There may be a perception that the country-music world is dominated by conservatives. I’m not only a leftist myself, I’m also interested in mavericks that don’t fit the conventional presuppositions. (I’m not a country music fan myself, but if I knew of more liberal C&W music that defies the conservative stereotype, I just might like it better.)
I realized that there’s only one cowboy song I really, really like: the “Oklahoma Hills” by Woody Guthrie. Musically and lyrically, it really doesn’t sound any different from other cowboy songs of the 1930s and 1940s. So I reflected that my liking for it is probably because of my liking for Woody Guthrie, who’s about as leftist as they come. (His guitar was labeled “This Machine Kills Fascists.” :)) I loved the live version of the “Oklahoma Hills” by Arlo Guthrie (Woody’s son) from the 1968 Tribute to Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall (in which Bob Dylan played a rock-‘n’-roll version of “The Grand Coulee Dam”). It gives me a great feeling to hear that song.
How 'bout them Dixie Chicks?
Willie Nelson, a country music god if there ever was one, has endorsed Dennis Kucinich for president 2004.
The folks in Branson say so. I spent the longest weekend of my life there last week for a family gathering. 72 hours of good old Republican family values, reflexive, unthinking patriotism, without the slightest acknowledgment of anything except white Christian rural culture.
I no longer fear hell, for I have been to Branson :eek:
Yeah, I don’t think Country is inherently right wing, I think it’s some cultural shift that took place during the Reagan era. Most of the greats were, if not politically liberal, decidedly anti-authoritarian and down for the poor and oppressed- Willie, Waylon, Loretta Lynne, Johnny Cash… Even Merle Haggard has repudiated the sentiment behind “Okie from Muskogee.”
Steve Earle is the only really contemporary guy I know of that fits into that outlaw mold, and he’s active in the anti-death penalty movement. Check him out if you don’t know him already.
Yeah, king of spain, I thought of that. It’s like there was an informal Treaty of Tordesillas by which the world of rural American music was divvied up: the lefties can call their share “folk” and the right-wingers can call their share “country” and never the twain (no pun intended) shall meet.
Which is why the movie Bob Roberts was so ironic, showing a right-winger who coopted folk music for ultraconservative purposes.
But that wasn’t an entirely new idea: in the 1960s, the “Ballad of the Green Berets” was a right-wing folkie hit.
So turnabout is fair play.
Come to think about it, folkie music became allied with the Left largely thanks to two fellas: Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. It’s really all just “rural American music,” a description I just made up to cover both country and folk. The basic musical template underlying both is really the same, though their sounds have developed in different directions. Country has become dominated by that Nashville sound, with all the weepy pedal steel guitars. But before Nashville put its commercialized stamp on the sound in the post-WWII years, earlier country, closer to its roots, wasn’t so different from folk. This was the sound featured in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou where they called it “old-timey music.” Folk pretty much kept close to that basic sound over the years, while country got all the Nashville stuff overlaid on it. Then there was the “outlaw” sound that deliberately shunned the rancidity of over-commercialized, over-sentimentalized country for a grittier feel. (Why “outlaw”? They didn’t sing about illegal activities any more than other country artists, did they? Did they get busted for drugs more, or what?) The “outlaw” movement helped the musicians to break away somewhat from the conventional Nashville clichés that were kind of limiting, to explore a wider range of themes, which—who knows?—could even include a bit of liberalism. I always thought of Billy Bragg as a folk-rocker. Ani DiFranco is more like a folk-punker, to coin a phrase.
You know, I got grouched at yesterday for having a Dixie Chicks song on the hard drive… I knew I’d heard a female version of “past the point of rescue” can I help it if it was by them? (OK, some woman named Mary Black covered it too) Neither version, incidentally, turned out to be as good as Hal’s. Anyway, I think it’s safe to say you’re right about them being perceived as liberals, if my conservative Dad is any measure to go by…want me to ask if there are any other whiny socialist bastards-in his opinion-making country music?
Bob Roberts was satire, but it’s hard for satire to keep up with real politicians. Remember when G.H.W. Bush used “This Land is Your Land” as a campaign song?
What the hell happened to Charlie Daniels? Can this be the same guy who wrote “Uneasy Rider”?
While not very far “left wing” I recall Kathy Mattea doing some appearances/fundraising for Al Gore.
