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Johnny Cash and Country Identity
In one of his more recent biographies (1997), Johhny Cash considers
today's 'country' image and culture:
"I was talking to a friend of mine about this the other
day: that country life as I knew it might really be a thing
of the past and when music people today, performers and fans
alike, talk about being 'country,' they don't mean they know
or even care about the land and the life it sustains and regulates.
They're talking more about choices—a way to look, a group
to belong to, a kind of music to call their own. Which begs
the question: Is there anything behind the symbols of modern
'country,' or are the symbols themselves the whole story? Are
the hats, the boots, the pickup trucks, and the honky-tonking
poses all that's left of a disintegrating culture? Back in Arkansas,
a way of life produced a certain kind of music. Does a certain
kind of music now produce a way of life? Maybe that's okay.
I don't know."
—Johnny Cash & Patrick Carrr,
Johnny Cash, the Autobiography (New York: Harper
Collins, 1997), p. 17.
Identity is a subjective concept, and the way we define our own
is never pure. In other words, our 'identity' and its manifestations
(our dress, entertainment choices, accent, etc) are never free
from outside influences. Perhaps some of these influences are
more genuine and honest, though. Then again, maybe what we see
in the television and listen to on the radio is an 'honest' influence
to modern generations—generations in which an Australian
rocker can become a major American, 'country' music icon. So much
so that city-dwelling women will dig into their closets for a
mini jean skirt and $75 straw cowboy hat and pay an $80 admission
ticket to see said Australian, turned country star.
My conscience is no more clear. Though I grew up in the middle
of my grandpa's cornfield and have, in fact, skinned possums and
eaten beaver meat, I searched for a vacant identity after football
dreams gave way to a broken shoulder. Then I began devoting more
time to George Jones and mint Skoal. And it has only been in the
last couple years that I adopted boots and pearl-snap shirts into
my regular wardrobe.
Then again, as Johnny muses, "Maybe that's okay." The
music I listen to—Kristofferson, Cash, Jennings, Chris Knight—nourishes
my creative conscience and moves my emotions. Maybe it really
doesn't matter how I consider myself or how others consider me
in terms of general terms like 'country' or 'yuppie,' etc. Fact
is I like boots and pearl snap shirts (who cares if I bought the
shirts at Old Navy?). I like coon hunting a couple nights a year
and I like the music playing out of my Cadillac's stereo. I like
my redbone coonhound, the way she sounds when she howls and the
pink heart nametag she wears. I like the Bible and I like beer.
Depending on which night you catch me, I like either one more
than the other. Does the music I listen to inform my personality
and choices or does the background of these distinctives influence
the music I make and listen to? Does it matter?
Appendix
Johnny's anecdotal conclusions,
which immediately follow the quote above:
"Perhaps I'm just alienated, feeling the cold wind of exclusion
blowing my way. The 'country' music establishment, including
'country' radio and the 'Country' Music Association, does after
all seem to have decided that whatever 'country' is, some of
us aren't.
"I wonder how many of those people ever filled a cotton
sack. I wonder if they know that before I became 'not country'
in the '90s, their predecessors were calling me 'not country'
in the '50s and the '60s, and the '70s too (I was invisible
in the '80s)."
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