who worked long and hard with no apparent reward. The song was also covered by the Dead Kennedys on their album Bedtime for Democracy.
5. Maggie’s Farm – Bob Dylan – Dyman made it popular but Maggie’s Farm has a much longer history that includes Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs.Though it has been documented that Maggie’s Farm was Dylan’s declaration of independence from the constructions put on him by the folk movement, it stands just as well as an oppressed employee leaving his thankless boss.
6. Wichita Lineman – Glen Campbell – Written by by Jimmy Webb and famously covered by Glen Campbell While driving on a deserted highway in northern Oklahoma, Webb spotted a solitary lineman working high on a transmission cable and the idea for the lyric was born. It has been referred to as ‘the first existential country song’.
7. Working Man – Hank Williams III – Shelton’s narration of the hard times and the endless struggle of blue collar work and his role in society and his family.
8. Dark as a Dungeon – Merle Travis – Travis’ father was a coal miner in Muhlenberg County, Ky. and this classic song details the risks and drudgery of the work.
9. Millworker – Emmylou Harris – Emmylou covers this James Taylor song in her signature sublime style.
10. John Henry – Woody Guthrie, Merle Travis, Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, etc – The enduring American folk tale of man and machine.
Country and roots music has a long history of honoring and reflecting the dignity of work and the labor of Americans from all walks of life. We celebrate this Labor Day, 2009 with a collection of songs as diverse and enduring as the people they celebrate.
These are tough times for America. Wall Street and board room crooks, unnecessary wars, mounting national and personal debt, massive unemployment, terrorists threats.. These are not the toughest times we’ve faced in our history,I think the fisr depression and the civil war were much tougher, but they are hard relative to the lives most people have lived today.
The silver lining is that from hard times comes great music, and country music taps into the populist zeitgeist better than any other genre beside blues. Much has been made about John Rich’s Shuttin’ Detroit Down and Hank William Jr’s Red White and Pink Slip Blues but it’s hard for me to buy populist empathy from a guy that parades around in mink coats and a guy that puts hotel employees in a choke hold and demands a kiss.
Here is a list of songs that I believe exhibit the best of what it sounds like to live through the worst.
Ryan Bingham – Hard Times – A new artist with an old voice . The name says it all.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg428ZfOMsA[/youtube]
The Drive By Truckers – Puttin’ People on the Moon – A stiff shot of old-school Southern rock chased withed populist rage.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTkRyLobKSc[/youtube]
Jimmie Rodgers – Muleskinner Blues – A classic of down-on-your-luck and lookin’ for work poetry.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXV9_WilcHs[/youtube]
Johnny Cash – Busted – Harlan Howard’s 1962 penned song of working man’s woe was aa hit for Johnny Cash in 1962 on his classic At Folsom Prison live album and was an even bigger hit for Ray Charles the following year.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rnAYYh8gGQ[/youtube]
Merle Haggard – Workin’ Man Blues – Classic Bakersfield rocks this ode to the laborer.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEstJ98TcM[/youtube]
Frankie Miller – Blackland Farmer – A paen to the 1958 farmers that were just starting to get a glipmpse of the industrial farms that were to change thier professions and lives forever.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHvGOAVOqMc[/youtube]
Levon Helm – Poor Old Dirt Farmer – Helm, the only American in the Americana/rock group The Band, tells the story of his Dad’s farm inTurkey Scratch, a hamlet west of Helena, Arkansas.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBuJB218UvU[/youtube]
Johnny Paycheck – Take This Job and Shove It – it’s not all hand-wringing and woe is me in country music. Paycheck’s cover of David Allan Coe’s song was a huge 70’s hit and a raised finger to The Man.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knetbVx5A-Q[/youtube]
MSNBC’s 5 Top has a list of the top 5 lies about American Idol. And although most are obvious (AI is a popularity contest not a singing competition…uh YEAH!) lie #4, “Country music is about telling stories,” is very interesting to me. The point made in the article is that all songs – except nonsensical or instructive – are stories. But Idol, like Nashville, perpetuates the popular myth that country msuic is simple stories that are about common experiences, family and traditional values.Of course this ignores the songs of boozing, adultary, murder, drug use, fighting, sloth and war that are just as much a part of the country music landscape. I’m sure Johnny Paycheck, Waylon Jennings, Porter Wagoner and David Allen Coe would have something to say about that.
The Devil Makes Three – Old Number 7
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fut6zeXtyN0[/youtube]
There’s a lot of things you can say about Shelton Hank Williams III, he’s profane, his lyrics are simplistic, he advocates substance abuse and a destructive lifestyle – my money would be that he would look you in the eye, give you smile and spit on your shoes.
The newest release by Hank III “Damn Right, Rebel Proud” follows the same breakneck path his last album “Straight to Hell” took us. Barrels of whiskey, bales of pot, cocaine, scraped knuckles, black eyes and gratuitous hell raising are the order of the day. And if it’s too loud (or fast) get the hell off the road.
The album wastes no time bolting from the chute with the arm jerker “The Grand Ole Opry (Ain’t So Grand)” which could be considered the rallying song for the “Reinstate Hank” campaign which Hank III
spearheads. The tune levels a bead at the beloved Nashville institution for keeping Hank III’s grandfather, Hank Sr. off it’s membership (though he was the first performer to receive six encores at the Opry, in August, in 1942, the Opry’s WSFA fired him due to “habitual drunkenness.” Despite this firing the Opry continues to use the name and likeness of Hank Williams Sr. in promotional materials.) Name checking Johnny Cash, Johnny Paycheck, Waylon Jennings, Jimmy Martin, and III’s daddy, Hank Jr. (aka Bocephus) III leaves no one wondering where he comes down on the issue.
The songs cover the familiar country music terrain of hard living and wild times – “Wild & Free,” “Me & My Friends,” and the honky-tonk moshers “Six Pack Of Beer” and “Long Hails & Close Calls,” the latter’s spirit owes as much to thrash metal (III played bass with Superjoint Ritual, a New Orleans metal band formed by Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo) as it does Bill Monroe.
But it’s not all raising hell, fun and guns. Hank III is man that makes no apologies for his life choices and celebrates the causalities left in his Knowing this makes songs like “I Wish I Knew,” a stand lament for a lost love and the choices made that drove her away, along with “Candidate For Suicide” and “Stoned And Alone” all show III moving toward more reflective themes and a broadening his narratives and, yes, show he’s getting older.
III’s voice has always had a haunting, keening quality that harkins back to his grandad and skipped over his daddy’s baritone delivery. The whole package is perfectly held together by III’s passion and the crack band, especially Andy Gibson on steel guitar and Dobro and Johnny Hiland on lead guitar, which leaves most country, as well as punk and metal bands, in the dust.
iTunes has “Damn Right, Rebel Proud” classified under rock (It’s now been moved under the country music section), maybe it’s all the profanity that runs through the album that got it booted to another area. This release is just as deserving of the country music moniker as the pop-country fodder – Kenny, Toby, Carrie and Taylor – glutting the country section of iTunes country music section. For spirit alone it’s more deserving than most of what is found in any online classification, on the mainstream radio country charts and the mainstream country music industry at large (III;s label, Curb Records, declined to put their name on it, instead reviving the Sidewalk Records imprint to keep a safe distance from it.) Seems Hank III, like his legendary Granddad before him, is seen as a black sheep. Here’s to the rebels.
Hank III – “The Grand Ole Opry (Ain’t So Grand)”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfgLw617EXc[/youtube]