Young traditionalists bring country back to its roots

Press, 10 November 1986, Page 14

Young traditionalists bring country back to its roots

In the early 1980 s, thanks in part to John Travolta, country music sounded like something between disco and Top 40 pop. But now such young traditionalists as Ricky Skaggs, Dwight Yoakam and George Strait have returned country to its original sounds. MARK HUMPHREY talks to the leaders of country’s “new breed” to find out what they are doing that is bringing disenchanted fans back to the genre.

Country music, like ink blot tests, evokes strong and varied reactions. City slickers, fond of rock, regard it as a dim-witted cousin while country folk zealously trumpet it as true grit itself.

In fact, country has never been as backward as some people believe, or as pure as others would hope. Borrowings from pop music go back to jazzy recordings by Jimmie Rodgers in the 19205; Bob Willis fiddled with a big band in the 19405; and Patsy Cline’s heartfelt crooning defined a 1960 s sound called “countri-poli-tan.”

Country fans have generally either welcomed or tolerated pop elements in their music. But by the end of the 19705, many feared that an invasion was choking the life from something once distinct from the pop mainstream.

The singer, Ricky Skaggs, said: “The beginning of the 1980 s was almost the beginning of the end for country. “Musically, it got so serious, syruped with strings, background voices, and synthesisers. I knew what country music was, and I wasn’t hearing it on the radio.” Young country traditionalists such as Skaggs and John Anderson began to insist that the simplicity of basic country had more guts and drive than the baleful sophistication of the stuff called “crossover” — the musical equivalent of a Tennessee tick hound with a poodle perm. "We began,” said Anderson, “in our own little humble way, protesting.” Skaggs and Anderson were the vanguard of the back-to-basics movement. Since then the ranks have swelled to include George Strait, Reba McEntire, the Whites,' the Judds, and Dwight Yoakam.

Individually, each has a distinctive sound that owes much to some aspect of country tradition, be it bluegrass, honky-tonk, rockabilly, or western swing. Collectively, they have not stemmed the tide of middle-of-the-road mush flowing from Nashville, but they have proved that country need not deny its gritty essence to be viable in the 1980 s.

The premiere female traditionalist, Reba McEntire, said: “Ricky Skaggs kind of started it off by saying he was going to do

what he wanted, regardless. “Everybody liked it, and it gave the rest of us the notion. Well, if people are liking this kind of music and we like it, why aren’t we doing it?” Elements married

When Skaggs signed with CBS in 1980, he had the gall to insist (in writing) that he produce his records. New artists do not do that.

Skaggs did, and the result has been a sound, both distinct and consistent, that marries the best elements of the country-rock he gleaned from working in Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band in the late 1970 s with the bluegrass he has played all his life. “The Stanley Brothers were my strongest musical influence,” said the Kentucky-born Skaggs, aged 31. “They just had a sound that went through me like a March wind. I listened to them all through my teen years, even though I was listening to the Rolling Stones, Beatles, and Hollies.

“There was a lot about both of those kinds of music that I could not see a whole lot of difference in.

“A lot of the Beatles’ music had harmony styles that the Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe, and Flatt and Scruggs had done, which influenced the Everly Brothers, who influenced the Beatles. It came back over here and this thing just made a cycle.” Skaggs’s talents as a picker (acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, and fiddle), bandleader, producer, and singer have earned him the respect of peers beyond, the bluegrass and country circuit.

When Skaggs toured the United Kingdom last May, Elvis Costello not only came to hear him, he picked with Skaggs on a jumped-up version of "Don’t Get Above Your Raising” (heard on Skaggs’s “Live in London” album).

“Just a prince of a guy,” was how Skaggs described Costello. “I’m a fan of his, too.”

Skaggs works as a joint producer of the Whites, whose clean, crisp harmonies suggest what the Carter Family might sound like if they were looking for a hit in the 1980 s.

“The roots of our music go back to the Carter Family,” said Buck White, whose daughters, Sharon and Cheryl, parallel the Carter cousins, Sara and Maybelle.

“The singing parts are real similar. Musically, we play with a little more swing, but the family idea and traditions are basically the same.” The Whites had an impressive run of hits in 1982 and 1983. (“Rangin’ Around” and “You Put the Blue in Me” among them), but in spite of some fine records since, they have not regained their initial commercial momentum.

