Category Archives: My Back Pages

A Cold and Broken Hallelujah

On the Sunday after the election, I went to the local Unitarian fellowship for no reason other then to be in the company of others, and to hear the thoughts of a minister who always seems to find comforting words when there are none to be had. And as I expected, she did it well. Yet it was a voice from somewhere in the back of the sanctuary that brought me to a place that gave me an understanding of exactly how I felt in the moment.

There’s a tradition in this liberal religion of little tradition that we light candles to acknowledge both the joys and concerns of the past week. A woman took the microphone from the usher and spoke of her dear friend who had passed away on Monday night after fighting a losing battle to cancer. And this was not presented as a concern, but rather a joy. Why? Because her friend did not have to live another day to witness Donald Trump’s victory.

There is something so perversely desperate when death seems to be the best option, and yet I can’t deny thinking a similar thought while sitting in front of my television on election night and witnessing the willful bludgeoning of democracy. Not that I would ever contemplate doing something to myself, but I did have a moment of solace knowing I will turn sixty-five on my next birthday with many good years behind me and less in front. But for my children and all the others who shall inherit the sins of their parents, I mourn.

To be clear, this isn’t about politics. We all seem to have agreed that this was a contest between two flawed candidates, neither of whom would claim a large enough mandate to lead decisively and without rancor. To many people, and ironically the majority of those who voted, the choice was to reject Trump’s brand of pop culture fear, hate, and discrimination. Yet as a result of an electoral system few understand or can explain, the loser wins.

The death of Leonard Cohen was not a complete surprise. He telegraphed the expectation when he released his latest album and met with David Remnick for a beautiful New Yorker profile that ran in October. As he spoke of the challenge in finishing his final album You Want it Darker, he shared what it feels like when one is at the end of time:

“The big change is the proximity to death. I am a tidy kind of guy. I like to tie up the strings if I can. If I can’t, also, that’s O.K. But my natural thrust is to finish things that I’ve begun. I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs. Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I don’t dare do that. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

I found it peculiar that Leonard Cohen died the night before the election and yet we didn’t learn about it for several days after. I don’t know why his family waited to share the news but would like to imagine it was to allow the news cycle to do what it does and create a sacred space for Leonard’s life to be honored apart from the political cacophony. Given that every newspaper, magazine, and website has run hundreds if not thousands of stories on his life and work, it has been a passing of both love, respect, and memories.

By the time Saturday Night Live came on, I was already in bed and under the covers. In no mood to laugh or feel elevated, I dropped a sleeping pill to take me far away from the pain in my heart. On Sunday morning when I awoke, social media was smokin’ with news of Kate McKinnon’s moving performance of what may be Leonard Cohen’s most treasured and memorable song, played in the character of Hillary Clinton. I’ve watched it now a few dozen times, with tears never far away. This is how I am choosing to remember what once was, what could have been and what is yet to come.

I’m not giving up and neither should you.

This article was originally posted on the No Depression dot come website, as an Easy Ed Broadside column. The original title was Leonard Cohen Versus Donald Trump: Hallelujah Hallelujah.

Many thanks to artist Michelle Gengnagel for allowing me to use her image of Leonard Cohen. Based in the Seattle area, Michelle thinks getting a nose job is a waste of a good caricature. She studied traditional illustration at the Academy of Art and is qualified to create aesthetically delicious original art for advertisement, editorial, or narrative purposes.

On Fighters and Bullies, From Hope to Despair

This article was originally published on the No Depression dot com website a week before the American presidential elections, the one where Clinton beat Trump with popular votes but was trounced in the more more important Electoral College. The original title was ‘The Pivot from Warren Zevon to Maureen McGovern’ for reasons that will be clear if you choose to read it. The new title speaks for itself. God help us all.

I was thinking about the phrase “the long and the short of it” when I plugged “tall man and midget” into the Bing Image Search without regard for using an offensive term now considered to be perjorative. Pop culture aficionados and armchair athletes who still believe that professional wrestling is a sport will likely recognize Andre the Giant but might not know who the smaller man is.

By the smile on his face in that photo, you can probably figure out that this is a a staged photograph and Andre is not about to beat the little guy to a pulp. It’s a publicity stunt, and the shorter of the two men was a former champ and featherweight boxer by the name of Bobby Chacon, who was promoting a 1979 fight with world champion Alexis Arguello. He lost by a knockout in the seventh round.

