Ken Burn’s Country Music | Review

Country Music (2019)

PBS

Kan Burns is an awful filmmaker. Just awful. Jeffrey St. Clair long ago wrote (Serpents in the Garden) that “[Burns’] films all construct a pantheon of heroes and anti-heroes, little manufactured dramas of good and evil.” He added that a Burns film is “a fantasy meant for the white suburban audiences who watch his movies[,]” presenting “a feel-good narrative of white patronage and understanding.” (see also “History Blinded by Anti-Socialism”).

Country Music is a documentary mini-series based on the book Country Music U.S.A., and its author Bill Malone seems to be the only academic featured in the series. There is plenty of good music of course, but it suffers from all the usual problems of a Ken Burns production. It revisits Johnny Cash in just about every episode (which is fine, at one level, but like the “jazz” series this comes across as pandering and exploiting a popular figure at the expense of an evenhanded treatment with more space for later-arriving and less famous acts). There is a lot of glowing praise for trite stuff, especially from the 80s, and criticisms (e.g., racism, sexism) are mentioned, if at all, only in a highly compartmentalized and apologetic way — certainly not as lingering and still deeply pervasive structural problems in the genre and society writ large. In short, it presents the standard “progressive neoliberal” view that if a mere handful of people (Charley Pride, Dolly Parton, etc.) overcame racism and sexism then those problems no longer really exist except as individual failings. There is also a clear predilection for commentary from celebrity performer talking heads over academics, etc. But in case you are wondering, yes, Wynton Marsalis is indeed a featured commentator. Can’t have a country music documentary without him, right? It could have used some input from Peter Guralnick (author of Lost Highway), but does not feature any input from him.

The episode that dealt with the mid-80s really starkly reveals the limitations of the series. You can really pinpoint that the acts featured in that episode (Ricky Skaggs, Randy Travis, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Roseanne Cash, etc.) constitute the tipping point when country music started to really suck. The episode repeats over and over the claim that these artists were returning to their “roots” (the episode is titled “Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’ “). But this proves to be false, or at least extremely misleading. Featured commentators do accurately state that in this period mainstream country acts moved away from the strings and backing singers that characterized earlier “countrypolitan” music. But the falsehood is that they did this to return to some mythical musical “roots”. Countrypolitan (or the “Nashville Sound”) was mostly about middlebrow, southern, white, working class-focused music appropriating the trappings of urban pop music of the 40s (like Frank Sinatra’s work with Axel Stordahl) to lend an air of sophistication to match rising post-WWII socioeconomic expectations that extended down the socioeconomic hierarchy in an unprecedented way. In a review of Willie Nelson‘s The Party’s Over (And Other Great Willie Nelson Songs) (1967) I previously wrote that countrypolitan music

“epitomized the (still racist and sexist) ‘golden age”’of post-WWII American prosperity in which ordinary, uneducated workers saw rising living standards and could see themselves as part of a newly emerging middle class with its own self-styled sophistication — something that might be described as attempting to project an aura of sophistication beyond class boundaries via ideas about ‘proper’ diction and enunciation cribbed from upper classes and merged with lower-class folk/country musical forms. Looked at another way, the temporary willingness of elite classes to permit rising working and middle classes was fostered by inculcating country music listeners with upper-class values as well as the speech patterns and more urban culture that went along with those values (when elites withdrew their permissive and benevolent attitude starting in the 1970s, the countrypolitan style faded almost in lockstep and is now commonly derided as low-class and unsophisticated).”

Johnny Cash’s The Baron (1981) is sort of a perfect example to illustrate the turn away from what countrypolitan music represented. Drawing on the work of Historian Jefferson Cowie about the sorts of socioeconomic changes that took place in the 1970s, as evidenced through music and film (Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class [2010]), I wrote that “given a close examination, there is is something to be admired in Cash’s intransigent support of his old New Deal style social optimism against the great weight of the Carter-Thatcher-Reagan era’s neoliberal onslaught against it.” Cowie has pointed to a dominant narrative of the lone individual failing or having a bittersweet ending trying to break away from the claustrophobic confines of social structures during the early neoliberal era, whereas on The Baron Cash took a kind of Spielbergian view of bringing a family back together, lamenting the loss of solidarity, family, community — that is, anomie.

