Robert Price Concert Comments

Academic Decathlon lecture/Oct. 24 Robert Price Bakersfield Convention Center, 9:45 am

Thank you Ed. Good morning, and welcome to the music portion of the 2001 Academic Decathlon competition. I’m Robert Price, and I’m here to lead you on a quick two-hour tour of country music history.

We’re fortunate to have some fine musicians with us today, so you’ll be able to get a few breaks from the sound of my voice. Direct from Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace, we have the Buckaroos, along with Bakersfield’s Pacific Crest, a bluegrass band led by Craig Wilson, and some other special guests we’ll introduce as we go along.

County music, or country and western as it was once called, is a uniquely American music, but it has its roots in the folk ballads of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. And, much like rock, jazz, blues, gospel, R&B, country music can trace its lineage to the slaves who were brought to America from the nations of West Africa. Some flavors of country music can also be traced to Mexico and the Latin music of the American southwest, although the Resource Guide makes only passing mention of it. You’ll hear some of that influence in our final selection this morning.

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In the U.S., this thing we now call country music began in the mountains of Appalachia - primarily Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee and West Virginia. The people of that time and that region wouldn’t recognize Faith Hill and Shania Twain as having evolved from their music, but that’s the case.

Several factors contributed to that evolution -- cultural and economic factors.

The songs of the fields sung by rural workers, including slaves and their decendents, influenced the musicians who would grow up to become creators of country music, people like Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills.

And there were the business factors - strikes and lawsuits and poor judgment by people in the music industry “establishment” that allowed upstart competitors to fill the niche that became popular country music.

War even played a role. When Midwesterners came west to the shipyards of the West Coast in the 1940s to help with the war effort, they brought their taste for “honky tonk” and other musical forms, creating a giant musical melting pop. It was from this phenomenon that the Bakersfield Sound, a close cousin of rockabilly, was born.

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Generally speaking, three things set country music apart from other popular styles.

One is the theme. Country music seems to have a special populist appeal. It has almost always been a genre that speaks to people where they live. The songs are usually about friends and lovers, as well as loneliness, poverty, and homesickness. Hank Williams was big on all those things. You don’t hear those subjects addressed nearly as often in other styles of popular music.

Another thing that sets country music apart is its musical structure. Its rythym, tempo and form. You’ll hear more about that after lunch from Dr. Jerry Kleinsasser of Cal State Bakersfield.

The other thing that’s different about country music is the type of musical instruments that are used, and in some cases the way they’re played. Let’s look at them.

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Fiddle Whatýs the difference between a fiddle and a violin? Nothing, except the style of music they’re used for. Fiddles, probably the most important instrument in Anglo-American instrumental folk music, were central to the development of western swing. They still play a major role in bluegrass and Cajun music. In country music, there are basically two ways to play a fiddle: what we might call the traditional fiddle style and the Texas longbow style. Here’s Jason Thieste of the Smokin Armadillos to show us.

Banjo The banjo is descended from a stringed instrument of African origin called the banjar, and in the early 20th century, it was used in traveling vaudeville and minstrel shows. There are two basic types -- the four string banjo and the five string banjo. Once upon a time, the banjo player was as much the band buffoon as he was a musician, but that changed as certain players brought new virtuosity to that instrumental role. During the 1940s, Earl Scruggs popularized what we now call the ‘Scruggs style,” using finger picks. Here, on the banjo, is Shawn Criswell of Pacific Crest, who has promised NOT to act like a buffoon.

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Guitar The guitar, which developed over the course of several hundred years, has been linked with country music since the 1920s. In the 185Os, it took on the look we know today - the flat-top steel-string guitar. Most guitarists in country music play the guitar with a pick, but many also finger pick their guitars in a style popularized by Merle Travis, an artist of the 1940s. That style is called “Travis picking”. In the 1930s and 1940s, the electric guitar was created and rose in prominence, changing the sound of country music forever. Leo Fender’s guitars, especially the Fender Telecaster, were especially influential in the creation of the Bakersfield Sound. Here’s Joe Ashe of Pacific Crest.

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Steel Guitar The steel guitar came into popularity following the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco, when Hawaiian musicians introduced the Hawaiian “slack-key” guitar. It became popular in traveling medicine and vaudeville shows, and eventually it found its way into hillbilly music. The steel guitar is held flat on the player’s lap, facing the player. The strings of the guitar are raised up, off the frets, and the notes are “fingered” with a steel bar. In the 193Os, it was first amplified, and the size of the instrument’s body changed so that it essentially became just a “neck”. Next, came the pedal steel guitar, which uses a mechanism that can change the pitch of the strings, much like the way a harp’s pitch is changed. The standard today is to have two ten-string necks tuned to two different tunings - changeable with pedals - or to use a single twelve- or fourteen-string neck. The amplified steel guitar came into prominence during the Western Swing period. Here again is the versatile Terry Christofferson.

