Saturday, November 11, 2017

RACE, CLASS, REGION AND CULTURE IN AMERICAN POPULAR MUSIC. Part 6: The 1970s


Outlaw Country
§  Willie Nelson
·         “Whiskey River”  1972  
·         “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”  1975 
§  Waylon Jennings
·         “Are You Ready for the Country” 1976  
·         “Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got out of Hand” 1978  ["They got me for possession of something that was gone, long gone"... this is a reference to an incident in Nashville in 1977, in which Jennings flushed his cocaine down the toilet while the police were entering with a warrant.]
§  Waylon AND Willie
·         “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” 1978 
·         “Write Your Own Songs” 1982    [this song is the perfect summary of outlaw country]
§  Hank Williams, Jr.
·         “Family Tradition”  1979 
·         “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound”  1979 
§  Jerry Jeff Walker & Ray Wylie Hubbard
·         “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother”  1973 [“Just kickin’ hippies’ asses and raisin’ hell.”]  
§  Guy Clark
·         “Like Desperados Waiting for a Train”  1975  

Southern Rock
§  Creedence Clearwater Revival
·         “Fortunate Son”  1969 
·         “Willie and the Poor Boys”  1969 
§  Janis Joplin
·         “Me and Bobby McGee”  1971 [written by Kris Kristoffersen]  
§  Allman Brothers Band
·         “Ramblin’ Man”  1972 
§  ZZ Top
·         “La Grange” 1973  [song about a famous Texas brothel]
§  Lynyrd Skynrd
·         “The Ballad of Curtis Loew”  1974  
·         “Sweet Home Alabama”   1974  
o   Compare to: Neil Young, “Southern Man” 1970 [“I hope Neil Young will remember, a Southern Man don’t need him around anyhow]
§  The Marshal Tucker Band
·         “Can’t You See”  1973 
·         “Heard It in a Love Song” 1977 
§  The Doobie Brothers
·         “Black Water”  1974  
§  Molly Hatchett
·         “Flirtin’ with Disaster” 1979  

The Rednecks and the Hippies
§  Charlie Daniels
·         “Long Haired Country Boy”  1975  
·         “The South’s Gonna Do It Again” 1975 [musically,  this time] 
§  David Allen Coe
·         “Long Haired Redneck”  1976 [“the hippies are hoping they get out of here alive”] 

Breaker! Breaker! [CB Radio craze of the mid-70s]
§  C. W. McCall, “Convoy” 1975 [theme to a movie starring Kris Kristoffersen]  
§  Jerry Reed, “East Bound and Down”  1977 [theme to the movie Smokey & the Bandit] 

Very, Very Problematic Country/Southern Rock Songs
·         David Allen Coe, “If That Ain’t Country”  1977  [casual use of the n-word]
·         Merle Haggard, “I’m a White Boy”  1977 
·         Ramjam, “Black Betty” 1977 

Light Country-Rock
§  The Eagles
·         “Take It Easy” 1972 
·         “Peaceful Easy Feeling” 1972 
§  Linda Ronstadt
·         “Blue Bayou”  1977 


 Working Class Anthems
§  Merle Haggard, “If We Make It through December” 1974  
§  Johnny Paycheck, “Take This Job and Shove It” 1978  
§  Rose Royce, “Car Wash” 1976 

Black Protest
§  Marvin Gaye
·         “What’s Going On”  1971 
·         “Mercy Mercy Me” 1971 
·         “Inner City Blues”  1971 
§  The Isley Brothers
·         “Fight the Power”  1975    [“I try to play my music, they say my music’s too loud / I try talking about it, I’ve got to be run around / I tried to roll with the punches and I got knocked on the ground / by all this bullshit going down… we’ve got to fight the powers that be.”]

Funk to Disco
§  Isaac Hayes, “Shaft”  1971 
§  Curtis Mayfield, “SuperFly”  1972  
§  The Hues Corporation, “Rock the Boat”  1974  
§  Parliament, “Give Up the Funk”  1975 
§  Wild Cherry, “Play That Funky Music”  1976  [white boys.] 
§  KC & the Sunshine Band, “I’m Your Boogie Man”   1977  
·         Compare Prince, “Rock Hard in a Funky Place”  1994

Rap Hits the Radio
§  Rap / hip hop developed in the 1970s in New York City block parties
§  The Sugarhill Gang, “Rapper’s Delight”  1979 
§  Kurtis Blow, “The Breaks” 1980 
§  Blondie, “Rapture” 1980/81 [white people meet rap music]  

CONTENTS OF THIS OUTLINE:


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RACE, CLASS, REGION AND CULTURE IN AMERICAN POPULAR MUSIC. Part 7:Riding Out the Last Wave of the Cold War


PART SEVEN: RIDING OUT THE LAST WAVE OF THE COLD WAR

Southern Rockers
o   Steve Earle, “Copperhead Road”  1986  [“They draft white trash first, around here anyway.”] 
o   Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “You Got Lucky” 1982 
o   Georgia Satellites, “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” 1986  

Working Class Country
o   Merle Haggard, “Are the Good Times Really Over” 1981 
o   Alabama, “Forty Hour Week” 1985 
o   Hank Williams, Jr, “A Country Boy Can Survive”  1982 
o   Charlie Daniels, “Simple Man”  1989 

Still Outlaws
o   The Highwaymen, “Highwayman” 1985 [outlaw country super-group: Johnny Cash, Kris Kristoffersen, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson] 
o   Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard, “Pancho & Lefty”  1983  [written by Townes Van Zandt]  