When you actually listen to the music featured in the Burns episode about mid-80s acts, it is pretty apparent that what was happening was a modernizing effect as the most popular acts substituted sterile, highly compressed/gated, and synthetic 80s productions values from rock/pop music for the old countrypolitan strings and vocal choruses, and they were now utilizing a more highly affected country yodel/twang style of singing that had seemingly little precedent (it wasn’t at all a return to Jimmie Rodgers’ style of blue yodel singing). They were mostly just appropriating more recent rock/pop fads, with a few entirely new vocal affectations meant to distinguish it from the music of “urban elites” (now constructed as an enemy). And there is no explicit discussion of the (right-wing populist and reactionary and “Southern Strategy”) politics that go along with this. Though there were some photos/videos of acts posing with the Reagans and Ed Koch. What jumped to mind was Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas? (2004) thesis, and maybe Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers’s Right Turn (1987) thesis as well. Anyway, in the Burns series episode, what is not clearly explained is that the invocation of a return to “roots” is not a reference to musical qualities but is more a coded statement about constructing (through musical culture) an identity as a distinct social group opposed to certain (unstated) enemies. The way that the Burns series takes these statements at face value and refuses to unpack the coded implications is irksome (as Georg Lukács wrote in 1938, “It is an old truth of Marxism that every human activity should be judged according to the objective meaning in the total context, and not according to what the agent believes the importance of his activity to be.”). And, my my, most of the music in this episode is dreadful. When they showed some old Ricky Skaggs music video clips my spouse (appropriately) made vomiting sounds. Oh, and they talk to Roseanne Cash a lot through the series and in this episode she talks about her own career. My spouse was guffawing at everything she said because it was so transparently false. The series lets her get away with it (by airing the statements at all, as well as by omitting any critique of her statements). She claims she was not riding her father’s coattails but this is just completely contradicted by her actions (“I even thought about changing my name” … but she didn’t; she claimed to come to Nashville from LA, but she grew up in the south and had Nashville music business ties; etc.). As irksome as the episode is, some of the raw material in it at least allows a viewer to compare how earlier era country music was a more honest reflection of rural peasant/working class values (which is not to say all those values were admirable) whereas in the 80s it became more highly disingenuous and cynical and more prone to use coded language to obscure unappealing motivations. I guess an appraisal of mainstream country music in the 80s calls for an analysis out of Peter Sloterdijk’s Critique of Cynical Reason (1983).

The series does mention media consolidation in the 1990s. It is discussed for approximately 2 minutes (in a series with eight roughly 2-hour episodes!). Although some excellent points are raised in those two minutes, the problem is that they are given short shrift when the bulk of the series promotes winner-take-all frameworks, through incessant invocation of rags-to-riches motifs and an unrelenting focus on best-selling artists that presumes sales/profitability is the exclusive yardstick for merit. As part of those two minutes, the film makes a bizarre claim that the (Billboard?) “Americana” chart was created to capture alternative country in the face of media consolidation. The way it is discussed in the narrative conflates the “Americana” chart with “alt country” in a misleading way. They also briefly show a still photograph of the Dixie Chicks in a closing montage, but nothing after 1996 is discussed. Johnny Cash gets extensive time (yet again) in the final episode. It wouldn’t surprise me if 1-2 hours of the entire series is devoted to Johnny Cash (at the high end of that range if screen time by Roseanne Cash counts too). Hugely popular acts from the period like kd lang and Lyle Lovett are not mentioned at all. Garth Brooks gets a lot of time and much of the commentary by or about him is highly suspect (untenable assertions are taken at face value with no critique or contrasting perspective; my spouse once again guffawed when someone in the film says Garth Brooks refused to let his record label promote him outside the “country” market, as if a musician is willing and able to do that [whatever that really means anyway — does a highway billboard qualify as promotion outside the country market?]).

I guess in the end this makes me wonder if someone has written a good book-length treatment of country music from an interesting critical perspective–the sort of book that does not take self-serving statements at face value and that is willing to question industry motives and apply a kind of “objective” sociological or political science type of analysis (i.e., along the lines of Bourdieu’s Distinction).