As for alt.country. Its funny how that label has gone from describing the more “intellectual” or “avant-garde” artists to basically anyone who isn’t a Tony Keith/Tim McGraw type.
Kinky Friedman (and the Texas Jewboys) definitely had a left-wing take on issues, usually milked for comedic purposes. Songs like “Rapid City, South Dakota”, “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore”, “Get Your Biscuits In The Oven An Your Buns In The Bed”, “The Ballad Of Charles Whitmore”, and “Asshole From El Paso” don’t exactly endear you to traditional counrty music fans or radio programmers. He played the Opry - once, and was never invited back.
You might also try singer/songwriters like John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, Roseanne Cash, Towns Van Zandt, Emmylou Harris, Robert Earle Keen, or Guy Clark. The country rock of Doug Sahm/Sir Douglas Quintet, The Texas Tornados, or Freddy Fender. The country-folk of Loudon Wainwright III, but he can be too jokey for some. Gram Parsons (of The Flying Burritos Bros. and The Byrds as well as solo work) would be worth considering as well, this is a guy who wore custom made Nudie suits (those spangled suits in vivid colors with fancy trim and designwork) with images of pot leaves and pills worked into the designs.
These are all artists worth looking into, but very few are what I would consider overtly political in the Guthrie/Bragg/Dylan mode.
You’re more likely to find left wing music by singers in the No Depression/alt.country/AAA genre than you would in current mainstream circles.
I suppose Country Joe McDonald (of Country Joe and the Fish) might fit this category as well - check out the lyrics to the I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag, a.k.a. the Vietnam Rag.
I know he’s talking about the band, but I just wanted to highlight this sentence because I’m pretty sure nobody has ever said anything remotely like it before.
Iris DeMent is a country goddess, but she’s been punished severely for her outspokeness. The brilliant album that that brilliant song comes from, The Way I Should (only her 3rd album), was also her last album. It was released in 1996 (timely for today though, eh?).
As a Bama resident, about the only way the statement, “Alabama always seemed pretty liberal to me,” could be applied to the state instead of the band would be if it was said by a member of the Taliban or someone who wanted to sleep with a cousin. There are anti-incest laws here, but well …you know, any further than a third cousin and you’re sleepin’ with a stranger.
I don’t know Bobby Bare’s politics but he sang a lot of tunes by songwriters in the “outlaw” movement or associated with it. Waylon Jennings recorded an entire album (Honkytonk Heroes) of songs by Billy Joe Shaver, who is definitely on the side of the poor and down-trodden, having been one himself. Although he has a strong spiritual side to his songwriting rather than political.
Example of Willie Nelson yrics regarding drugs from “Me And Paul”:
Almost busted in Larado
But for reasons that I’d rather not disclose
But if you’re stayin’ in a motel there and leave
Just don’t leave nothin’ in your clothes
And at the airport in Milwaukee
They refused to let us board the plane at all
They said we looked suspicious
But I believe they like to pick on me and Paul.
BTW, the title of that Kinky Friedman song should be “The Ballad Of Charles Whitman” not Whitmore. Lyrics to the Kinkster’s song available for view at www.kinkyfriedman.com
A lot of the more lefty acts do seem to wander the borders between folk/country/alt.country/country rock.
John Prine was already mentioned. Sort of ironic that one of the most conservative posters to this board took his username from a song written by the author of “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore.”
Blue Mountain hasn’t been mentioned. They are (were) an alt.country act from Mississippi who included a rapturous ode to Jimmy Carter on their Dog Days CD.
Also I don’t see Hank Williams Sr. listed. He had some songs back in the day that might be regarded as left-leaning, particularly some of the songs recorded in his “Luke the Drifter” incarnation.
Merle Haggard (despite “Okie from Muscogee,” which may or may not have been tongue-in-cheek) has written a number of songs that tilt toward the left, or at least display a strong identification with the downtrodden. (*E.g., “They’re Tearin’ the Labor Camps Down,” “Tulare Dust,” and “If We Make It Through December.”) He also did a song about interracial love (http://www.letssingit.com/merle-haggard-irma-jackson-ppj5v2s.html"]Irma Jackson), which I’m sure did not endear him to a lot of mainstream country fans.
