Glen Rock, PA – Rebellion is almost enough. I just got back from Jamaica, and since the return my outfit has been a green, red and gold shirt depicting Haile Selassie (the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords) and a gray Confederate States of America cap. Keeps ’em guessing at the feed store.
They were rebelling in West Kingston while I was down there. Basically it seemed that the Jamaican army, under the direction of P.J. Patterson, was trying to destroy the home district of the opposition leader Edward Seaga in anticipation of upcoming elections. On the pretext of confiscating guns, they were shooting children.
You’d be happy to be on Seaga’s side, if it didn’t seem like maybe he’s just as nasty and corrupt as Patterson, and that when he takes over–as he surely will if there’s an election–things will be just as bad.
Naturally I spent most of the trip immersed in reggae, which is a music of rebellion. And I’d be a Rasta myself, too, if it weren’t for Haile Selassie being God. I mean, I like ganja and antiauthoritarianism and great music and Marcus Garvey as much as the next black nationalist, but Selassie seems an awfully vague little guy to be the last emperor on Earth. Then again, no doubt every great religion seems ridiculous for a few centuries. I’m sure that just after they executed Jesus and people started calling him the Messiah, sensible people were like, that guy? But surely life is good if it’s full of Marley, Beres Hammond, Horace Andy, Burning Spear, Barrington Levy.
Country is also a music of rebellion (ponder the great anthem "A Country Boy Can Survive" and its endless progeny). Insofar as there’s any culture in white America, it’s Southern culture, and insofar as there’s any music in white America, it’s country music. There was a lot to be said for the CSA: for one thing, they had all these cool guys, like Lee and Jackson. For another, the CSA put the lie once and for all to the ridiculous claim that the legitimacy of the U.S. government rests on the consent of the governed. The legitimacy of the U.S. government, like the legitimacy of the government of Jamaica and of every other government, rests finally on armed force.
Not only that, but I feel that every people should have their own nation. I’m big on Balkanization. I favor homelands for everyone–the Kurds, the Chechens, the Nation of Islam, Texans: everyone. In fact, I think that each person should be a sovereign state. The U.S., like most nations, should simply disintegrate before it’s too late. Otherwise Al Gore might run again.
Above all, being a rebel is admirable, while crushing rebels is reprehensible. Being a Rasta is cool. Being the prime minister of Jamaica sucks. Being a secessionist is cool. Preserving the union sucks. Cottondale, AL, is cool. Wall Street sucks.
There was, however, a little problem with the CSA, a teensy drawback I call "slavery." In fact, enslaving black folks was really almost the only thing our forebears were fighting for. If every human being is a sovereign nation, slavery sucks worse than Detroit. So when I fly that rebel flag, I fly it for rebellion, but not for slavery. Unfortunately, I have the bad feeling that a lot of other people around here who fly it are thinking that it might be fun to whip bucks and sell their babies down to Georgia. Rebellion is almost enough, but not quite. You ought to be rebelling for something good. And Seaga’s people in Jamaica seem to be rebelling merely for their share of the spoils. Better than no rebellion at all, I suppose. But still, better to kill for One Love, know what I’m saying?
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All this is by way of introduction to Rebel Records. Rebel put out some of my favorite bluegrass albums of the 70s, especially stuff by the Seldom Scene. But when I returned to the country music biz I couldn’t seem to find them, although it seemed like they were still putting out records. I traced them to Roanoke, but their phone had been disconnected. I couldn’t find a website. So I lived without them, though, as it turned out, barely. Because when they finally launched a site and I realized they were in Charlottesville and called them up, Mark sent me this little package of the greatest damn albums you could imagine. Of course, I could have bought their albums from Amazon.com, or whatever, but since my apotheosis into Farmer Crispy the celebrated critic, buying country albums is against my religion.
The best of a magnificent bunch is Karl Shiflett and Big Country Show, In Full Color (Rebel). Recorded around a single vintage RCA mic, this amazing album both embodies the tradition and pushes it forward. Lyle Meador’s mandolin playing, in particular, is distinctive and juicy as hell. Check the insanely beautiful instrumental "The Old South." This really is one of the top five bluegrass albums of the last decade.
Larry Sparks has been around for a long time, and few people make better trad bluegrass. Larry’s singing sounds a lot like Ricky Skaggs’ (or rather Skaggs’ is like his), but Special Delivery (Rebel) is even better than the recent acclaimed Skaggs bluegrass records: very low-key but masterful. I’m not sure how I survived without this shit, but I’ll never try to do so again.