Three years later, Chacon came back strong, winning five fights in a row, and was considered a serious title contender again. But his first wife, Valerie, wasn’t a fan of Bobby’s chosen profession, and pleaded with him to give up boxing. He refused, and the night before a big fight she used a rifle to kill herself. Choosing to move forward — and dedicating the fight to her memory — he beat his opponent. Over the next few years, he went on to hold two world titles.

Some may recall that Chacon makes an appearance in the 1987 Warren Zevon song, “Boom Boom Mancini.”

Chacon’s success continued throughout the early 1980s. He remarried, bought a large mansion, had over 40 horses, and collected Rolls Royces. And while his life appeared to be one of success, in 1984 he was convicted of beating his wife, and seven years later his son was killed in a gang shooting. By 2000, he’d remarried and divorced  three more times, lost most of his savings, was being cared for by a nurse, and suffered from dementia pugilistica. Valerie’s earlier fears came true, and last September Bobby Chacon passed away at age 64.

While there’s nothing quite like a feel-good story to put things into perspective, please allow me to pivot.

If you’ve been following my Broadside columns over the past few months, it should come as no surprise that I’m hoping the American people will turn their backs on the con man with hate in his heart and choose instead to elect a slightly flawed woman as our new president. I am not naive: regardless of the outcome, the cacophony of hate and rhetoric will continue, as will increasing economic inequality and political gridlock.

We’re living in dark times with only slivers of sunshine. Some days can feel like an episode of Walking Dead.

Wait … cut to Zevon again.

Alright.

So, “the long and the short of it” is that while part of me feels as if we’re on a stinking, sinking ship, I’m a sucker for a great Hollywood ending. Which made me think of The Poseidon Adventure — one of the first big-budget disaster films ever made, back in 1972, about a cruise ship that drowns in the drink. It features that schlocky but beautiful theme song by the great Maureen McGovern.

There’s got to be a morning after
If we can hold on through the night
We have a chance to find the sunshine
Let’s keep on looking for the light

Just singing the first verse lifts the weight from my heart and, for the briefest of moments, I think I too can see the sunshine.

Oh, can’t you see the morning after?
It’s waiting right outside the storm
Why don’t we cross the bridge together
And find a place that’s safe and warm?

Yes. Yes — that’s what I want, too. Safe and warm.

Join me, America. Wake up on election day and vote for Hillary Clinton. And if, for some reason, it all goes crazy wacky bananas and the orange man gets the gig, hold someone you love close to you and sing:

It’s not too late, we should be giving
Only with love can we climb
It’s not too late, not while we’re living
Let’s put our hands out in time

The Prairie Home Antidote For American Political Anxiety

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By the time this column is published, the last presidential debate will have either occurred or been cancelled, more women may or may not have come out to tell their stories of sexual abuse at the hands of a repulsive Republican nominee, Wikileaks will have posted information that indicates HRC is indeed a typical hack politician who says one thing to one group and something completely different to others, accusations will be made, lies will be told, and 92 percent of Americans will have already decided who they’ll vote for in less than three weeks.

If life was fair, we could just hit the the fast-forward button, race to the punch line, and be done with it all.

Whether you lean to the left or feel proud to be alt-right, everyone in our country is in the same boat: The U.S.S. Stressed Out.

While I think a solid argument could be made for dumping a strong dose of Xanax into the nation’s water supply, many humans find natural ways to soothe our souls and chill out when the going gets tough. Exercise, eating good food, hanging out with friends, dancing, taking nature walks, getting a massage, watching sporting events … you get the idea. And with 286,942,362 Americans currently connected to the internet, many are shopping, doing research, streaming films and music, engaging in meaningful dialogue on social media (yeah … I’m joking) and, of course, there’s always porn. Back in 2013 Google reported that there were more visits to porn sites than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined. It’s huge!

But all this is just locker room banter — boy talk.

So lets get to the music.

Almost every Saturday night when I get off from work, I run to my car and turn on A Prairie Home Companion. Not one to actually sit still in front of the living room radio for two hours each week like they did back in the old days, my experience with Garrison Keillor and crew has always been more hit-and-miss. Fifteen minutes here, another five or ten there. Catch a comedy sketch, listen to a musical interlude. Over the years, I’ve read Keillor’s books, watched a lot of videos, loved the Robert Altman film enough to own it, and I have hours and hours of show snippets sitting in the digital jukebox that I liberally sprinkle into my playlists.

Last week, October 15 to be exact, was the official coming out party for Chris Thile as the new host of APHC. This is a great opportunity for Thile, but ever since Keillor announced his retirement, his departure has been mourned by many as the end of a grand American institution. I too have shared my own trepidation and despair on these pages as well. But surprise, surprise, surprise!