The young traditionalists’ male expert on honky-tonk heartache is the Texan, George Strait. Strait has brought new life to the country music traditions that sprang from Texas soil before he was born. Hearing him revive classics like “Right or Wrong” or sing new songs with a hard country edge, is like hearing Tommy Duncan with Bob Wills’s Texas Playboys in their prime, or Ernest Tubb and Ray Price in honky-tonk’s heyday. Strait taps a vein of country

gold that is as danceable as it is deep.

“That’s really what I try to shoot for,” Strait said of his Texas shuffle groove. Another new act that has achieved success with an oldtime sound is the Judds, a mother-daughter combination. In two years, they have had four successive No. 1 country hits and have hauled home a trophy case full of awards, including 1984’s Grammy for country vocal duet of the year. One might write this off to canny corporate campaigning if it were not for the fresh immediacy of the Judds’ sound. Nearer the middle-Of-the-road than other young traditionalists, they nonetheless cut the polish with a gritty kick that comes from spare production, Don Potter’s, funky acoustic guitar licks, and Wynonna Judd’s phenomenally beefy pipes, backed by Naomi Judd’s subtle harmonies.

Country music has ploughed some foreign fields lately, thanks to Dwight Yoakam. He has appeared at such non-rustic nightspots as Los Angeles’ Anticlub and opened for the roots rockers, Los Lobos, Lone Justice, the Blasters and Nick Lowe.

“I think they weren’t sure, the first night we opened for an act like that, how we would be accepted by their crowd,” said Yoakam.

“But I never questioned the music’s ability to be what it is: I questioned the integrity of the crowds, their ability to practise what they preached. “ ‘You’re talking a real good game with this cowpunk stuff’ was what I was thinking. ‘Let’s see if you all can really handle this or not.’ Bless their hearts, they did.”

‘Perspective important’ Yoakam’s James Dean cool and rockabilly-edged music make him the most accessible of the young country traditionalists to rock audiences, but he has also won crowds opening for Bill Monroe and George Jones. “It’s important that I keep a perspective on where this music comes from and who this music truly belongs to,” said Yoakam. “I won’t abandon what we have developed in L.A. as far as transcending the (traditional country) marketplace. But I need Nashville to introduce me to the rightful home of this music, which is the middle of this

country.” Yoakam’s debut Warner Brothers album, "Guitars, Cadillacs, etc., etc.’’ met with praise from Tulsa to Manhattan. “In our record production, we adhere to a very austere and raw quality,” said Yoakam. “That’s not to say a naive use of modern recording techniques, but it is more of a rock *n’ roll austerity, like someone like (John) Fogerty. “That is what I did not want to sacrifice by going to Nashville. Maybe we can recapture some of what Bakersfield had out here a few years ago on the West Coast.”

Bakersfield gave the world Buck ‘n’ Merle, raised a raucous yelp that even the Beatles heard, and then died. Nashville perfected the hue and cry of honkytonk, then went soft in search of middle-of-the-road money when rock drew away the young audience.

The outlaws brought back some kick (and younger listeners) in the mid-19705, but proved paunchy in the end. Country’s young traditionalists have come up with the first fresh southern sound in a decade, a sound, paradoxically, that is determinedly out of date. “We are saying, ‘Look at us, we can play the old stuff, too,’ ” said Ricky Skaggs. “We are taking what people like Bill Monroe and Roy Acuff did in the past, adding our own ideas, and going on with.it. Take the torch and run on.” It is heartening, but one cannot help wondering if the torch can travel any farther. This is the last generation to bear vivid memories of Carter Stanley and Ernest Tubb. It is unlikely that the cultural touchstones that shaped the backlash against “Trashville” pandering will endure into the next century. Will country, a populist art form and not just a marketing label, exist in thd year 2000; “Yeah, buddy,” said a confident Ricky Skaggs. “Unless,” cautioned the bornagain picker, ’’the Lord comes and raptures us all real soon.” Well, maybe the Almighty likes a good country tune Himself. “Oh,” said Skaggs. "I know He does.” t (c) 1986, Mark Humphrey. Distributed by Los Angeles Times , Syndicate.