Bruce Springsteen: Working Class Boss
·         “The River”  1980  
·         “My Hometown”  1985 
·         "The Ghost of Tom Joad"    1995

John Mellencamp: Midwest working class
o   “Small Town” 1985  
o   “Rain on the Scarecrow”  1986  

Vietnam Revisited 
                  o   Vietnam was primarily a working class war. It was also a wound to the American   psyche, and was rarely addressed directly by American pop culture in the years right after it ended. It would be at the end of the 1970s that the wartime experience would be explored in major films, and 1982 before the average soldier's life during and after the war would appear on rock and country singles on the radio.
                  o "Front Line" by Stevie Wonder   1982  [They had me standing on the front line; now I stand at the back of the line when it comes to getting ahead]
                  o "Goodnight, Saigon" by Billy Joel, 1982 [We were sharp, as sharp as knives. And we were so gung-ho to lay down our lives.]
                                    o     "Still in Saigon" by Charlie Daniels  1982  [My younger brother calls me a killer and my daddy calls me a vet.]
                  o   "Walking on a Thin Line" by Huey Lewis and the News, 1983 [Don't you know me, I'm the boy next door -the one you find so easy to ignore. Is that what I was fighting for?]
                   o    "19" by Paul Hardcastle,  1985  [Almost 800,000 men are still fighting the Vietnam War.]
                  o      And of course, Springsteen's 1984  "Born in the USA"  [Ten years burning down the road, I've still got nowhere to run, nowhere to go.]

Athens, Georgia Rock
·         REM, “Finest Worksong” 1988  
·         B-52s, “Roam”  1989  
·         Pylons, “Danger” 1980 

Nashville, TN Rock
o   Jason & the Scorchers, “Absolutely Sweet Marie”  1985   cowpunk
o   Government Cheese “Mammaw Drives the Bus”  1989  
o   Webb Wilder, “Tough It Out”   1991  
          

1980s R&B superstars
o   Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean”  1982   
o   Prince, “When Doves Cry”  1984    
o   Whitney Houston, “How Will I Know”  1985  

New School Hip Hop
              Rap moves from disco-inspired dance music to a vehicle for social commentary
o   Precursor (to the social commentary part): Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “The Message” 1982 
o   Drum machines, some rock elements; more aggressive and self-assertive. Still centered in NYC.
o   Run-DMC, “King of Rock”  1985  
o   LL Cool J, “I’m Bad”  1987 
o   Public Enemy, “Fight the Power” 1989  
o   From Punk to Rap/Rock: The Beastie Boys, “Fight for the Right (to Party)”  1986  

Gangsta Rap
o   Precursors: Blaxploitation films of the ‘70s; Rudy Ray More’s ‘70s character “Dolemite”
o   Schoolly D   from Philadelphia     first gangsta rapper     (remember at the beginning of the outline- Schoolly D did a gangsta rap version of Rudy Ray Moore’s “Signifying Monkey”) Possibly first rapper to use the term “n***a” on a record
§  “P.S.K. –What Does It Mean?”   1985    (it means “Parkside Killas”, a Philly gang he belonged to)    
o   Ice-T     from Newark, NJ, moved to Los Angeles as a teen
§  “I’m Your Pusher”    1988    
o   N.W.A. (N***az wit Attitudes) from Straight Outta Compton (Los Angeles)
§  Easy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, DJ Yella, Arabian Prince
§  “Fuck tha Police”   1988  

East Coast vs. West Coast
o   Rap developed in NYC, and virtually all the elements (including the accent) associated with the form did as well; for the first several years, East Coast Rap WAS rap. In the late ‘80s, gangsta rap (though it had East Coast origins) flourished in L.A., with Ice-T and NWA. The West Coast sound was more aggressive and toughened; in the early ‘90s NWA co-founder Dr. Dre introduced the G-Funk (gangsta funk) sound. At around the same time, there was a renaissance in East Coast Rap. Coastal rivalry turned into violent vendetta between Death Row Records (West Coast) and Bad Boy Records (East Coast)
§  West Coast
·         Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dog, “Nuthin' but a G Thang”  1992  G-Funk
·         Tupac Shakur and Thug Life, “Cradle to the Grave”  1994   
§  East Coast Renaissance
·         Wu-Tang Clan, “Bring the Ruckus” 1993   
·         The Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls), “Big Poppa”  1994   

·         Nas, “Memory Lane”  1994  

Southern Rap & Hip Hop
o   Geto Boys (Houston) “My Mind Playing Tricks on Me”  1991  
o   2 Live Crew (Miami)  “Banned in the USA”  1990 
o   Kris Kross (Atlanta) “Jump”  1992
o   Arrested Development (Atlanta), “Tennessee”  1992  

The Alternative Years:

Alt-Country
o   Uncle Tupelo, “Moonshiner”  1992 
o   Wilco, “Passenger Side”  1995 
o   Son Volt, “Tear-Stained Eye”  1995
o   Bottle Rockets, “Waitin’on a Train,” 1997  
o   Old 97s, “Salome” 1997 

Outside the Box
o   Lyle Lovett
§  “If I Had a Boat”  1987 
o   Robert Earl Keen
§  “The Road Goes on Forever”  1989  
§  “Merry Christmas from the Family”  1994 
o   Iris DeMent
§  “Our Town”  1992 
o   Lucinda Williams
§  “I Envy the Wind”  2001
§  “Lonely Girls”  2001 
o   Gillian Welch
§  “Red Clay Halo”  2001 
§  “Look at Miss Ohio” 2004
o   Slobberbone
§  “Gimme Back My Dog”  2000  

CONTENTS OF THIS OUTLINE:


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