With the weight of the daily news cycle on my head and politics consuming my thoughts, it was with a low threshold of anticipation that I tuned into the show while driving home from work, and was confronted with the perfect antidote for my ballot box blues.

Making my way home, I hopped in and out of my car a few times — at the local Korean market for steamed fish and rice, a quick sprint through Trader Joe’s for uncured all-natural beef hot dogs, zucchini, and coffee, the local fluff and fold — and sweet music flowed in my ears every moment I was behind the wheel. Although it wouldn’t have been fair to expect that Thile would offer up the intellectual depth or comedic talents of Keillor, the applause coming through my car radio speakers sounded as if he won over the crowd at the Fitzgerald Theater with a stellar band and great guests. As you can hear for yourself, the show continued with the tradition of delivering the goods in American roots music.

 

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression dot com. Because of space consideration I didn’t include a few other videos that I wanted to share,  featuring Jack White, Margo Price and Lake Street Dive. And so now, here they are. 

 

 

Musicians Work For Peanuts Without Shell Corporations

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This was originally published on October 6, 2016, a month before the last presidential election. As we all know, the Republican candidate won. 

These past few days and weeks have been pretty rough out there on the American political landscape for the Republican nominee for president. Putting aside having had his clock cleaned in a televised debate in front of 84 million people, tweeting disturbing early morning rants about a Latina beauty queen he calls Miss Piggy — and lying about her making a sex tape — he’s also accusing his opponent of marital infidelity and his charitable foundation is being investigated for fraud. Now comes news that he used a tax loophole to avoid paying personal income tax for close to 20 years.

And who knows for sure; maybe he’s never paid a dime. Ever. He is the first and only modern presidential nominee who refuses to share his income taxes with the public. I think my late father would probably say something like, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I have been filing and paying my taxes for close to 44 years. I’m not alone. My friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors pay their share too. And while we all complain and wish we could pay a lot less, most of my people are considered middle-class wage earners, and we’re not able to take advantage of the tax laws and loopholes that are given to the wealthy folks. My entire life, I’ve heard politicians tell me that they’ll fix it once elected, but it hasn’t changed. If you want to talk about a rigged system, you can start right there.

Back in the early 1990s, Donald Trump’s hotel-airline-casino empire fell apart and he filed bankruptcy four times. He laid off thousands of people, stiffed contractors and suppliers, stripped the value of his holdings to leave his creditors with staggering losses, and he took money off the table for himself. He proudly calls himself a “brilliant” businessman. He claims he’s the best candidate to fix the system since he is a genius at ripping it off. To me, that’s the equivalent of putting Charles Manson in charge of overhauling our criminal justice system.

Now, before I go too far off on a tangent here, let me pull it back a little bit. Since this is a music website, lets talk about musicians. For the sake of this conversation, lets exclude those on the level of Bruce or Bono, Madonna or Taylor. Let’s be real: for every Snoop Dogg, there are probably 25,000 players barely making minimum wage.

https://youtu.be/-WXy-h5scjk

Your favorite Americana-folk-blues-jazz-bluegrass picker-singer-songwriter-indie-alt-whatever musician might crowd source 20 thousand dollars to record and market an album, go out on the road and perform at clubs, coffeehouses, house concerts and maybe some festival dates, travel for the most part on four wheels in a crowded vehicle, eat whatever food is offered to them, take time to do benefit shows every so often, and then spend some serious dough to go to trade shows and conventions to drum up even more dates. If they’re lucky, at the end of the year, they’ll pull in somewhere between 20 to 80 thousand dollars a year. Just an un-educated guess. Maybe more, maybe less.

Reaching out to some of my friends who actually make their living playing songs  for you and me, I asked them how they earned their dough, kept track of expenses, and managed to run a business while staying creative. Not surprising, it ain’t easy.

For those at the low end of the range, there are some tax laws that allow for them to keep most of what they earn. Moving up the income level, they balance obligations and deductions just like most other creative types and independent contractors. Without a day job, there’s nobody contributing a portion of their check into social security, so they pay the full amount. There’s no employer providing health insurance, so that’s another expense. It’s a little easier to do that today with the Affordable Care Act, but healthcare is still pretty expensive for many people and you’ve got oodles of Republican politicians trying to take it away altogether.

On the other hand, musicians and other independent contractors can write off some expenses that people with regular jobs cannot: travel expenses, meals on the road, clothes for the stage, music to listen to, lessons to hone their skills, concert tickets and instruments. If they have an office in their home or a studio, there might be other deductions available.