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Additional Instruments (5-second solos) We’ve got several other instruments on stage with us here, some more common in bluegrass than honky-tonk, some more closely associated with Western Swing or rockabilly. In the next hour or so, you will hear from Craig Wilson on mandolin (pause),... Joe Ashe on acoustic guitar ....

Steve Dennis on upright bass ...

Doyle Curtsinger on electric bass ...

Terry Christofferson on synthesized dobro ...

Ken Bausano on trumpet ... Mike Rainey on clarinet ...

Jim Shaw on piano ... and Jim McCarty on drums ...

Weýve got three solists: Jennifer Keel, Kim McAbee and David Langley.

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The look

Those are some examples of what country music’s instruments sound like. But why does it look the way it does? If its origins are in the British Isles, West Africa and Appalachia, why are so many singers wearing cowboy hats and Wranglers? For the answer to that, we have to look to those singing cowboy movies from the 30s and 40s, with Tex Ritter and Roy Rodgers. When western swing and honky-tonk, the dominant styles of country music in the 40s, took over from Jimmie Rodgers, they adopted the clothing styles of those heroic, Saturday-morning movie cowboys, rather than the overalls of the hillbilly singers, who people tended to laugh at in the Grand Old Opry. So, even though the music of Hank Williams, and others like him, sounded more like Kentucky than Texas, in appearance it was the opposite. That’s why Dwight Yoakam wears that big hat. That, and he’s losing his hair at a ferocious pace.

Twenty songs

OK, let’s get to the music. We’ve got the 14 songs from the CD, plus some bonus songs we hope will shed further light on what this country music thing is all about. We’ll try to work them all in.

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Song One (1) “THE HOUSE CARPENTER” Mrs. TEXAS GLADDEN

One of the purposes of folk ballads, like the one you’re about to hear, was to teach lessons. Ballads often end with a moral. In this tune, the woman leaves her husband and baby to run off with an old boyfriend. In the end, she dies in a shipwreck. The moral is clear - stay true to your home and family to avoid this type of harm. The song on your disc was recorded in Salem, Virginia, in 1941 by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax, who collected recordings of folk songs throughout the 1940s. Those field recordings formed the basis for the enormous collection of traditional music housed in the folk life division of the Library of Congress. The Lomaxes’ work triggered the first widescale appreciation of folk, blues and traditional music. In addition to his hillbilly archives, Alan Lomax gave blues artists Leadbelly and Muddy Waters their first national exposure. Alan Lomax, who’s still going strong at 86, has lived long enough to see some of his field recordings reconstituted by artists like Moby and in the George Clooney movie “O Brother Where Art Thou?” Now, here’s Jennifer Keel, singing “The House Carpenter”.

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Song Two (2) “SALLIE GOODEN” ALEXANDER CAMPBELL “ECK” ROBERTSON

Jason Thieste

Now let’s go to “Sally Gooden”, an unaccompanied fiddle piece, played Texas “long-bow” style. Fiddle playing, through time, was always the central part of the barn dance, or social dance, but this particular song has some asymmetrical qualities that make it more of a “show off” song, better suited for listening rather than dancing. The song on your disc was recorded in 1922; and in its day, this piece would have been considered “hillbilly” music, even though Eck Robertson was from Texas. Here is Jason Thieste.

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Song Three (3) “EIGHTEEN HAMMERS” Johnny Lee Moore and 12 Mississippi PENITENTIARY CONVICTS

This next song, “Eighteen Hammers,” will be performed by the students of Dr. Ron Kean - his choir and some general music-class students from Bakersfield College. As they get themselves arranged now, I’ll tell you a little bit about the original recording. One thing you should notice about “Eighteen Hammers” is the call and response element, one of the primary characteristics heard in a lot of African-American music. The first call line ascends at the end, as if asking a question, and is mimicked in the response. The second call line descends, as if giving the answer, which is again mimicked in the response. You can hear that general form in gospel, blues, and even some dance and hip-hop. The origin version was a 1959 field recording done using a portable machine, probably at the Parchman Farm, a Mississippi penitentiary. I assume Dr. Kean’s singers will be released on their own recognizance after the performance. OK, here’s “Eighteen Hammers”.