Willie Nelson – My Own Peculiar Way

Willie Nelson – My Own Peculiar Way RCA Victor LSP-4111 (1969)

Of Willie’s numerous forays into hybrids of country and pop in the late 1960s and early 70s, My Own Peculiar Way is probably the most consistent. The backing arrangements are all reasonably suited to the music, unlike the jarring discontinuities of Willie Nelson & Family or the revolting and overbearing schlock of Laying My Burdens Down. That isn’t to say this is a great album. It is unambitious. But it is also pleasant enough.

Johnny Cash: A Guide to the Music of The Man in Black

A list by Syd Fablo and Bruno Bickleby

Introduction

Born: February 26, 1932, Kingsland, AR, United States
Died: September 12, 2003, Nashville, TN, United States

Johnny Cash, The Man in Black, is an iconic figure in American popular music. His deep bass-baritone voice and his bold — if sometimes contradictory — image made him a legend. He was raised on a New Deal cotton farm in Dyess, Arkansas. He served in the U.S. Air Force in Germany. He settled in Memphis, Tennessee and there broke into the music business. He was highly popular in the 1960s and early 1970s, but his popularity waned in his later years before a surprise comeback in the 1990s. Though ostensibly a “country” musician, he never quite fit the standard mold of a country artist. He didn’t sing with a country yodel or affected twang, and he usually didn’t wear a cowboy hat or cowboy boots. Even posthumously he still has a significant following of listeners with no interest in country music in general. His music doesn’t always appeal to very young listeners. Many only appreciate him when they get older. Although he certainly crossed paths with the Nashville country music establishment his career never depended on it, which bolstered his image as a singular and unshakable personality who always set his own rules and did things his own way. Unlike other stars, like Elvis or Willie Nelson, Cash never maintained a big entourage.

Much of Cash’s music is built around a simple “boom-chicka-boom” rhythm, with instrumentation that lacks the twang, pedal steel guitar, fiddle, and other elements frequently associated with mainstream country music. He had no formal musical training. Lyrically, Cash’s music often focuses on law breakers, the ordinary working man, the christian religion, work, love, and liberty. Through much of that, he blends a lot of humor, down-to-Earth wisdom, and rural pride delivered with a plainspoken tone that recalls Ulysses S. Grant. In his second autobiography he said,

“I endorse Kris Kristofferson‘s line about me, ‘He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.’ I also like Rosanne‘s line, ‘He believes what he says, but that don’t make him a saint.'”

He struggled with drug addictions much of his life, and had numerous health problems in his old age.

Cash’s recorded catalog can be difficult to encapsulate. For one, he recorded a lot. Many damn his full-length albums with faint praise: lots are good, but few are consistently great. Some critics particularly dismiss his albums of the 1960s, though Cash disagreed and retorted that his 60s concept albums are some of the works he’s most proud of. Regardless of the specifics, even the lesser albums tend to have at least a few good songs. But this often leaves listeners grasping for compilations, many of which gravitate to a Cash cannon that omits a surprising amount of excellent work. Of course, there are the prison albums. He made three (or four), and two were his biggest commercial successes and the bedrock of much of his lasting fame.

Country Boy: The Early Years; 1950s

Cash’s big break came when he landed a recording deal with the iconic Memphis label Sun Records, run by Sam Phillips, the label that was at the epicenter of early rock ‘n roll. He also was in The Million Dollar Quartet, with the label’s other biggest stars, though he isn’t distinctly audible on any extant recordings of that group. Though Cash had an interest in gospel music, his earliest sides were mostly country with a rock ‘n roll undercurrent and a whole lot of signature Sun Records reverb. He soon signed over to the major label Columbia Records when his early success presented that opportunity.

