Archive for August, 2008
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
Stand By Your Man
Tammy Wynette
1968
Written by Billy Sherrill and Tammy Wynette
It was a seminal moment in a career filled with them, but the recording of “Stand by Your Man“ has contributed considerably to the world of country music. It caused the questioning of gender roles and stirred up dialogue about how far a woman’s heart can stretch in the face of her man’s transgressions.
“Stand by Your Man” was reportedly written in 15 minutes, the creation of Wynette and her producer, Billy Sherrill. Wynette’s gorgeous performance is sympathetic yet strong. As always, Wynette possesses a heartbreaking quality in her voice, but still remains as calm as ever. Her declaration of love for her man is powerful, despite the admission of his sinful dealings. The song is an ode to a faithful, supportive wife and the understanding that her man has faults and failing, but she will continue to stay by his side. Feminists criticized the song, believing it was belittling to women, but Wynette defended the song profusely. Her intent, she said, was to call women to forgive their wayward men.
Following shortly after her great breakup ballad, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” the ode to loyalty soon became what Sherrill would call her signature song. Released as a single in late 1968, the song reached No. 1 on the country chart for three weeks, and also became a No. 19 pop hit. The classic anthem to faith and fidelity also won Wynette her first Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female in 1969.
New controversy marked the song in the early 1990s when soon-to-be First Lady Hillary Clinton told CBS’ 60 Minutes that she “wasn’t some little woman ‘standing by my man’ like Tammy Wynette.” Wynette demanded an apology, and Clinton retracted her statement. Later, in a gesture of reconciliation, Wynette performed at a Clinton fundraiser.
Different perceptions surround the song, but Wynette’s portrayal of a forgiving woman evoked strength and power, lending evidence to the belief that “Stand By Your Man” is till-death-do-you-part devotion rather than blind faith in a faltering love.
“Stand By Your Man” is the latest in a series of articles showcasing Classic Country Singles. You can read previous entries at the Classic Country Singles page.
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
Patty Griffin
Belly Up Tavern
Solana Beach, California
August 28, 2008
At some point, every dedicated fan should have the opportunity to watch their favorite artist(s)—no matter how big or famous—perform from five feet away. Particularly in a small, intimate venue that captures every stray guitar lick and nuance in the voice. There’s nothing quite like it. I had that opportunity Thursday night as I dragged an unsuspecting friend (and new fan) to see the luminous and beautiful Patty Griffin perform at a sold-out Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, California. Before a couple hundred adoring fans, she put on a show I will not soon forget.
On the way to the show my friend asked me “What kind of music does Patty sing?” My first response was “Well, she’s labeled Americana.” Blank stare. But really, how does one define Patty’s style? I read this definition of Americana or roots music online the other day. It applies perfectly to Patty and I couldn’t have summed it up better: “American Roots music isn’t country, pop or rock, though it’s not ashamed to borrow from those styles. It’s not bluegrass, gospel, folk or Cajun, though there are elements. To its practitioners, it’s the authentic heart of the heartland, songs that could only come from here, sounds that remind us who we are. Soul music, if you will.”
Like many others, I was introduced to Patty the songwriter before I was introduced to Patty the singer and performer. Patty has had the blessing or curse (depending on how you view it) of having been famously covered by a number of big names—Dixie Chicks (“Top of the World”, “Truth No. 2″, “Let Him Fly”, “Mary”), Miranda Lambert (“Getting Ready”), Martina McBride (“Goodbye”), The Wreckers (“One More Girl”) and Emmylou Harris (“One Big Love”, “Moon Song”), among others.
In recent years, however, Patty has emerged from the shadows, so to speak, to stand on her own as a vibrant singer and performer, and one of the most respected songwriters in modern music. In 2007, Patty was the Americana Music Association’s Artist of the Year and her latest gem, Children Running Through, captured Album of the Year. Everyone’s favorite collaborator, she frequently performs with Willie Nelson, and she went on tour earlier this year with Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin and Buddy Miller.
On this particular night, however, she stood alone; and really, despite her excellent 3-piece backing band, Patty was all we needed.
When Patty walks on stage, she appears so ethereal and delicate you almost hold your breath until the first lyric falls from her mouth. Can she really belt out a tune with the same soulful passion as she does on her albums? Oh yes, she can. Her first note was like a punch in the gut. And from there on, Patty held the audience in the palm of her hand, performing a wide range of songs that could be defined as nothing other than “soul music.”