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Song Four (4) “SINGLE GIRL, MARRIED GIRL” THE CARTER FAMILY

Kim McAbee with Joe Ashe on acoustic guitar

This next singing style is very typical of early hillbilly musicians. There is a little sense of Appalachian speech in the accent and word usage - a very straightforward, uncomplicated singing style. The Carter Family recorded its original version of this song at the Bristol Sessions in Bristol, Tennessee, in 1927 by Ralph Peer for RCA-Victor. It was quite a day -- Jimmie Rodgers, whose music you’ll hear later, showed up for the same casting call. Now, here’s Kim McAbee, doing her own version of “Single Girl, Married Girl”.

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Song Five (5) “WAITING FOR A TRAIN” JIMMIE RODGERS

Jimmie Rodgersý “Waitiný For a Train” was written in the same style as the music of vaudeville or Tin Pan Alley. Rodgers adapted this piece from an o1d folk song and gave it elements of his own style. The text of this song, and of many of Rodgers’ tunes, focuses on trains, which throughout the early twentieth century were symbols of freedom. Rodgers’ influence on country music is so great that he has often been called “the father of country music”. As a kid in Mississippi, Rodgers was influenced by vaudeville tunes, blues, and other music, and as a young man he toured with a medicine show. In 1927, he traveled to Bristol, Tennessee, to audition for a recording with Ralph Peer of RCA Victor. His first recordings did not sell that well, but his second set of recordings did. His tune “Blue Yodel” sold more than a million copies. Over the next six years, Rodgers made over one hundred recordings, from Tin Pan Alley style tunes, to blues and folk music. Rodgers died of tuberculosis in 1935, but his influence can be felt to this day, both in country and in rock. He’s a member of both Halls of Fame. Now, here’s Pacific Crest, along with Ken Bausano, Mike Rainey and Terry Christofferson.

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Song Six (6) “A COWBOY HAS TO SING” ROY ROGERS AND THE SONS OF THE PIONEERS

“A Cowboy Has to Sing” was first recorded in 1942, and it was also used in the film “Springtime in the Sierras” in 1947. The song represents what we might consider the first advanced recording techniques of the songs on your CD. The songwriter is Bob Nolan, an original member of the Sons of the Pioneers. Two other famous Bob Nolan tunes are “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and “Cool Water”, both cowboy classics. The lead singer back in 1942 was Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye. In 1930 he moved to Los Angeles and soon thereafter joined a singing group called the Rocky Mountaineers, which later became The Sons of the Pioneers. In 1937 Rogers heard that there was to be an audition for a role of a cowboy in a western film since contract negotiations with Gene Autry were not going smoothly. Rogers auditioned and got the part, beginning what would be an extremely successful film career. Now, here’s Pacific Crest, with “A Cowboy Has to Sing”.

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Song Seven (7) “NEW SAN ANTONlO ROSE” BOB WILLS and his TEXAS PLAYBOYS

Bob Wills is considered by most to be the father of western swing, a style that combines elements of several musical genres, most notably jazz. Wills, a native of Texas, started playing the fiddle at a young age. When he was older, Wills landed a job with a medicine show performing songs and comedy routines, sometimes in blackface. His medicine show experience clearly influenced his music. Wills formed the Wills Fiddle Band in the early 1930s, and the band soon came to be called the Light Crust Doughboys, because they were sponsored by Light Crust Flour. In 1932 Wills was kicked out of the Doughboys because of his heavy drinking. He eventually formed a new group, along with singer Tommy Duncan, that came to be called the Texas Playboy. That band, with whom Bob Wills had his greatest success, played all over the country, including, I am told, many times in Bakersfield. Here, doing their best impression of the Texas Playboys, are Jason Thieste, David Langley and the Buckaroos

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Song Eight (8) “BLUEGRASS BREAKDOWN” BILL MONROE AND HIS BLUE GRASS BOYS

Bill Monroe was the founding father of bluegrass music. He was born in 1911, grew up on a farm in Kentucky, and began playing the mandolin at the age of eight. By the 1920s Monroe and his brothers had formed a band called the Monroe Brothers, which developed a local following and performed on a local radio broadcast. In 1938 the group split, and Monroe formed the Blue Grass Boys. In 1939 Monroe began experimenting, using faster tempos, complex harmonies, and improvised parts. In the same year, he and his band won a spot on the Grand Old Opry and became regulars on the show, furthering their regional popularity. The band’s high point was the 1940s, when Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, were members. After Flatt and Scruggs left the band, Monroe regrouped with new band members and continued to record and perform live. In the late 1950s and early 1960s bluegrass gained favor with a new young urban audience as a result of the folk revival movement. Now, to perform “Bluegrass Breakdown,” here are Craig Wilson and Pacific Crest with Jason Thieste