Chris Jones is a much more "contemporary" bluegrass artist, which means he’s a bit gentler, with less edge and more self-conscious beauty and perfection. And Just a Drifter (Rebel) is certainly among the best recent examples of the form. To say it’s contempo is not to say it doesn’t understand the tradition and use it, it’s just to say that it releases the tradition into the moment. Jones is a tasty guitarist and singer, and you will like this record.
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Perhaps you remember a Robert Altman movie from the 70s called Nashville. I sure do. Altman is one of those people who has no business getting within a thousand miles of country music. The sneering condescension was visible in every frame. Nashville artists were portrayed as talentless schlumpfs who were exploited by rich hick executives. Meanwhile, transcendent talents such as Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and George Jones were at the height of their careers.
Which brings us to Miss Tammy Faye Starlite. Her self-released On My Knees works extremely hard to be offensive, to the point where she’s singing, "Did I Shave My Vagina for This," and "If You’re Comin’ Down,Sweet Jesus, Won’t You Come All Over Me." The liner notes, which give Tammy Faye a bio that is a slightly ratcheted-up version of the romantic contretemps of Lorrie Morgan, are nearly funny. Her e-mail address is Wynette666@aol.com. All of which would be okay if either the jokes or the singing was better. Tammy is a sort of porn Nazi princess, and she’s hinting that Faith Hill is as well. Now I’ll grant you that Faith does have an Aryan goddess thing going. But one thing you can’t say, that Tammy Faye is saying, is that Faith Hill can’t sing. The way that Tammy Faye is saying this is by singing badly herself. It is hard for me to imagine anyone listening to this thing more than once, because by then you’ve gotten the sad anti-hick, pro-choice joke, and then it’s just a matter of listening to bad music.
The people and music that Tammy Faye is witlessly ridiculing are geniuses like Patty Loveless and albums like Mountain Soul (Sony). It’s hard to imagine a better country singer or a better country record. Essentially an acoustic record of very trad tunes, Mountain Soul is the best country album of the year so far. Listen to Patty’s duet with Travis Tritt on "Out of Control Raging Fire" and understand that country music is the quintessential American art and that the people who do it well are among the most talented and true people on the planet. I’m not much more of a believer than Tammy Faye, but breathtakingly pure gospel songs like "Daniel Prayed" and "Two Coats" ought to make Tammy Faye ashamed she ever brought country gospel into her sad, polluted world. The whole musical tradition and generations of sincere belief are expressed in Patty’s perfect harmonies.
It’s not that there couldn’t be something funny about country music. The bluegrass rap group Run C&W springs to mind. It’s just that if, like Altman and Miss Starlite, you don’t get it and you think it’s all about stupid rednecks and you meet sincerity and purity with utter incomprehension, you should keep your filthy mitts off.
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I’m still trying to figure out whether the Cash Brothers are related to Johnny. But in fact it doesn’t much matter anyway, does it, because you’re more interested in the way their record, How Was Tomorrow (Zoe/Rounder), sounds. A: damn good. It took me awhile to glom onto this, because it’s so gentle and well-crafted that I missed what was happening the first couple of times around.
But Lauren from Rounder kept badgering me, and I’m glad, because the thing grew on me like a cancerous mole. You know we’ve got a bit of a problem around here at Whoa-O-Rama Farm, because Wanda and the kids hate country. But this seemed to be something we could agree on, an innovation that lands somewhere between Badly Drawn Boy and the Clinch Mountain Boys, if that makes any sense. It’s not any particular song; it’s the sound and the accumulation of understated grooves. I swear you could hear this stuff on pop radio, where it would be both cool and wholesome.
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It’s hard to know what to expect out of Texas troubadour Rosie Flores. Speed of Sound (Eminent) is a surprising and smart set of swing and rockabilly numbers. Rosie plays great and has impeccable taste, and even if the singing could be stronger, she delivers songs like "I Push Right Over" with a combination of irony and emphasis that makes the lyrics right.
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Mary Chapin Carpenter is kind of unique because she makes kind of country music for kind of rich liberal white people and also had a hell of a run on the country charts. Time*Sex*Love* (Columbia) is pretty, beautifully produced folk-pop. And obviously Mary Chapin has a way with a phrase and a lovely voice. But my tractor can’t get no traction. Is it the painful sincerity? The sameyness? What happened to rowdy Mary Chapin ("Down at the Twist and Shout")? Or funny Mary Chapin ("I Feel Lucky")? I bet if I were a well-educated lesbian instead of a redneck militia member condemned to a lifetime of subsistence heterosexuality and promiscuous farming, I’d think this was the best album ever. So if you are, you will.