Continue reading “Johnny Cash: A Guide to the Music of The Man in Black”

Willie Nelson – The Hungry Years

Willie Nelson – The Hungry Years Sony Music Special Products A22354 (1991)

The Hungry Years — not to be confused with a budget-priced compilation album from the early 1980s by the same name — is one of the most obscure albums in Willie Nelson’s vast catalog. The original sessions were in 1976 at Studio in the Country, located in between Bogalusa and Varnado, Louisiana. There were overdubs in 1978, then the tapes were shelved. They were found in a deteriorated state in the late 1980s, restored, and then further overdubs were added in 1989 and 1991. Amidst Willie’s troubles with the IRS, he negotiated the release of The I.R.S. Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories?, of which a significant portion of the sales were committed to his tax debt (which was mostly accumulated interest and penalties, actually). The I.R.S. Tapes needed to go multi-platinum in order to cover the tax debt, which was overly optimistic. It was sold by mail via 1-800 telephone numbers, supported by TV ads. Starting around June of 1991, The Hungry Years was offered to callers as an add-on. It is not clear that The Hungry Years was ever advertised aside from being mentioned to people calling the 1-800 numbers seeking the I.R.S. Tapes album. But The Television Group, the Austin, Texas company running the telemarketing, went into bankruptcy, and by February of 1992 the 1-800 numbers were shut down. While The I.R.S. Tapes was eventually made available in regular stores, it does not appear that The Hungry Years was ever sold through conventional channels like brick-and-mortar music stores. So that means this album was only ever commercially available for less than a year, and even then only through an obscure call-in mail-order program. Some discographies neglect to even mention that it exists.

The sound of the album falls somewhere between Sings Kristofferson and To Lefty From Willie. The songs draw from the likes of Neil Sedaka and Paul Anka. These were respected songwriters at the time, and even Elvis covered Anka’s “Solitaire” around this time. Their songs have not aged all that well, though, because they fit too comfortably into the mold of being laments of the white patriarch dealing with having to be an “individual” after second-wave feminism and the decline of trade unionism. Overall, there are also a few too many little curlicues and other ornate features added to the music here. It might be the overdub sessions — not one, not two, but three — spread out over 15 years that contribute to that, but Willie’s own contributions are partly to blame as well. His vocals are a little overwrought sometimes, with too much vibrato and too often forced into the upper register of his vocal range. Though even guest Emmylou Harris does the same on one song (“When I Stop Dreaming“). He does add some interesting guitar solos on Trigger. His sister Bobbie gets a good amount of time in the spotlight, which is nice.

There are all sorts of good bits on this album. The biggest problem is that those good bits don’t ever come together in any unified and coherent way. They just float around among more dubious elements and arrangements that are a bit off. For instance, the 1989 overdubs add a horn section — one of the only times one of Willie’s albums tried to recreate the style of Shotgun Willie. But Shotgun Willie had horn arrangements in a classic soul style. These are merely passable approximations. The most sympathetic performance is probably the last song, “Carefree Moments.” But the song itself is not particularly well-written, and a good performance can’t remedy that problem. So this album always threatens to be really good, but seems to consistently fall short.

This rare album is no lost classic. Yet considering the sorry state of so many of Willie’s albums from the 1980s and early 90s, this was certainly better by comparison.

Johnny Cash – The Junkie and the Juicehead Minus Me

Johnny Cash – The Junkie and the Juicehead Minus Me Columbia KC 33086 (1974)

Ragged Old Flag was a transitional album in which Cash finished off with his folk-country phase that began with Hello, I’m Johnny Cash and started to establish a more contemporary sound with the help of producer Charlie Bragg. The Junkie and the Juicehead Minus Me finds the new style firmly established. It’s clearly influenced by the big country stars from Texas, like Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings (those three would team up with Cash to form The Highwaymen a decade later). Kristofferson especially looms large, with two of his songs featured including the great title track. It makes this album a little grittier, looser and modern than typical Cash fare. A few other songs take on more of a bluegrass flavor. Funny thing, though, is that there are a number of songs here where vocals are handed over to guests–all part of Cash’s extended family. On these he sometimes delivers only one line (“Ole Slewfoot”), or nothing noticeable for the entire song. But that’s actually not such a bad thing. The album’s biggest weakness is the lackadaisical effort Cash puts into his vocals. Still, the album tries for a contemporary sound and achieves it without it coming across as forced, and it has aged sufficiently well. This is another of those 1970s Cash albums that’s fairly decent in an average sort of way, and no classic. His next few albums represented a step down in quality from this one.