17 Song Eight-B (9) "HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN WAITING FOR YOU" Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver

Doyle Lawson was born in 1944, in Tennessee, and he cut his teeth on the Grand Ole Opry. He was most impressed as a child by Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. At 18, he got a job playing banjo with bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin and his Sunny Mountain Boys. Later, in other bands, he played guitar and then mandolin. In 1979 he formed his own band, which eventually evolved into Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. Lawson has been a terrific innovator, not only in interpreting traditional Bluegrass styles, but bringing popular songs from Rock, Folk and Country into his brand of bluegrass. He has brought along a lot of new talent, too. In fact, he has jokingly referred to his band as the “farm team” for Bluegrass music. “How Long Have I Been Waiting For You” was written by the great folk-rock writer and artist, Jonathon Edwards. Here again to perform “How Long Have I Been Waiting For You” is Pacific Crest.

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Song Nine (10 in the program) “LOVESICK BLUES” HANK WILLIAMS SR.

Hank Williams Sr. is widely considered the greatest country star in the history of the genre. Born in rural Alabama, Williams, as a boy, played music on the street to earn money, and doing so, he met Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne, a black musician who passed along his knowledge of music.

At the age of eighteen Williams formed a band called the Drifting Cowboys. In 1946 Williams first met Fred Rose, a songwriter and music publisher. Rose helped get Williams signed, presided over his first recording session, and became a mentor and advisor to Williams throughout his short life. Williams had a serious drinking problem, and in 1952 he began having heart problems, no doubt from his regular diet of drugs and alcohol. He died on New Years Day in 1953. Williams’ influence continues to this day. He pioneered the honky-tonk style and was a talented songwriter, although he did NOT write this one. “Lovesick Blues” is among the first in a long line’ of tunes by male singers that bemoaned the foibles of women and reflected the “love ‘em and lose ‘em” philosophy characteristic of honky-tonk music. Here now is Pacific Crest, with Joe Ashe.

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Song Nine-B (11 in the program) "GREAT BALLS OF FIRE" Jerry Lee Lewis

In country music the most dominant piano style to emerge in the 1940s was honky-tonk. Jerry Lee Lewis came from the other school of country-music piano-playing -- rockabilly, a style influenced by an older style known as boogie-woogie. Rockabilly can also be described as an up-tempo blues-based music. Jerry Lee Lewis was one of the great rockabilly artists to emerge out of Sam Phillips’ Sun Records’ studio in Memphis. Lewis’ piano style stole for the spotlight from the hardest of the honky-tonk pianists with his syncopation and pounding, driving rhythm. But rockabilly music’s heyday lasted just four years. In 1958 Elvis Presley joined the Army, Sam Phillips sold Elvis’ recording contract to RCA, and Jerry Lee Lewis was blacklisted after marrying his fourteen year-old cousin. Try to forget that little detail of his personal life as you listen to the Buckaroos doing “Great Balls of Fire.”

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Song Ten (12 in the program) “I WALK THE LINE” JOHNNY CASH

Another great artist who came out of Sun Studios in Memphis was Johnny Cash, who became known for his deep, “manly” singing style, which is uniquely distinct from that of singers like Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. Growing up on a farm in northeastern Arkansas, Cash listened many styles of music, including gospel, blues, and country. Cash first auditioned at Sam Phillips’ Sun Records in 1954, and in 1955 Cash had his first hit with “Cry, Cry Cry.” Numerous other hit songs followed throughout the ‘5Os and the following decades. Cash played at folk festivals in the 1960s and also performed his now famous shows at Folsom Prison and later at San Quentin prison. From 1969 to 1971 Cash had his own television program, The Johnny Cash Show, which reflected Cash’s interest in a variety of musical styles. Cash remains in iconic figure in the worlds of both rock and country music, and his work is especially remarkable for its crossover appeal. Among the many bands to have covered his material are the Beastie Boys, who sampled his Folsom Prison Blues” in 1989. Here are the Buckaroos with “I Walk the Line.”