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Sunday, August 31st, 2008
Johnny Cash
At Folsom Prison
1968
A large part of Johnny Cash’s musical identity was established, of all places, in prison. Although the singer himself stayed on the right side of the law (for the most part), he felt a certain kinship with the prison population, full of wayward souls and hard-luck stories. The legend’s first jailhouse album, At Folsom Prison, speaks to this relationship, and is brimming with the boisterous enthusiasm of a crowd of convicts who felt a commonality and connection with Cash and his wicked, witty songs of sinful indulgence and its consequence.
By the late sixties, Cash had been finding limited space for his songs on country radio, but the album (a risk that Columbia Records feared for him to take) revitalized his career. Recorded on January 13, 1968 at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California, Cash’s live release, also featured his wife, June Carter Cash and friend Carl Perkins, along with Cash’s terrific touring band. It was ultimately a milestone that showcased all the great subjects of country music. At Folsom Prison is all loneliness and loss, religion and redemption and, of course, the crimes of passion and anger that befell the inmates of the famous jailhouse.
The centerpiece, “Folsom Prison Blues,” is a perfect reflection of the dark, depressing nature that permeates throughout the album. It was the original inspiration for Cash to make a complete live recording, and the track crackles with a crazy candor. The song, first released in 1955, is the classic train song, restless in rhythm and tone, as “time keeps draggin’ on” and the narrator is tortured by the success of other’s dreams and the failure of his own. The narrator’s apathy ran high the night he shot a man in Reno, an action taken “just to watch him die,” and his faith and freedom dies right there with the cold, lifeless body of a stranger. It’s a work of staggering depth and despair.
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Sunday, August 31st, 2008
“Where’ve You Been”
Kathy Mattea
1990
Written by Don Henry and Jon Vezner
Everybody loved the song, but nobody wanted to cut it. A slow and simple tale of an aging couple that ends with them both in a hospital, as the wife is succumbing to Alzheimer’s? Not exactly the formula for a smash hit. Co-writers Jon Vezner and Don Henry pitched the song all around Nashville, and it was finally Vezner’s wife, Kathy Mattea, who committed to recording the song that was piercing her heart with every listen.
The tale of Claire & Edwin starts simply enough, with Claire wondering “where’ve you been” when they fall in love, and she finds the man she always dreamed of. She asks the same question when a storm delays his coming home from work – “Her frightened tears fell to the floor, until his key turned in the door.”
The gentle instrumentation – Mattea is accompanied only by acoustic guitar through much of the song – gives the tale an unassuming nature. There’s no foreshadowing of the turn the lyrics will take, and country fans certainly hadn’t been conditioned to three-act story songs that end like this, even though there would be countless numbers of them during the boom years. But the turn comes, as the bridge pulls the rug out from under the listener with disarming humor: “They never spent a night apart, for sixty years she heard him snore; now they’re in a hospital, in separate beds on different floors.”
The final verse, where Edwin and Claire have their last conversation, captures the very best of what country music can be, revealing deep truths about the human experience through careful observation of word and deed: “Then one day they wheeled him in. He held her hand and stroked her head, and in a fragile voice she said, ‘Where’ve you been? I’ve looked for you forever and a day.’”
There is no bombast, no cheap appeals for sentiment or manipulative vocals. Mattea lets the song shine, and only slightly increases the intensity of the last “where’ve you been.” Still, the scene is so perfectly constructed that it’s hard to believe it really happened, though Mattea’s reverent delivery indicates otherwise. She recalls:
It’s a true story about Jon’s grandparents. They had both gotten very sick and were in the same hospital, but didn’t know it. His grandmother had been slowly losing it, and she didn’t recognize anybody. She was in unfamiliar surroundings, so she finally quit talking altogether. Jon was there visiting, and he was up seeing his grandfather; he said to the nurse, “Has anybody brought him down to see her?” She said no, and he asked if he could do that.
They said yes, so he wheeled his grandfather into his grandmother’s room. His grandfather kept stroking her hair, saying, “Look at them hair, nobody has hair like grandma,” and she looked at him and said, “Where have you been?” It was the first thing she had said in weeks.