Johnny Cash – Rockabilly Blues

Johnny Cash – Rockabilly Blues Columbia JC 36779 (1980)

The songs are a bit spotty, but Cash is doing the best he can and his band is at least competent. Rockabilly Blues has Cash putting a pub rock sheen on some of the material. It has a synthetic and compressed sound, which has left it a little dated now, but far less so than Silver. His then step-son-in-law Nick Lowe is on board, and some of this is exactly like what you’d expect a Cash/Lowe collaboration in 1980 to sound like. Other parts are more standard Cash fare for the era. “Without Love” and “It Ain’t Nothing New Babe” are the standouts here. For the most part, this isn’t going to impress anybody new to Cash, but it’s marginally more listenable than some of his other stuff from the slowest part of his career. It probably earns second place in the beauty pageant of his 1980s albums. The curious may want to ponder how this sets out some of the same objectives as Unchained almost two decades later, but just doesn’t deliver nearly as well. It also is maybe worth mentioning that in a few years Dwight Yoakam would find success with generally more energetic music that bore resemblances to this (Yoakam would be a staunch and vocal defender of Cash later in the decade).

Willie Nelson – Both Sides Now

Willie Nelson – Both Sides Now RCA Victor LSP-4292 (1970)

Willie ups the folk-rock influence on this one. There are a few very decent performances here, like “Crazy Arms” and “Pins and Needles (In My Heart).” Although many of Willie’s early recordings that looked toward pop/rock music fizzled, the “folk” aspect of this means that there are no cheesy backing strings or horns, and very minimal backing vocals (on “Pins and Needles” the backing vocals recall certain Johnny Cash recordings and anticipate Neko Case‘s entire solo career). “Everybody’s Talkin'” is a big swing and miss though. Nothing here is especially memorable, but, overall, this is slightly better than Willie’s next couple RCA albums, which doesn’t exactly say a whole lot. As another reviewer astutely put it, “All in all, Both Sides Now is a lackluster effort that does hint at his future direction, though it does so rather obliquely.”

Willie Nelson – Laying My Burdens Down

Willie Nelson – Laying My Burdens Down RCA Victor LSP-4404 (1970)

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Willie Nelson’s album displayed a clear interest in what was happening in rock/pop music. He had a few years of national touring under his belt, and had been exposed to the wider world somewhat. His records still adhered to the dictates of the Nashville system, but tried to combine Nashville country with pop/rock. The thing was, these were somewhat timid attempts. Willie latched on to only the most conservative pop of the day. He also still clung to an old-fashioned way of singing for the most part. It was as if he took a correspondence course on how to be a successful singer and he dutifully followed a list of instructions that included “Enunciate clearly.” In a way, he still sang like a louder, southern Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. After his Nashville home burned, and he and his band briefly relocated to Texas under communal conditions, he finally did summon the courage to try bolder things with his music. That eventually led him to Atlantic Records in New York, where he made a string of classic albums and achieved stardom.

Laying My Burdens Down displays clear attempts to look beyond country music. The results aren’t as awkward as on the following year’s Willie Nelson & Family, but they are cheesier. The backing vocals retain a little of the classic Nashville feel, though they make overt attempts to combine pentecostal gospel chorus and 5th Dimension-style pop affectations. The horn arrangements lean heavily on the style of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. Willie does play his acoustic guitar Trigger some, but also an overbearing electric guitar much of the time. In general, his guitar playing is aimless and confused. The guitar ranges from being overbearing to indistinctly cluttered. The strings are fine, if a little cheesy. Willie’s vocals show signs of moving beyond the old crooning style, but only tentatively. It would be a few more years before his vocals settled into the style that helped make him a superstar. This album isn’t terrible. It still is a lesser Nelson effort. Some of the backing vocals and other orchestration was stripped away on a few songs for Naked Willie, released almost four decades later, which provides a somewhat contrasting perspective. It is curious to think about how Willie’s interests in rock and the counterculture were problematic because he was a southern outsider, not able (if willing) to step into that milieu directly, but also having no one at his Nashville-based record label able (if willing) to help him connect with the predominantly northern rock music world. Willie was kind of stuck between two incompatible worlds — a bit like the film Electra Glide in Blue from a few years later. So this remains a transitional effort that pales in comparison to what hindsight shows was just around the corner. Yet this does retain some kitsch value.

