I have been watching Ken Burns’s “Country Music” series on PBS. May not watch too much more of it as I am not that interested in more recent country music, although I like some of it.
So the big story of this series is how much of supposedly “white music” is of African-American origin. I had long been aware of how the banjo was of African origin, the core country instrument beside the “fiddle,” aka “violin,” which is of European origin. But it shows that most of the important early Country music people had serious interactions with black musicians, relying on them for finding music as well as helping them developing their own styles. These figures include A.P. Carter, the founder of the Carter family, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, Johnnie Cash, and others.
All of this clearly rebukes the Country Music Association’s rejection of this year’s massive hit, “Old Country Road,” as being officially “country music.” Despite the fantasies of ignorant current racists, country music and rhythm and blues and, jazz, not to mention rock and roll, have always been curiously hybrid forms of music.
This also extends to rock and roll, with Elvis Presley coming originally out of hillbilly music with his sidemen of that origin. His borrowing from Rhythm and Blues was nothing new. Indeed, it was only in 1949 that Billboard shifted to calling what had been labeled “Race Music” to “Rhythm and Blues” and what had been “Hillbilly Music” to “Country and Western,” with people like Bob Wills adding Latino and cowboy themes to whhat had earlier come out of southwestern Virginia with Carter family, later tied up with Johnie Cash, and Billie Rodgers out of Mississippi. Both of these had African-American influences.
The earliest of these performers was arguably John Carson, recorded initially in 1923, who had been a textile worker in Atlanta. Among those he performed for included both the KKK and the US Communist Party. While originally an urban worker, he later moved to the rural Tennessee.
An ongoing theme involved class, with even Burns not showing this fully. Thus in the 1950s Patsy Cline was a big hit, with her song by Willie Nelson, “Crazy,” one of the biggest selling songs of all time. But the show did not depict how she was mistreated in her hometown of Winchester, Virginia, with this continuing until long after her death in a 1963 plane crash to the point that it was only quite recently that this city not too far from where I live finally figured out that they should overcome the longstanding disdain held by local elites against her and her “wrong side of town” background to honor her and her home, with much of this amounting to taking advantage of her popularity as a local girl made good and popular with tourists, even as the local elites continued to disdain her.
Anyway, the bottom line is that all of them: country, R&B, and rock and roll were racial hybrids with people from both Euripean traditions such as fiddlers as well as Africans with their banjos, and other influences as well, all drawing on each other. Current country music rulers out of Nashville ruling out “Old Valley Road” from being a country song because its singer is a black rapper, are simply ignoring hard history, as are those going the other way, ignoring European influences on supposedly “black music”
\Barkley Rosser
Hey Barkley, I am not much of a country and western fan and I am much more up on the influence black blues musicians had on rock and roll, but IMHO Patsy Cline was the greatest female singer who ever lived and she died on March 5, 1963 in a plane crash near Camden Tennessee returning from a charity gig in I believe Kansas City. Your reference to 1959 was a little grating. Crazy is certainly her most iconic song although my favorite is “ If You Have Leaving On Your Mind” and “ I Fall to Pieces” is also a very solid tune and a close relation to “I Go to Pieces” by Peter and Gordon and Del Shannon. As the first woman inducted into the Country and Western Music Hall of Fame, I believe she would have been the female pop singer of the 60’s if not for her premature death.
Sorry about getting the year wrong on Cline’s death, Terry. I am a big fan of hers.
I think Patsy Cline has lots of bi fans.
The Banjo is of northern african, not “Bantu”. Considering northern african was originally colonized by Anatolian(where the Egyptians came from as well fwiw) peoples, it wasn’t “African American”. Likewise, the Irish invented the Blues. Jazz is the big “Bantu” influenced sound though.
Its alot like the “white/black” split in rock.
Bert:
You are stomping on some dangerous ground here. Can you cite something for Barkley to support your contentions?
A while ago the NYT an an article on how the Irish aren’t Celtic and nether is Gaelic. Cruel.
Bert,
The origin of the banjo is complicated. 4500 years ago there was an instrument in Egypt that somewhat resembled, with a parchment backing and three strings. It is ridiculous to say the Egyptians came from Anatolia, however.
But whaever their historical links, the banjo was brought to the Americas by Bantu slaves from West Africa, a four stringed instrument. It went to the Caribbean first where in Jamaica it is called the “banja.”
There was a longstanding claim that the “modern banjo” was invented by a white Virginian named Joel Sweeney in the 1830s. He certainly popularized it, and he may have added the fifth string and made some other changes, although he himself admitted that he learned to play it from African slaves.
The blues is overwhemlingly of African-American origin, basically zero Irish input until well into the 20th century. But then the mixings went baack and forth.
Jack D.
Gaelic is unquestionably a Celtic language. What is true is that in Ireland there were many rounds of invasions and layers of groups, with Gaelic-speaking Celts a relatively late arrival. They did conquer enough to impose their language, just as the English would later, but mostly Irish are descended from the pre-Gaelic population.
Barkely,
The Times didn’t agree with you.. They thought, for whatever reasons, that Gaelic came from the Continent’s European culture and not the Celts (Keltoi) of West Asia. I don’t pretend to know who’s right.
Jack D.
Of course the Indo-European Gaelic (alka “Aryan”) came from “the Continetnt..” Did you read what I wrote? They came late from the Continent, but while they imposed their language, most of the population predated them.
Got it?
I have it that that’s your opinion.
Jack D.,
I do not know what Times article this is, but I suggest you google “Origins of the Irish,” and “blood relatives of the Irish,” and “Celtic languages. Pretty much all the sources fit what I said. Irish Gaelic is a Celtic language, or else there is no such thing as a Celtic language, and the Celtic speaker came from the Continent, various parts of it.
OTOH, there are layers of Irish ancestry that predate the arrival of Celtic speakers. Some of these may have spoken a non-Indo-eEuropwan language related to Basque, at least it appears that the Irish are the people most closely rlelated genetically to modern Basque speakers, althojugh we have no records of pre-Gaelic irish languages. Likewise it has long been thought that the Picts, who lived in Scotland, also spoke a non-IndoEuropean language until they were conquered by the Scottich Gaels in the 9th century after the Vikking whomed them hard. There is Norwegian ancestry among the Irish as well as Spanish, French, and from other parts of Europe.
So, it is a good deal more than just my “opinion.” Have been reading about this stuff for a long time.l