Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 146
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Popular Culture Review
other folk performers and with Jazz musicians both White and African American,
often sharing the same stage. Their song lyrics spoke to conditions of poverty,
degradation, and unfair governmental policies. Often their songs were presented
in an open atmosphere as performers joined others, riding the rails and seeking
handouts in a land of disappearing jobs until World War II altered conditions.
When the War ended, the nation became engulfed in a cold and hot war
with the Soviet Union and was also alerted to threats (both real and imaginary) of
Communists among our own population. Certain politicians—^notably Wisconsin’s
U. S. Senator Joseph McCarthy—^went on a quest to expose the Communists within.
He reveled in pointing his finger at popular media artists, notably those in Holly
wood, but also persons who performed music which had centered its themes on
injustices in the American economic system. Folk singers and others were singled
out, i.e., Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson. A community of musicians who had only
seen “the People” as their audience, now began to split apart. Some artists sought
shelter and comfort by denying old associations; others betrayed old associates.
Nashville, too, wanted shelter and comfort. An emerging Nashville es
tablishment of country music built around traditional Southern mountain music
may have made a tacit accommodation with the forces of McCarthyism. Perform
ers who could have easily followed the trail of the folk singers left that trail and
began touring exclusively with troupes of the Grand Ole Opry. Nashville Country
performers would not be found on the same stage as a Seeger. Johnny and Jack
and Kitty Wells would not be found on a college campus stage with the Weavers.
Hank Snow would tour with George Morgan, Faron Young or the Louvin Broth
ers, but never with Joan Baez or Woody or Arlo Guthrie.
Nashville Music was off limits to the “Communist witch hunters” as it
proclaimed to all the United States that the White South was patriotic. One of the
themes of the music was a loyalty couched in the waving of the flag. While folk
and jazz were the musical forms of various kinds of political protests, Nashville’s
country music ceased to carry messages of discontent with America. Quite to the
contrary, singers like Merle Haggard proclaimed that he was not a protestor, but
rather, proud to be an “Okie from Muskogee,” and he warned that “If you’re run
ning down my country man, you’re walking on the fighting side of me.”
If poverty was considered in the lyrics of a song, the poverty was not a
critique of an unjust economy. Rather, the references seemed to lead to conclu
sions such as, “yes. I’m poor, but at least I’m proud,” or “I may be poor but I’m my
own man,” or in the words of Bill Anderson’s “Poor Folks”: “We was poor folks
livin’ in a rich folks world, sure were a hungry bunch, if the wolf had ever come to
our front door, he a had to brought a picnic lunch...but every night we had food,
and mama set the table with love.” The nostalgic rhythms made poverty seem
almost romantic.