Willie Nelson – Here’s Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson – Here’s Willie Nelson Liberty LST-7308 (1963)

A common opinion is that Willie Nelson’s second full-length album Here’s Willie Nelson was a step back from his debut …And Then I Wrote. Those people often say that this is “Nashville cliché”, referring to the “countrypolitan” style it evinces. But a response to all that should be, “And?” Yes, Here’s Willie Nelson fits in the mold of the weepy drama of the “Nashville Sound” — a close comparison would be Skeeter Davis‘ “End of the World.” But it really represents the best possible execution of the Nashville Sound.

There are a couple of things that boost this album. First is producer Tommy Allsup. He was a touring member of The Crickets and once lost a coin flip to Ritchie Valens such that he lost a seat and was not on the plane that crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa on February 3, 1959 that killed Valens, Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. Allsup brings out the best in the instrumental performances, accentuating the spark and energy of all the performers and balancing Willie’s vocals with the orchestration. He eschews the prominent focus on Nelson’s vocals evident on his debut. Surprisingly, pushing the vocals down a little in the mix works well.

Another key factor in the album’s success is the arranging work of Ernie Freeman and Jimmy Day. The orchestral treatments by Freeman are really quite excellent and much better than the formulaic leftovers that characterized Willie’s albums later in the decade for the RCA Victor label. Each song gets its own distinct character, matched to the tone of each song. Just check the calmly sizzling trills and glissandos from the strings on the bluesy closer “Home Motel,” and contrast the pastoral elegance and more complex harmonic blocking of “Half of Man” or the busy energy of the strings on “Take My Word,” or the juxtaposition of pedal steel guitar with sweeping string orchestration and indistinct backing vocal chorus of “Second Fiddle” where the orchestra briefly trades off with a solitary country fiddle solo and closes with a country/Euro-classical solo fiddle flourish. “The Way You See Me” displays masterful balancing of traded instrumental backing behind Willie’s insistent singing and a gently and slowly walking bass — alternating the more prominent voicing between fiddle, piano and pedal steel guitar in a way that reflects the song’s protagonist’s attempt to put up a dignified and happy facade to conceal his heartbroken loneliness. The vocal choruses combine both male and female voices, which adds a rich textural/timbral dimension. “Lonely Little Mansion” uses sustained vocal backing to add a kind of protestant church aesthetic of serene, austere, atmospherics, somewhat like what Johnny Cash used on songs like the B-side “Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord).” But then “The Last Letter” uses the vocal chorus’ expanding vibrato to emphasize a slight polyrhythm against the song’s core waltz rhythm. The orchestration is never overly complex or abstract. Yet there is still clearly much more effort put into it than on so many other Nashville sound recordings of the day.

After releasing his debut, Willie lamented that he wasted too many good songs on it. In other words, he felt the album was too good and should have been watered down! Unfortunately, that sort of thinking would prevail all too often over his long career. But it is also kind of a self-important statement, because it implies that his own songwriting was inherently better than that of cover songs he might record. Here’s Willie Nelson features a mix of original songs and covers. The covers are quite good though! There is absolutely nothing wrong with something like “Feed It a Memory” or a chestnut like “Roly Poly.” The stately elegance of a song like “Things I Might Have Been” captures the frustrated aspirations that perfectly fits the “countrypolitan” style. He may have choosen some covers rather than all originals here, but nothing is watered down.

Willie’s singing here is much looser and relaxed than on his recordings from later in the 1960s. He also tempers the “jazzy” affectations of his debut somewhat. Though those tendencies are still here. He still sings with a vibrato-less tone way behind the beat. On the opener, the western swing staple “Roly Poly,” he gets so far behind the beat that he barely finishes the verse he’s on before the band has moved on to another part of the song! In these various ways he finds a balance that suits the “countrypolitan” style better than on any of his other recordings in that style. His singing, honestly, isn’t always particularly great on the second side of the album. But it is never bad. But for the most part Willie singing on record became less welcoming for many years, until he passed through a sort of existential personal crisis in the early 1970s.