When Jon told me the story for the first time, it was before we had even gotten engaged, and he just cried and cried. When he played the song for me and the first chorus came around, I knew where he was going with the lyric, and I just couldn’t believe he could be that vulnerable as a writer, to put that moment in a song.
The song was Mattea’s biggest hit, winning her a Grammy. It also won Song of the Year at the Grammys, CMA’s and ACM’s. While Mattea had wondered to herself, “Do people want to hear this on the way to work?”, the song struck a deep chord, and it was the first time Alzheimer’s had been captured in a mainstream hit song.
The quiet grace of this single is the perfect illustration of what country music can be, without any of the annoyances that often bring the genre down. Great song, fantastic vocalist, tasteful arrangement and the honest truth – these are the things that keep country fans wading through a sea of mediocrity to find treasures like this.
“Where’ve You Been” is the latest in a series of articles showcasing Classic Country Singles. You can read previous entries at the Classic Country Singles page.
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
Reba McEntire
For My Broken Heart
1991
Recorded in the aftermath of the tragic plane crash that killed her tour manager and most of her band, For My Broken Heart is Reba McEntire’s masterpiece, a somber album that pays tribute to the loss by tying together ten songs around the theme of missed opportunities, most notably the chance to let true feelings be shown before it’s too late.
With the exception of the murder ballad “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia”, which within the context of the album manages to sound less campy than one would expect, the characters in these songs are anything but broadly drawn. They are wounded, vulnerable and conflicted, unsure if the right opportunity has already passed them by or if they’re doing the right thing by putting faith in those they love.
Witness the quiet elderly woman who waits in the lobby of her nursing home every Sunday for her family that never shows up (”All Dressed Up (With Nowhere to Go)”, or the woman in “Buying Her Roses”, who has been betrayed by her husband, but isn’t sure which step to take next, with the tough feminist ideal conflicting with her own sense of identity (”I know I should tell him to leave me forever, but what’ll I do if he goes?”).
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Sunday, August 31st, 2008
Mary Chapin Carpenter
Stones in the Road
I believe the essence of God is reflected in the very best art. By that standard, Stones in the Road has been my gospel, the defining record that I have turned to at every stage of my life and learned something new from it, a truth that had already been revealed to me but I wasn’t ready to understand at an earlier time.
What Carpenter achieves here, through a journey of thirteen songs, is both an honest look at the weaknesses present in the human experience, and a hopeful optimism that they can be transcended. I’m amazed, listening to this album again, just how much of my own worldview has been shaped and later validated by the words of wisdom Carpenter communicated. I truly believe, for example, that “in this world you’ve a soul for a compass and a heart for a pair of wings,” as she implores in the gospel-flavored opening track, “Why Walk When You Can Fly.” She captured an essential truth of a small community in “House of Cards” that verbalized my biggest issue with the suburban area I grew up in: “I grew up in a town like this, you knew the names of every street. On the surface it looked so safe, but it was perilous underneath.”
Her unflinching look at how we fail ourselves and the ones we love cut deep. On “A Keeper For Every Flame,” she tells of a man who “just misses what he can’t forget. It’ s just an empty space where something used to be, now he guards the gate but he’s lost the key, so no one enters but no one leaves.” “The Last Word” never directly refers to the title, obliquely referring to it as “it,” but captures in song the empty victory of winning the battle of words but losing love in the process: “Some words will cut you down like you’re only in the way. Why should I stand this ground?” leads to “Sometimes we’re blinded by the very thing we need to see. I finally realized that you need it more than you need me.”
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Sunday, August 31st, 2008
Raised on a ranch and the son of a rodeo cowboy, Zona Jones is hardcore country. And after his first album, Harleys & Horses, spawned the single “Two Hearts” which gained fame (of all places) on the Paris Hilton vehicle, “The Simple Life 2 – Interns”. Now signed to Tracy Lawrence’s Rocky Comfort Records, he enters the country music mainstream again with “You Should’ve Seen Her This Morning”.
It’s the simple story of a man admiring his woman as they enjoy a night at the dance hall. He sees that she’s captured the attention of many, but he prefers to think of the precious few moments they share in the early hours, knowing full well that those times are his and his alone. An endearing lyric with a neat Texas-style steel undertone and the Southern drawl of Jones. A few tried-and-true clichés, but it’s harmless fun.