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Song Ten-B (13) "FOUR WALLS" Jim Reeves

By the mid-1950s, that rock n roll thing was starting to worry the record companies in Nashville. So they decided they needed to create a song that was as far away from Elvis and his buddies as they possibly could. They came up what came to be known as Countrypolitan, or the Nashville Sound, and there was no better example of it that Jim Reeves. Jim Reeves began his career in show business as a hillbilly disc jockey. His earliest recordings are more reminiscent of a typical honky-tonk singer than a pop singer. But in the late 1950s, Reeves began working with Chet Atkins, who developed Reeves’ vocal style, and he also influenced the music Reeves recorded. While Reeves’ earlier recordings had incorporated typical country instrumentation, including steel guitar and fiddle, by the time he recorded his first huge hits, “Four Walls” in 1959 and “Heýll Have to Go” in 1960, there was virtually nothing that marked Reeves’ music as “country” except for an ever so slight Texas drawl. Here are the Buckaroos with “Four Walls.”

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Song Eleven (14) “WALKINý AFTER MIDNIGHT” PATSY CLINE

With just a hint of southern inflection, Patsy Cline’s singing style is very reminiscent of the pop singers of the 1950s and 1960s. It has a smooth, warm sound, vastly different in comparison to the honky-tonk sound of someone such as Kitty Wells or Hank Williams, Sr. By this time recording studios were getting sophisticated enough to be able to handle multiple tracks of recorded material simultaneously. The recording on your CD, from 1956, is sophisticated and very clean. Patsy Cline first sang professionally in the harder honky-tonk style, but producer Owen Bradley softened her style considerably. Following her big hit with “Walkiný After Midnight,” Patsy Cline had more crossover success with “I Fall to Pieces” and “Crazy.” She was still in the prime of her career when she was killed in a plane crash in 1963. Fortunately, Kim McAbee is alive and well and here now to sing with the Buckaroos, “Walkin’ After Midnight.”

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Song Twelve (15) “EXCUSE ME (I THINK IýVE GOT A HEARTACHE)” BUCK OWENS

When we talk about the Bakersfield Sound of the late 1950s and 60s, the first person we think of Buck Owens, whose clear but twangy singing style put this town on the map. Buck was born in Texas, grew up in Arizona, and moved to Bakersfield in 1951. He was almost strictly a live performer and session guitarist for hire until about 1959, when he signed as a solo artist with Capitol Records, fronting the Buckaroos. Unlike most studios in Nashville, the Hollywood studios of Capitol Records and producer Ken Nelson allowed stars like Owens to bring in their own backup bands and record their songs in much the same way they would in a live setting. That detail represents one of the key differences between the Countrypolitan sound of early 1960s Nashville and the California or Bakersfield Sound of the same era. Owens’ success in the 1960s was phenomenal -- he had more than fifteen number-one hits. In 1968 Owens began working as a co-host of Hee Haw, which was an enormously popular television program - but probably served to bring back the old hillbilly caricature that Nashville has worked so hard to supress. After the death of Don Rich, a close friend and musical partner, Owens for the most part stopped performing. But he resurfaced in 1987. We’ll hear more about that later. Now, with “Excuse Me (I Think I Have a Heartache,” here are the Buckaroos.

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Song Twelve-B (16) “SWINGIN DOORS” Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard, the bad boy from Oildale, has contributed a lot to country music, but the most notable might be as a songwriter and a cultural icon. He contributed many songs that involved honky-tonk gender stereotypes, but he also created some incredible testaments to human nature with songs such as “Mama Tried” and “Hungry Eyes.” The profound quality of these songs contributed to a new mindset in country songwriting-the creation of a depth. Haggard’s songwriting that paralleled that of Bob Dylan in folk and rock music. Country songwriters such as John Harttford, Jimmy Webb, Kris Kristofferson, Gram Parsons, and Willie Nelson would later be influenced by Haggard’s style. Haggard’s troubles with the law and his subsequent incarceration in San Quentin Prison in 1959 contributed to his “James Dean-like” persona as a rebellious, free- spirited, “come-what-may” bad man. The themes of Haggard’s songs came to include depictions of hobos, gangsters, truck drivers, and prisoners. In the last decades of the twentieth century, Merle Haggard has continued to have a profound influence on songwriters and singers and has sold millions of records. Now, here is “Swinginý Doors,” with David Langley with the Buckaroos

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Song Thirteen (17) “STILL FEELING BLUE” GRAM PARSONS