“Take My Word” is a weaker offering (but is also the shortest song here), as is “Let Me Talk to You,” with Willie limping along with jazzily dissonant phrasing. And, no, nothing here quite matches the heights of the best songs on the debut …And Then I Wrote. But this album still avoids the more jarring discontinuities between Willie’s singing and the studio band’s performances that appeared on his debut, and it manages to be more consistent on the whole. Frankly, Willie wouldn’t make a record this uniformly rewarding until 1971’s Yesterday’s Wine.

Willie Nelson – Good Times

Willie Nelson – Good Times RCA Victor LSP-4057 (1968)

Even if Good Times isn’t Willie’s best early (pre-fame) album, an argument can be made that it is his most important. All his prior albums on the RCA Victor label in the 1960s looked back to styles that had already been established by other artists. Willie just dropped in his own songs and vocals. Texas in My Soul — amazingly, also released in 1968 — is a Nashville take on western swing and honky tonk that was more popular a decade or two earlier, with really stiff vocals and feigned gravitas. Willie appeared on these early album covers wearing a suit, or dressed as a country bumpkin. He was acceding to industry demands and fitting himself into the mold of what the Nashville music machine deemed salable. Suddenly, though, Willie sounded more relaxed and…modern. This album’s cover features a photo of Nelson in casual attire on a golf course green (he actually really liked golf) with his arms wrapped around some young woman helping her putt, a goofy grin on his face. The photo makes a number of allusions. For one, the presence of the woman and Willie’s grin suggest sexism and patriarchy. Willie’s clothes and association with golf suggest middle class economic security. And his grin and the title lettering stating “Good Times” suggest a shift away from they way he was previously marketed as either a “serious” songwriter or an “authentic” country hick — or both, as kind of an anthropological cultural translator or “cross-over” envoy — instead hinting at a kind of sarcastic and ironic distance. Many of these things seem to stand in conflict with one another. But most importantly there were now multiple plausible meanings and messages. These presented a sort of challenge. How would these conflicts be resolved?

This is an early appearance of the style that would develop into the likes of The Words Don’t Fit the Picture. As another reviewer put it, “Nothing here screams chart topping hit and it must have been nightmare for recording company who wanted to sell this, on the other hand music actually stands the test of time quite nicely and for once it doesn’t sound dated at all but actually timeless. ” His original songs, some co-written with his then-wife Shirley, make extensive use of irony. He had used irony before (“Hello Walls,” “Undo the Right”), but now this was a more melancholy and existential irony. On the title track, “Good Times,” he is describing sarcastically the suburban, middle-class “American Dream” (and the Viet Nam War) alongside innocent childhood activities. This was the sort of stuff much more prevalent in “rock” and rock-influenced pop music of the day. “December Day” even deploys jazzy chords that use dissonance that was (and still is) quite unusual for country music. These descriptions only fit side one of the album though. On side two, Willie is back within the confines of the “Nashville Sound,” with plenty of string orchestration, a little pedal steel guitar, coy backing vocal choruses, and the other usual Nashville trappings. Now, the “typical Nashville” stuff on side two is not bad, and actually is better than many of Willie’s other forays into that territory. But there is a sense of retreat. It is very hard to listen to this now and not lament how much better this album would have been if the whole thing was done in the pared-back acoustic style of side one.

When Willie really hit it big in the mid-1970s, he had a reputation for bringing together rock and country audiences. The fact that he was interested in the music of each of those disparate demographics first made an appearance on Good Times. He hadn’t quite figured out how to balance his appeal to both of those frequently antagonistic listening audiences yet, but this was kind of a trial run. He would continue to tinker and experiment in this direction in to the early 1970s, though as he remained within the Nashville system there was really no way to advance Willie’s line of thinking far enough. It was when he went to New York and teamed up with rock/soul/R&B people that everything finally fell into place on record.