Excerpts from Legends of Country, by Liz Mechem and Chris Carroll, Dalmation Press, 2007.

Introduction

“The Sunday smell of someone’s fryin’ chicken.”

Kris Kristofferson sure nailed it when he wrote that line for Johnny Cash to sing

in their classic “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” Six little words that imply an entire

hidden world of nuance and drama. The sinner who awoke to find his “cleanest dirty

shirt” and then had beer for breakfast (including dessert!) was stunned by that elusive and

evocative aroma. We listeners were affected too: like our protagonist, “…it took me back

to somethin’, that I’d lost somehow, somewhere along the way.”

    Kristofferson managed to evoke several of the fundamental themes of country

music in that one short phrase. Yearning, nostalgia, loss, and pathos all contribute

fundamentally to country music’s palette of emotions. Country’s all about using small

stories to represent big themes, and using big themes to illuminate small moments. Those

moments are both specific and universal enough that listeners can relate. Admit it, you

can remember clearly where you were the last time you smelled chicken frying. You

might not have been consumed with the sense of alienation and loss of Kristofferson’s

anti-hero, but you might have well have your own fond memories of childhood kitchens.

Frying chicken is an apt metaphor on another level as well. There’s perhaps no

more fundamental act then the preparation of food. Everybody does it, and is particularly

partial to whatever variations they happened to enjoy in their youth. My Grandmother’s

fried chicken was better than yours. But they all had roots in the same deep mysterious

past. In the same way the Spanish brought their chickens to the new world, African and

Irish and gypsy influences found their way into country music. Country music itself can

be seen as a uniquely American art form, composed of completely borrowed common

elements that blend to make the modern jambalaya gumbo that we all enjoy today. And if

the irreducible element in country is the song, the irreplaceable element of the song is the singer. Country doesn’t have operas, or symphonies, country has songs. And singers sing

songs, about people. Which is why this book is organized as a series of biographies.

Whether you’re a fan or yet to become one, the people of country are the most interesting bunch of folks you’d ever want to meet. We intend to introduce you.

    In the early ’20s, a fellow named Ralph Peer was having great success making

recordings of “colored” musicians in his New York studio. Working with Victor, the

manufacturer of the studio recording equipment he was able to miniaturize enough of the

components to make a traveling studio possible. So it was that he found himself in a

borrowed barn in Bristol, Tennessee, one sweltering morning in August of 1926. He

didn’t know it, but the country music industry was about to come into being. By going to

the heart of mountain country Peer found talent that never would have made its way to

cosmopolitan New York. Beginning right then, country music’s roots in the hills and

hollows would interact and mix with big city technology and industry. Victor’s device,

combined with the other new high-tech wonder, radio, allowed simple hill folk like the

Carter Family to eventually reach millions of listeners the world over. Peer set up his

equipment in a local barn and invited locals to come in and sing and play the music

they’d been entertaining each other with for generations, then brought the tapes back to

his New York record label. That city/country dichotomy would persist in country music

to this day. It was music of the people, from the hills, but nobody would have ever heard

it without the intervention and indeed invention of the modern recording industry.

Records and radio reinforced each other in a way unprecedented in modern marketing.

Women grew used to ordering “a pound of butter, pound of flour, and the latest Jimmie

Rodgers record.” And through each succeeding decade, the oil and water of country and

city is never burbling far beneath the surface of country music.

    Peer recorded two local artists that crucial day in Bristol, The Carter Family and

Jimmie Rodgers. Both would go on to be among the first two stars of the nascent art

form. They also each would epitomize a distinct branch of country: the establishment and

the outlaw, respectively. Those branches would swing in the wind over the years like a

pendulum; with the Nashville Sound leading to Bakersfield’s rough and rowdy honky

tonk, New Traditionalists giving way to Garth and Shania and everybody loving Willie.

The uniquely American stew Peer caught on wax that stifling day in a barn in

Tennessee grew to encompass all of Americas hopes and dreams. America is still a young

country, full of the promise and terror of the frontier. Country music mirrors its muse,

with all her wonder but more than wonder, her flaws and imperfections. Just as America

couldn’t be America without having been birthed in blood, so country music revels in

detailing in the basest of human emotion and behavior. Yet through our common roots in

the world of sin we can arise to new heights of redemption. You might not have cheated

on your man or killed for honor today, but close your eyes and think hard anyway. Now

do you smell the chicken fryin’?

Willie Nelson

Many Native American tribes share an ancient legend of the Trickster. This sacred,

profane, wily being is often depicted as a coyote. The Trickster embodies the creative

force—by turns amusing, scandalizing, infuriating, and fascinating. He sows creativity

via mischief making; one has to have some chaos to give birth to order. Over nearly a

half century of creating and performing, Willie Nelson has matured into the role of the

Trickster of country music. Whether outlaw, cowboy, wild-man, or mystic sage, Willie’s

vast creativity, talent, and heart have produced one of the most compelling bodies of

work in music.