A musician has to document business-related spending by keeping track of daily receipts, expenses, and a detailed  travel log, and it helps if they keep separate bank accounts and credit/debit cards for business expenses. Many have an accountant and probably just as many don’t. It basically comes down to feeling confident with their financial literacy, and balancing that with the complexity of their musical endeavors.

And at the beginning of each year, musicians gather up their 1099 forms, figure out what they earned, calculate what they paid out, and guess what … they pay their taxes. Just like me, just like you.

There’s an argument to be made that paying your “fair share” is a patriotic act. But there’s also another way to look at it, and it’s about millions of people chipping in a portion of what they earn to help all of us enjoy a decent life. Not just the one percent who make the most money, but each of us.

In closing, I went over to the website for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to see exactly how our tax dollars are spent. Here’s the breakdown:

25%: Health care or long-term care to about 72 million low-income children, parents, elderly people, and people with disabilities.

24%: Social Security for 40 million retired workers, 2.3 million spouses and children of retired workers, 6.1 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers, and 10.8 million disabled workers and their eligible dependents.

16%: Defense and security-related international activities.

10%: Safety net programs to individuals and families facing hardship.

8%: Benefits for retired federal workers and veterans.

6%: Interest debt.

4%: All other expenses.

3%: Education.

2%: Science and medical research.

2%: Transportation infrastructure.

In the case of Donald Trump, this list is what he didn’t contribute to. We did, but he didn’t. Nothing for our vets, our military, our kid’s education, the elderly, the sick, those in need of a helping hand, highways, bridges, airports, trains, or border security.

Thanks for nothing — and I do mean nothing.

https://youtu.be/qBlEJ0teznM

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Was Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA?

As you know, over the past several months, the mainstream media, which is controlled by … well, I don’t need to say it … has been been running articles and news stories virtually every single day in advance of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, Born To Run.

The book is being published by Simon and Schuster, a company founded by a man with German-Jewish ancestry who incidentally was the father of singer-songwriter Carly Simon who was once married to a musician known to authorities as a heroin addict. Currently the publisher is a subsidiary of CBS Corporation, which is an international multimedia conglomerate that just so happens to also produce the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. So to be crystal clear, an organization that broadcasts a subliminal Satanic message aimed directly at young children is now assisting in advancing a possible lie that a politically subversive popular guitarist and singer was born in the USA.

I don’t have to tell you that many people have often questioned the heritage of Bruce Springsteen, who has spent much of  his career associating and advancing the music and politics of people like Pete Seeger, the late activist who refused to answer questions from the US Congress surrounding his membership in the Communist Party. Our huge and experienced investigative team of reporters has been working around the clock in fact-checking an early advance of Born To Run, and we’ve uncovered many inaccuracies that raise more questions about just who this man is.

For example, we have uncovered that the author writes at length in the book about his father’s Irish-American heritage, a man who went by the name of Dutch Springsteen. Consulting a world map and  encyclopedia, as well as scrutinizing Where’s Waldo?, our geo-political specialists now confirm the close proximity to Germany of the former Dutch Republic currently known as the Netherlands. The importance of this is that origin of the name Springsteen is now in question.

It is a well documented fact that in an article published in 2013, TheNew York Times “misspelled” the Boss’s last name as “Springstein,” which I’m not saying actually means something, but most of us can clearly see the unintended link to Gertrude Stein. A self-described lesbian, Stein (who as you know, is often pronounced as Steen) promoted pro-immigration and democratic policies throughout her life, with a mix of reactionary and progressive ideas. Although I’m not trying to insinuate it, the coincidence is troubling.

While none of these actual historical facts (and there are hundreds more that will be revealed in the next few weeks) can be linked to Bruce Springsteen, in the shadows of this new dark autobiography, there are some people who are beginning to question his political views and heritage, wondering out loud if his most popular song, “Born In The USA,”  was written and released to cover up his true nationality.

I now can officially report to you that despite sending hundreds of telepathic messages to New Jersey officials through a medium located inside a Brooklyn storefront on Flatbush Avenue, these government bureaucrats have absolutely refused to provide me a copy of Bruce Springsteen’s birth certificate. My amazing attorneys are preparing a lawsuit which will be filed very soon in federal court and I can promise that I will get to the bottom of this conspiracy and report my findings no matter how long it takes.

