You Like Country Music. You Just Don’t Know it.
Especially if you’re a hippie.
It’s March 1971 and you’re cruising to class as Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee” blasts out through the speakers of your ’63 Jeep. Joplin passed only 5 months prior, and “Me and Bobby McGee” just shot to number one on the Billboard pop charts. It was everywhere. It was ubiquitous. It was somehow both heart-wrenching and hip. An anthem for an entire generation that had just experienced both Woodstock and Altamont.
It was also country music.
Kris Kristofferson wrote “Me and Bobby McGee” as a contemplative and even lamenting country song inspired by a secretary and a Fellini film. Kristofferson held a Masters in English Literature from Oxford and had turned down an assignment to teach English at West Point so he could be a janitor at Columbia Records just to be in the midst of country music. Roger Miller was the first to record Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” in 1969, and when he did it was a distinctly three-chords-and-the-truth country and western tale of longing for an ex the narrator had once travelled with. Miller’s version had a crisp Bakersfield sound — Mexican horns and all — but Kristofferson had written it in Nashville hoping to catch a break.
As Kristofferson tells it, when Joplin’s producer played him Joplin’s version posthumously, he wept. Surely he was not the only one.
“Me and Bobby McGee” is far from the only country song you probably have in your record collection, even if you’re one of those who typically turns their nose up at the mere mention of “country.” Flip to the B side of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” and you’ll find “Act Naturally,” sung by Ringo, but originally written by Johnny Russell — who also recorded the extremely country-titled “Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer.” “Act Naturally” was first recorded by Buck Owens and his Buckaroos who — along with Merle Haggard — popularized the Bakersfield Sound, setting the stage for country-rock and outlaw country.
Deadheads, walk over to your record collection. Pull out Europe ’72. Unfold the outer sleeve of your ultimate collection of live Dead — your prized 6-side masterpiece. Turn to side two, track two — “You Win Again.” Who’s that in the writing credit? Could it be? No. Hank goddamn Williams.
Nor is “You Win Again” even close to the only straight-up country tune the Dead played over the years, not the least of which are Johnny Cash’s “Big River” and Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried.” Jerry Garcia even played the pedal steel on the New Riders of the Purple Sage’s self-titled debut album in 1971, and he played it damn well.
During the Dead’s first love affair with country music, Bob Weir also released “Ace” in 1972, containing the undeniably country tune “Mexicali Blues” — written by Weir and John Barlow, but might as well have been performed by Buck Owens or Merle Haggard. It was Bakersfield Sound country music through and through.
Nor were the Dead shy about incorporating the Bakersfield Sound.
Fast forward four years to what many classic rock historians (by that, I mean the guy who smoked a bowl this morning and got out his records) consider to be the best video-recorded concert performance of all time: The Last Waltz.
I watch this masterpiece of film and music directed by Martin Scorsese and performed by the Band (and very special guests) every Thanksgiving. Performed on Thanksgiving Day 1976 at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco and released in theaters in 1978, the Last Waltz saw the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, the Staples Singers, and Joni Mitchell gracing the stage in an all-out celebration of every genre that made up American popular music (though I should note that almost everyone in the Band is Canadian).
One guest in particular, though, highlighted the Band’s roots as a truly country ensemble. To those unfamiliar with the Band’s history, Ronnie Hawkins may have seemed like a strange choice to call up to the stage to sing on Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” A giant cowboy hat with a hawk embroidered on it, a strut like Foghorn Leghorn, and yells of “Big time, Bill! Big time! Big time!” into the microphone, there is no mistaking Hawkins for any other genre than country.
Hawkins was the reason Levon Helm met Robbie Robertson. He was the reason Rick Danko met Garth Hudson. In a direct sense, Ronnie Hawkins created the Band. Each member of the Band joined the Hawks one by one, launching off from Toronto and playing rockabilly in the style of Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley.
I’m not sure it matters much where we place rockabilly in the spectrum of blues to country. It is both, country among them.
The Band held onto this somehow-north-of-the-border country feel long after they parted ways with Hawkins. A standout — perhaps the standout — Levon Helm performance on The Last Waltz is “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Written by Robbie Robertson over a period of 8 months with Levon Helm on lead vocals, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” feels like a song from another era. In fact, it is specifically a story about a poor Confederate soldier fighting to survive Union advances at the end of the Civil War.
Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
Till Stoneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again,
In the winter of ’65, we were hungry, just barely alive,
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it’s a time I remember, oh so well,
The night they drove old Dixie down.
Appearing on their second and self-titled studio album, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is a quintessential piece of Americana that feels more vintage than it is and — given its Canadian-American author — perhaps more American than it is. However you classify it, it must be under a subheading of country music. That’s what it is.
“Rag Mama Rag” and “Up on Cripple Creek” from that record also have distinctly southern and arguably country feels to them. Put ’em on and see what your feet do. They’ll tell you if it’s country.
As a final example of country music being ever-present in the American experience, there is the odd and delightful story of revered children’s author Shel Silverstein. I personally have fond childhood memories of holding my copy of “The Giving Tree” close and reading it or having it read to me.
What I didn’t know then, and I can still scarcely believe is true, is that Shel Silverstein wrote and performed country music, including authoring “A Boy Named Sue,” famously performed by Johnny Cash at San Quentin State Prison on New Year's Day 1969. Cash’s performance so moved one particular inmate at San Quentin that it inspired him to go on to a post-incarceration career writing and performing country music. That inmate was named Merle Haggard.
The author of “The Giving Tree” wrote a song that Johnny Cash performed for Merle Haggard in prison, who would go on to write “Mama Tried” about being in prison, which would then be covered by the Grateful Dead. If you can read that sentence and still say you don’t like country music, maybe you really don’t. I happen to think it’s delightful.
Nor was “A Boy Named Sue” Shel Silverstein’s only contribution to country music. This particular gem always puts a smile on my face:
You probably have some Johnny Cash in your collection — Live at San Quentin or Folsom Prison maybe. Maybe you snagged some worn Elvis records from the $2 bin. But that’s not the only country in your collection. Not by a long shot.
From Janis Joplin to the Beatles, from the Grateful Dead to the Band, the history of classic rock is inextricably tied to that genre of music many snobs are simply unwilling to admit they like. While I am not usually one to cling to labels, the much-maligned genre of “country” contains multitudes and should be embraced by any serious connoisseur of American popular music. It is a narrative that marks a time in our nation’s history. We all love country music, from Merle Haggard to Buck Owens to Johnny Cash to Bob Dylan and back to Janis Joplin.
Some of us just admit it.
Of emotions, of love, of breakup, of love and hate and death and dying, mama, apple pie, and the whole thing. It covers a lot of territory, country music does.
— Johnny Cash
For more on the history of country music, I highly recommend watching Ken Burns’ 2019 documentary “Country Music.”