    Willie didn’t start out to become the resident coyote of country music. He

originally came to Nashville’s attention as a songwriter, and a good one. One of his first

attempts was a little ditty called “Crazy;” you might have heard Patsy Cline singing it.

After cleaning up on the charts, the song went on to become a classic part of the

American canon. Nelson wrote several other hit songs for others to sing, but he decided

he wanted to perform his own work.

    Toward that end, Willie moved to Austin, Texas in the early ’70s. He found the

burgeoning progressive country scene percolating there, and fit right in. The clean-cut

country look was traded in for jeans, long locks of unkempt hair, and what would become

his trademark bandana. When Willie appeared with Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter on

Wanted: The Outlaws, the movement had a name, and Willie was a charter member.

While many took the Outlaw movement to be a throwback to Western myth, others saw

in it the relationship artists had with their corporate overseers. Nashville insiders were

used to record companies and producers calling the tunes. These new outlaws, among

other things, insisted on retaining creative control over the recording process.

Willie used this control to create a masterpiece that his record company didn’t

even want to release. Red Headed Stranger was a straightforward concept album,

stripped of the countrypolitan production that Nelson was trying to escape. “Blue Eyes

Crying in the Rain” became Nelson’s first #1 hit. Willie was authentically country, but

his outlaw act had rock audiences tuning in too.

    Continuing his transition from whiskey river-swimming cowboy to Zen trickster,

Willie released Stardust in 1978. Wait—what happened to the country cowboy guy? This

was an album of jazz standards, songs your parents probably sang to each other. Country

audiences often don’t approve of their artists taking stylistic or creative leaps of faith. But

fans loved it, even country aficionados. Stardust remained on the charts for ten years,

introducing legions of fans to the classic American songbook.

    Over the years, Willie repeatedly challenged traditional country fans with his

unorthodox lifestyle choices, iconoclastic personality, and Trickster-like habit of

choosing “different” material to interpret. What kind of cowboy has twin pigtails going

halfway down his back? And sings jazz standards or duets with Bob Dylan? For all his

voracious investigations of non-country musical styles, Willie always made sure to toss

out some red meat for the hardcore country fans. When he got together with Waylon

Jennings in 1980 and sang, “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys”

generations of women wanted to do just that. “On the Road Again,” “Pancho and Lefty,”

“Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning,” “Me and Paul,” more conventional

country songs like these compliment the more untraditional elements in Nelson’s oeuvre.

Playing his own songs, reinterpreting classic covers, collaborating with jazz or rock

musicians, Willie always brings his astonishing musicianship, and musicality, to the

table.

    The Trickster both creates order out of chaos, and destroys the order that prevents

the free expression of artistic and spiritual energies. Like the Trickster coyote of myth,

Nelson wields his formidable powers to break the mold of country music strictures,

allowing the music to reign supreme. Amusing, scandalizing, infuriating, fascinating—

that’s our Willie.

Trigger

In 1969, Willie Nelson played an okay guitar. And then some knucklehead went and

stepped on it at a particularly rowdy honky-tonk gig. Willie took it to his fix-it guy, who

declined to even try to save it. But he did offer Willie a substitute he had lying around, a

Martin N-20 classical guitar. What kind of country musician would want to play a nylon

stringed classical axe? Willie Nelson, that’s who. He knew from the first strum that this

was his guitar. He later named it Trigger (see Roy Rogers) and declared he would give it

all up when the guitar did.

Almost 40 years later, Willie is still going strong, but Trigger is having a bit of

trouble keeping up. Classical guitars are used to being lovingly stroked, with bare fingers.

Willie’s vigorous strumming and picking has worn a hole clear through the soundboard.

But that’s not the worst of it. Years of buses, airplanes, and honky-tonks have taken their

toll. For 25 years, Willie refused to even let anyone near the guitar. But at a certain point

it became clear he’d have to retire or give up his promise, as the instrument had just about

given up the ghost. Technicians from the Martin Guitar company itself performed a

unique restoration and repair job which looks to keep Trigger going as long as her master.

One thing they didn’t replace is the soundboard. Not only does it help generate

that distinctive tone, it’s also been signed by more than a hundred friends and esteemed

colleagues—everyone from Johnny Cash to Leon Russell, though Roger Miller signed

the biggest, right on the front.

Willie isn’t the only one counting on old Trigger continuing to remain on this

mortal coil. Mickey Rafael, Willie’s long-time harmonica player put it like this: “We

would just be replaced. But if Trigger goes, that’s it. Game over.”

all material ©copyright chris carroll 2012