I dashed off the above piece of fiction the morning after Donald Trump attempted to erase years of his own infamous lies and deception directed toward President Barack Obama. In his role as the loudest and most vocal spokesperson of what we identify as the “birther movement,” Trump has built his political career based on racism and bigotry. Along with his ability to consistently state lies and falsehoods that too often go unchecked, he teaches all of us how easy it is to cast doubt and suspicion through innuendo and fear. He is everything wrong about the values and beliefs of our great country.

I apologize to Bruce Springsteen for using him and his new book as a vehicle for making my point, and want to be clear that this represents my own views and not those of either owner and publisher, editor or staff of No Depression website or magazine, nor any parent or subsidiary companies.

Let’s close it out with a little music … and please use your vote to keep America safe, sane and free forever from demagogues and con men.

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression dot com.

The Americana-ization of Bob Weir

Bob Weir met Jerry Garcia at Dana Morgan’s Music Store in Palo Alto, early in 1963. Before the Beatles came along and influenced them into forming an electric rock band, the pair’s group was known as Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. Bringing in elements of country, folk, bluegrass, and blues, they plugged in, added some folks, became the Grateful Dead and … y’all know the rest.

When I first saw the Dead, it was in a small college gymnasium. The New Riders of the Purple Sage, with Jerry Garcia sitting in on pedal steel, opened the show, and much of the material that the Dead performed that night came from Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Five years later, I watched Old and In the Way take the stage with Garcia, David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements, and John Kahn. They delivered a stellar set of traditional bluegrass.

As the Dead greatly expanded their music vocabulary through the years, my personal interest in them went from attending dozens and dozens of their concerts throughout the ’70s, to finally drifting away. Honestly, I just got bored with the scene rather than the music. Nonetheless, it’s always surprised me that so many fans of traditional music — as well as writers, reviewers, and even publications such as (the previous incarnation of) No Depression — never seemed to be able to draw the distinction between their jam band rock-ola experience and the fact that the Dead’s origins were grounded in American roots music.

To put it bluntly, I believe the Grateful Dead were doing Americana music long before a bunch of people came together in the late 1990s and actually decided to call it Americana.

Which brings me to Bob Weir.

In August, it was announced that in support of his new solo album Blue Mountain, Weir would be in Nashville during the Americana Music Festival and Conference to take part in a workshop where he’ll play songs from the album. Producer Josh Kaufman will be on hand and Buddy Miller will moderate a Q&A. Here’s a little of what to expect:

Whether it was hocus, pocus, magic, or an outstanding lobbying effort from his record label, publicist, and management team, the week after that event was scheduled came big news that Weir will receive the Lifetime Achievement: Performer award at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on September 21. Whatever the circumstances surrounding Weir being selected, this recognition is more than well-deserved.

As far as I can find, there’s never been any acknowledgment of the Dead’s contribution to the genre from the AMA. Its members have earned some accolades from the association — Jerry Garcia was given the President’s Award in 2008, and Dead lyricist Robert Hunter got the Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting in 2013 — but the band itself has never actually been named. Feels to me like there’s an opportunity there in the future to do the Dead right.

While it’s impossible to separate the man from the Dead, there is a documentary by Mike Fleiss titled The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir, which is a great starting point. Available on Netflix for the past year, it offers a detailed oral history with great archival footage and music. But it was the intimate and loving look at Weir’s life today as both husband and father that filled my heart … a true lifetime achievement on its own.

https://youtu.be/HRuaRcqvnzc

 

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression:: The Journal of Roots Music’s website.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com

The Death of Country Music: Natural Cause or Homicide

Some days my bones feel weary. It especially hurts when I get down on my knees, slowly bend over, and flip through dusty shelves of old, used books. Years ago it was record stores, but I can barely recall the last time I opened my wallet for a hunk of plastic. It’s so much easier to stream it,  and when I leave home I can fit a few thousand songs inside my phone. But when it comes to words on a page, I still prefer paper to pixel.

A few months ago I found a copy of Nicholas Dawidoff’s In The Country of Country: Peoples and Places in American Music that was published almost 20 years ago, and I just got around to reading it. Named “one of the greatest all-time works of travel literature” by Conde Nast Traveler, Dawidoff’s series of short profiles and conversations with some of the pioneers of country music at times feels more like a eulogy to the music than a tribute to a living tradition.

The question of what or who killed country music has been discussed and written about endlessly, and it inspired a song called “Murder on Music Row” which you may recall was popularized in 2000 by George Strait and Alan Jackson.