The musical legacy of Gram Parsons is astounding considering the brevity of his life. Although he died of a drug overdose at the age of twenty-six, many musicians across many genres continue to cite Parsons as a major musical influence. In 1963, Gram Parsons -- his real name was Ingram Connor III -- joined a folk-singing trio. In the late 1960s, after a few other stops, he joined the Byrds, one of the most popular groups at the time, and under Parsons’ influence, the band started to reflect a country influence. Parsons quit the Byrds in 1968 and began traveling with the Rolling Stones. It was no coincidence that country-influenced Stones’ songs such as “Honky-tonk Woman” came out of this period. Later in 1968 Parson helped form the Flying Burrito Brothers. In the early 1970s Parsons first heard Emmylou Harris singing in a club, and he flew her out to California to join him in recording sessions. The resulting album GP, is considered by many to be Parsons’ best. That album includes the song “Still Feekng Blue.” Parsons recorded a second solo album, titled Grievous Angel but died before it was ever released. You can hear Gram Parsons’ influence in the music of Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles and even Crosby, Stills and Nash. Shadows of his music can still be heard in the work of many artists today, like Sheryl Crow, the Old 97s, and others. Now, here’s “Still Feeling Blue.”

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SONG THIRTEEN-B (18) "RAMBLIN MANË Waylon Jennings

Texas-born Waylon Jennings, much like his contemporary, Willie Nelson, occupies an unusual position in the history of country music in the 1970s. Jennings had been a successful musician since the 1950s. He played guitar in Buddy Holly’s rockabilly band for a brief period of time - and according to legend, he gave up his seat on the plane that crashed, killing Buddy Holly. After that, Jennings eventually made his way to Nashville, and from 1965 into the 1970s, Jennings recorded music in several styles. Jennings’ 1960s recordings reflect the influence of rock and roll with their steady rhythm. His recordings of the 1970s were spare and low-key and offered a refreshing contrast to the highly produced Nashville Sound. He was able to maintain a much more spare, traditional country approach than many of his contemporaries who, at the urging of record companies, were limited to recording pop-influenced, highly produced music. In 1972 Jennings recorded an album called “Ladies Love Outlaws” which forever associated him with the “outlaw” image. This image was further cemented with the commercial success of the album “Wanted: The Outlaws,” which he recorded with Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser in 1976. Jennings had a cross-generation appeal; his maintenance of a spare, traditional style attracted older country fans while his strong beat and rockabilly and folk influences made him popular among the youth as well. Now, hereýs “Rambliný Man.”

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Song Fourteen (19) “OUR TOWN” IRIS DEMENT

Iris DeMent is described as a “country and folk” singer, and this next song is very much in the tradition of folk songs. Iris DeMent writes many tunes with a socio-political commentary, and “Our Town” is a song with a message. DeMent’s family was very religious, and she was influenced early on by gospel music. She grew up also listening to music by Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn. DeMent released her first album, Infamous Angel in 1992, which included the track “Our Town,” and has released two more albums since. Iris DeMent is part of a new trend in Nashville of singer/songwriters who write and perform their own music. She has been described as making “pure and organic” country music, and she separates herself from commercial country. Now, here is Jennifer Keel and the Buckaroos, with “Our Town.”

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Last Song (20) “STREETS OF BAKERSFIELD” Buck Owens

As I mentioned before, Buck Owens moved to Bakersfield in 1951. He worked as a sideman in a honky-tonk band led by Bill Woods, a Bakersfield “father figure” for many young musicians. The honky-tonk of California was distinct from its southwestern cousin in that it featured the pedal steel and electric guitar more exclusively. It seems evident that the high decibel, hard picking electric guitar sound was influenced by a dominant California musical style-rock and roll. In listening to musicians like Buck Owens, it’s easy to hear the hard-driving four-beats-to-the-bar sound that is more reminiscent of California surf bands than country. Buck Owens furthered his popularity on two television shows: the Buck Owens Ranch and on Hee Haw as a co-host with Roy Clark. After Don Rich’s death in 1974, Buck went into semi-retirement, but in the late 80s, a young musician who was in town for a concert, Dwight Yoakam, showed up at the office of KUZZ radio to meet its owner. The rest was history. They re-recorded “The Streets of Bakersfield,” which Buck had recorded a few years before, and Buck was back. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame five years ago and his voice is frequently on the radio, even today. His influence continues to be heard in the work of many country bands. And now, singing “The Streets of Bakersfield,” here are the Buckaroos (with a special guest???)

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(and last)

Thanks for your attention during this part of the program. I hope you enjoyed the show. Let’s have a round of applause for the Buckaroos, Pacific Crest and all the other great musicians who were able to join us this morning.

Here once again is Ed Hughes.

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