Grade: B-
Listen: You Should’ve Seen Her This Morning
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
When that mellow guitar intro first chimes in, you might swear you’re listening to a late-night NPR special. Or watching an iPhoto slide show. Or maybe hanging out in a coffee shop somewhere in Georgia.
When that intro abruptly launches into a mid-tempo stomp rife with stock phrases about the joys of Friday-night beers and comfortable pairs of jeans, you might wonder how you’ve suddenly gone from elevator music to a Bud Light commercial.
When that mid-tempo stomp segues into a military drumroll and Brown takes a moment to throw out yet more stock phrases, this time about the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, you might be utterly confused as to why a song celebrating rural lifestyle suddenly demanded this moment of simplistic patriotism.
And when that moment of simplistic patriotism finally gives way to a weird, reggae-lite reprisal of the song’s chorus, you might consider banging your head angrily against nearby walls and surfaces.
Moral of the story: an annoying, uncreatively written song is still an annoying, uncreatively written song, no matter how many different ways you dress it up. If the shameless pandering that comprises this ditty earns Brown and company a bankable radio hit, I hope they’ll consider buying me a new wall.
Written by Zac Brown and Wyatt Durrette
Grade: D
Listen: Chicken Fried
Saturday, August 30th, 2008
While they’re not as common as they used to be in country music, sometimes good songs about workers still surface. Tim McGraw’s “I’m Workin’” on his most recent album was a highlight, and Trace Adkins’ “I’m Tryin’” was his best single ever, in my opinion. A perennial favorite is Alabama’s “40 Hour Week (For a Livin’)”, which I’d argue was their best single. But I’m partial to celebrations of working class stiffs.
Nobody in the history of country music ever captured that spirit in song better than Aaron Tippin. I love ‘em all. “Working Man’s Ph.D.” “I Wouldn’t Have it Any Other Way.” And my personal favorite, “I Got it Honest.” It inspires me every time, especially now that my father has passed on.
I’m an educator myself, but my father was an electrician. He was always impressed by my ability to speak in front of crowds and write (long-winded) papers, as it was always a weakness of his. But he could look at a building once and instantly know the best way to wire it. I would help him on the weekends growing up, and given that I’ve always had the coordination of a drunken sailor, he wisely kept me away from anything with an electrical current.
I always joked that if he tried to do what I do, he’d make a few spelling errors. If I tried to do what he did, I’d be dead in a matter of seconds. Given that how hard it would’ve been to write those long-winded papers in the dark, I’d say the contributions he made to making this world a better place are far greater than anything I’ve done so far.
So this became about my father, which I didn’t intend when I began writing this, but what can I say? He was a working man, right up until he couldn’t work anymore. He deserves the shout-out.
What are your favorite songs about workers?
Saturday, August 30th, 2008
On his tombstone, Kris Kristofferson has requested the first three lines of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire” to be engraved: Like a bird on a wire/Like a drunk in a midnight choir/I have tried in my way to be free.
The words speak to the free-spirited nature of the singer-songwriter. As a hillbilly poet, few can match his intelligence, his eloquence and his ability to capture a mood and a moment with each verse. He has created a legend as a songwriter, but also gained fame and acclaim as a singer, actor and musician.
Born in Brownsville, Texas, Kristofferson’s parents were Mary Ann and Lars Henry Kristofferson, a U.S. Air Force major general. During his childhood, his father pushed his Kristofferson toward a military career, and he would join the U.S. Army (and later rise to the status of captain) in the early 1960s. Throughout his younger years, Kristofferson’s family moved frequently, but eventually settled down in California. Kristofferson enrolled in Pomona College in 1954, and graduated in 1958 with a degree in Literature. During his time at Pomona, the future songwriter was originally known as much for his sporting conquests as his academic endeavors. He was nationally noted for his achievements in collegiate rugby, football and track and field.
Kristofferson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, and it was there that he started writing songs, eventually earning a Master’s degree in 1960. He followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the U.S. Army and eventually receiving an offer to serve as an English literature instructor at West Point. But after sending a few songs to his cousin, Nashville songwriter-publisher Marijohn Wilkin, he was vigilant in his dream to make it as a successful songwriter. His masterful pen exposed the turbulent, troubled times of the 1960s, connecting with an audience that sought the same comforts of freedom and peace of mind that Kristofferson espoused in his songs.
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