While most people agree that it was pressure from New York record label executives on Nashville producers in the ’60s to sweeten up traditional country songs with syrupy orchestrations and arrangements that could appeal to a suburban audience, that’s just one of the theories about what went wrong with country music. Another finger points at the 1980 film Urban Cowboy, which re-calibrated the story from Saturday Night Fever and changed up the music.

While Urban Cowboy spawned a fashion trend in big cities of men wearing cowboy boots and women in tight denim jeans doing line dances and two-stepping at strip-mall bars, I’ve always believed it was the pop-country radio playlists — along with the emergence of the Walmart consumer driving a pickup truck and watching Shania Twain doing a virtual lap dance — that killed off hard-core country.

I might have been wrong.

The Stanley Brothers “Rank Stranger” is a beloved country classic, and Dawidoff spent time with Ralph Stanley talking about what it was like growing up in rural Virginia. No running water, no electricity, no bathrooms. They had a horse to plow the field and a washboard to clean their clothes. They were Primitive Baptists, and as such they sang sacred music without instruments on Sunday mornings. When the family moved to Smith Ridge, their father acquired a Philco battery-operated radio, and as they listened to the music of the Manier Brothers and Carter Family, Ralph and his brother Carter would sing along.

https://youtu.be/zvXmVCGLvTs

The Louvin Brothers grew up in Henagar, Alabama, on a five-acre government allotment where their father grew vegetables and sorghum cane. The town had a post office and cotton gin. Charlie was 12 and Ira 15 when they saw Roy Acuff pass by in an aircooled Franklin, on his way to a show at the Spring Hill schoolhouse. They didn’t have the money to get in, so they stood outside with three or four hundred other folks.

Buck Owens was born in Texas just ahead of the Dust Bowl exodus, in 1929. Seven years later, the family of 10 loaded up their old Ford coupe and a trailer to head West in search of a new life. They settled in Arizona and were “fruit tramps,” picking grapes, carrots, peaches, and cotton. Many nights, Owens went to bed hungry, with only cornbread and milk in his stomach. The whole family would travel to California when the seasons called for field work, and they stayed in migrant camps that were often filled with music. According to Dawidoff, “The Mexicans sang folksongs, the blacks sang the blues and spirituals, and the whites sang country gospel and Jimmie Rodgers’ songs.”

These are only three stories he captured, but Dawidoff also profiles Harlan Howard, Johnny Cash, Lester Flatt, Bill Monroe, Chet Atkins, Sara Carter, Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline, the Maddox Brothers, Sister Rose, Merle Haggard, and Iris DeMent. Along the way he meets many other musicians, and there is a common thread.

Pretty much all of the early country artists came from rural areas and their families were, if not poor, then of barely modest means. Religion was a large part of their upbringing, and there was also a consistent tug of “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” behavior. Liquor, drugs, gambling, womanizing, and other diversions were often mentioned.

Seems as if, more than anything, what killed country music was our own country. The population has shifted from living off the land in sparse areas of small populations to larger towns, cities, and suburbs. As much as there is a financial divide of the haves and have-nots, even the poorest of the poor have iPhones and access to popular music and culture.

If you’re searching for a type of music that shares raw stories of people’s lives and experiences, you’re more likely to find it in hip-hop or rap than in the studios of Nashville or on the airwaves. And while we’re fortunate in these times that there is a new generation of great musicians embracing old-time music, bluegrass traditions, folk singing-songwriting, honky-tonk, classic country, and alt-whatever, it all flies under a flag called Americana, which sometimes feels too encapsulated and formulaic. Beware of an Urban Cowboy backsplash and whiplash.

In 1997, Dawidoff closed out his book with an epilogue appropriately titled “No Depression”:

To call today’s mainstream country music county at all is a misnomer. Hot Country is really pop music for a prospering, mostly conservative white middle class. It’s kempt, comfortable music – hyper-sincere, settled and careful not to offend nor surprise. A lot like Disneyland, in some ways its model, contemporary country thrives because it is sleek and predictable, a safe adventure in a smoke-free environment.

In this final chapter Dawidoff offers up a bit more hope and optimism. He cites Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Junior Brown, Alison Krauss, Suzanne Cox, Dwight Yoakam, and Lucinda Williams as having “fresh things to say about life.” He mentions Son Volt and Golden Smog as the heirs to Hank Williams and Gram Parsons. And to close out the book he quotes Joe Ely: “You know, good stuff, people’ll want to hear it.”

This guy sure gives all of us country music fans hope.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email is easyed@therealeasyed.com

Image from 1947, Carnegie Hall NYC: CC2.0 Wiki