Chris Stapleton was my gateway drug into country music. I believe this is not an uncommon experience for novitiates. The phenomenally talented modern country music superstar’s output is both authentic and accessible.
His 2020 album ‘Starting Over’ has been top of my playlist since January, and I’ve spun the LP many times on a Friday evening (traditionally ‘wine and records night' in our household). Hell, it’s been quite the year. Full of change, loss and the promise of a new start. Nobody soundtracks such a tumultuous shock to the system like Stapleton. That album makes you feel all of the feels. From the apprehension and excitement of change in the title song, to the playful joy of ‘Arkansas’ and the despair of ‘Whisky Sunrise’.
And maybe there’s the rub. It’s been a year of heightened emotions. And where music enhances our mood, only Stapleton has cut the mustard during unsettled times. How much that album, especially the title song ‘Starting Over’ has meant to me, isn’t possible to put into words. It’s given me meaning, direction and at times some much-needed solace. More high-faulting prog rock concept albums, traditionally my go-to, just haven’t been there for me during this rollercoaster ride. There’s something about country music that makes it inherently more adept at reaching into your soul.
I found this out in Nashville during CMA Fest 2024, when the floodgates opened and I was exposed to a multitude of country artists from past and present.
Johnny Cash was everywhere in Nashville. From his own museum in Downtown to many depictions and personal items on display in the excellent Country Music Hall of Fame. The man in black had long been on my radar, before I was ready for him, and he’d even appeared in my favourite TV show, Columbo, playing a country music artist (surprise, surprise!) turned murderer. As Columbo sympathetically tells him later on, anyone who can sing like him can’t be all bad. The wily cop has a point!
The song Cash performs in the episode is Hank Williams’ 1948 country gospel song ‘I Saw the Light’. Columbo’s analysis is that to authentically convey the meaning of the words, you’d have to have some good inside you. There’s also the acknowledgment that the best country singers have a demon on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Their voices can and must take you to the heights of euphoria and to the depths of hell. The devil is in the details (isn't he always?). It was a pleasure to meet Hank Williams’ grandson Sam Williams, himself a country singer/songwriter, during the Nashville trip, which furthered the process of connecting these dots in my head. Not only that but I saw the unrivalled Dolly Parton live on stage on the same day and she truly left me speechless. It’s not every day you’re in the presence of greatness.
As the legendary Willie Nelson once said, the definition of a country song is, “Three chords and the truth.” There’s no room for posturing or pretension in a genre that is otherwise pretty adaptable and apt to change with the times. Much as I enjoy Nelson’s seminal 1975 album, ‘Red Headed Stranger’, with the arresting opening song ‘Time of the Preacher’ a classic of the genre, country music has evolved and been influenced by other genres over the decades. A songwriter’s showcase at a venue off the beaten path was one of the highlights of the trip, and all of the performers stuck to Nelson’s maxim, delivering acoustic sets primed with home truths.
Several songs have stuck with me ever since. Ira Dean is a hilarious and charismatic performer, though many of his songs belie his endearingly funny stage performances and pull at the heart strings. ‘Missin How It Used To Be’ recalls his fond memories of his late mother. ‘Ain’t sayin’ I don’t love what I have here, I’m just missin’ how it used to be,’ he sings. It’s a complex emotional state to convey, mixing nostalgia for the past in the absence of longing and regret, yet he achieves it with a simple and immediately relatable couplet. I miss holidays and days out with my parents when they were younger and fitter, but I’m grateful for those I had, love the memories they bestowed on me, and have my own life now to follow their traditions and values. Accepting that time moves on and things don’t stay the same is the essence of the song, and if you’re in a frame of mind for revisiting your past, Dean’s song is bound to hit you in the feels.
Another performer, Matt Rogers, sang ‘Til You Can’t’, which he co-wrote and became a hit for Cody Johnson. It’s all about the importance of not putting things off and seeing loved ones when you can – because time’s running down and one day you won’t be able to. It’s another song with a simple but poignant truth that also contains a moral worth heeding. Little surprise that such a catchy melody and close to home message delivered a hit. Georgia Middleman’s charming ‘Table 32’ is such a clever song based around a classic misunderstanding, but it held the audience spellbound as she told the story of waiting on what she assumes is an older man having an affair with a younger woman at the end of a long shift. Everyday, mundane human observations are elevated through the songwriter’s wit and insight into the human condition (the truth). That's what captivates audiences and makes country music so touching, personal and accessible.
Growing up and discovering classic rock, I contemptuously dismissed country music out of hand. It belonged to an alien culture I didn’t understand and lacked the curiosity and open-mindedness to explore. Having had a week of exceptional Mid West hospitality in Nashville, with many a friendly ‘Howdy!’ delivered by perfect strangers, it’s now a culture I want to throw myself into deeper than I’ve ever waded before. I like that country is unpretentious, always striving to convey the psychologically complex simply and without fuss.
The heroes and heroines of country music tend to be working class and from rural backgrounds. They often had impoverished childhoods and lack fancy degrees. Their values are often traditional, rooted in family, faith, love of country and connectedness to land and local community. All of these influences are readily mocked or sneered at in the current climate, especially by progressives in big cities whose social mores are over-represented in culture and the arts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
My advice to fellow novitiates yet to take the plunge but willing to try is to understand country music rather than dismiss the genre out of hand. Experience it and live it. It’ll find a way into your heart when the time is right for you. For me it started with Chris Stapleton. Every time I hear ‘Maggie’s Song’ I sob my heart out.
‘I had a revelation
As the tractor dug a hole
I can tell you right now
That a dog has a soul.’
That short, wonderful song captures perfectly everything that a dog brings to a family, and the deep mutual love and connection humans and canines have. I’m convinced of their divinity too, Chris!
Rewind a decade and a half and I was telling my husband that the Chicks were torturing my ears. Now ‘Gaslighter' is a favourite, I’m reaching for Waylon Jennings and own a pair of Ariat cowboy boots. Heck, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. If I had any talent for lyrics I’d write a self-effacing song about it. But I don't, so I'm letting my favourite country musicians soundtrack my life instead.
