The Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music by Nicholas Dawidoff (review)

Dawidoff, Nicholas. The Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music. Vintage: 1998. Paperback $19.95. Acoustic guitar, fiddles and bluegrass banjo filled the airwaves when I was a child in rural Ontario during the 1950s. These days, this type of country music is seldom heard on radio. What a surprise, then, to discover a book on traditional country by a young author whose fascination with this form of music led him on an odyssey to its roots. Nicholas Dawidoff travelled and interviewed luminaries and aficionados of this vanishing musical form in preparation for writing. The Country ofCountry: A Journey to the Roots ofAmerican Music. Country music, to Dawidoff, is social history. Although it originated among the Scottish, Irish and English settlers of North America, it soon became a hybrid style, incorporating a variety of influences. Jimmie Rodgers (1887-1933), the "singing brakeman" and popularizer of what was then known as "hillbilly music," had an African-American mentor. Among the country music pioneers were the Carter family (A.R, Sara and Maybelle), who, in 1923, brought traditional songs like "Pale Wildwood Flower" to the attention of a Victor Recording Company representative who was scouting rural Virginia for talent. "If I were to suggest one record with which to begin a country collection," writes Dawidoff, "[it would be] . . . the original 1972 Will the Circle Be Unbroken recording (United artists), a classic group of Nashville sessions hosted by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and featuring Mother Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Merle Travis, and Vassar Clements." Dawidoff's writing is frequently lyrical, as shown by his description of Bill Munroe's bluegrass compositions: "Monroe wrote music that assigned each string dialogue in a musical conversation. When the banjo said something hot-tempered, the fiddle responded cheekily and then the mandolin rolled his eyes and tweaked them both." A book on country music would be incomplete without reference to Hank Williams, who wrote a dazzling number of enduring songs before drinking himself to death at twenty-nine. Dawidoff does not go into detail about Williams's short life, but emphasizes the integrity and intensity of his music. Traditional country music arose from people for whom existence was struggle, and it continues to be written and sung in less prosperous pockets of North America, as Dawidoff found on his tour of Appalachia: "On my radio, a discussion of black lung benefits paused for an advertisement that began: 'When my child comes home with head lice. ... '" 75 One of Dawidoff's most entertaining interviews is with songwriter Harlan Howard, the composer of such hits as "Heartaches by the Number," "Busted," and "Pick Me Up onYour Way Down." Howard's life story is the stuff of which country songs are made. His parents came from the south to work in the automobile industry in Detroit. As a child in foster homes, he listened to country radio at night. Later he joined the army, from which he emerged with a valuable skill—the ability to play guitar. During his early adult years he worked in California factories. "I'd walk around with a squirt can and a can of oil to the huge punch presses. .. . Once that was done I'd sit on a tool crib until the machines started getting hot again. I had six hours out of eight to goofoff , so I'd write songs on the back of production sheets. I had free paper. I was paid. I had free time. I'd come home with a whole pocket stuffed full of lyrics." Later, Howard was the only fork-lift driver in America who could switch on his car radio on his drive home from work, press the five buttons in turn, and hear a song he'd writtenbeing played on each one. During the 1960s, traditional music surged in popularity. In recent years, however, country stations have been featuring "New Country"—which owes more to rock and roll than to the folk tradition. Larry Cordle and Larry Shell recently wrote a song, entitled "Murder in Music Row," in which they deplore this trend away from traditional instruments and claim that the heart and soul have been cut...