Vinyl: The King and Queen (of Country)
- Kris
- Nov 20, 2012
- 6 min read
Well if they freed me from this prison, If that railroad train was mine, I bet I'd move out over a little, Farther down the line, Far from Folsom Prison, That's where I want to stay, And I'd let that lonesome whistle, Blow my Blues away.
-Johnny Cash "Folsom Prison Blues"
All genres of music have their Kings and Queens: Michael Jackson, the King of Pop; Elvis, the King of Rock N' Roll; Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, and Sam Cooke, the King; B.B. King, the King of the Blues and KoKo Taylor, the Queen.
There are, of course, disputes. Has Adele become the new Queen of Soul? Who truly is the Queen of Pop - Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Céline Dion, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Lady Gaga, Madonna? The list goes on.
An honorific is not nearly as significant when it is shared with so many other artists. The "Queen of [insert genre here]" and the "King of..." seem to be too easily influenced by the times and popular culture. If Adele is the new "Queen of Soul," an event that would've been unheard of a decade ago, how long will it be until someone new starts taking "King of Pop" status from Michael Jackson. Seems kind of ridiculous, right?
In theory, a title should come from an artist's significant influence or innovation in a genre or reinvention of musical sound and tradition. It's condensing someone's musical accomplishments into a tiny phrase. Unfortunately, by condensing the accomplishment, the title can be applied to someone else's (non-related) musical accomplishments, which could be just as significant in their time as the aforementioned artist's.
I truly think that artists should be publicly recognized for their accomplishments in more descriptive ways than almost meaningless titles, which can cause confusion and aggression between listeners. Simply, publicly-applied honorifics do nothing for me. I think such titles should be personal choice, and I, for one, feel like the looseness of them make them easier to be used as media ploys to force an artist's "greatness" down your throat - so that you feel like you're missing something important if you don't understand the reason for their coronation.
And with that brief introduction on my chaotic opinion of musical honorifics, I'd like to introduce the vinyl for this week (and I apologize for the huge delay of the past month - this entry is extra long just for you). It's actually a two-record collection of songs that make Johnny Cash, "The King" and Tammy Wynette "The Queen" of country music. Now my rant on honorifics makes sense!
The King Johnny Cash and the Queen Tammy Wynette (1973)
The King - Johnny Cash
Side 1: I Walk the Line; Green, Green Grass of Home; Five Feet High and Rising, The Sons of Katie Elder; Happiness Is You
Side 2: The Ballad of Boot Hill; Don't Take Your Guns to Town; Folsom Prison Blues; Girl in Saskatoon; The Long Black Veil
The Queen - Tammy Wynette
Side 1: D-I-V-O-R-C-E; My Elusive Dreams (with David Houston); Honey (I Miss You); Take Me to Your World.
Side 2: Stand By Your Man, Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad; Set Me Free; Marriage on the Rocks (with David Houston); Kiss Away
Joined Collection: inherited.
Can we first talk about how soothing it is to hear the rustle of the record player before the infamous guttural notes of "I Walk the Line"? That and Johnny's deep hum before the lyrics begin pull the listener into the album. It is a transporting moment, and I could listen to it over and over.
I've almost always been a Johnny Cash fan at some level. When I was younger, it was "Ring of Fire" and "Walk the Line" which got me dancing and singing, but it was when I was old enough to understand "Hurt" that I began to understand what Johnny Cash was all about: life, every aspect of it - love, leaving, sorrow, comfort, story-telling, rebellion, humor, morality, redemption etc. He was an honest writer and musician who's vision was his own, changing and growing as his career continued.
And I loved it.
This is not the collection of songs I would pick for showcasing Johnny Cash as the King. I have some different favorites, but I think it does portray who he was an artist. Obvious highlights include "I Walk the Line" and "Folsom Prison Blues." "Happiness is You," despite the obvious tradition, had me tingling to my toes from the way his voice drops down on "moonbeam" - plus I am such a sucker for celestial imagery in describing the troubles and passion of the human heart.
He's not for everyone and I respect that. But Johnny Cash is definitely my King of Country, though others do hold the title (see the wiki list linked above). I, personally, connect most with his darker songs, as his distinct, deep voice is ideal for revealing hidden truths of the world. It's aggressive in a way that I really like. "Hurt," for example forces you to listen, even though the pain of the song is hard to hear.
That said, Tammy Wynette is not my chosen queen. My familiarity with her is "Stand By Your Man," an essential country classic that I am not to keen on.
Why? I am a modern woman who dislikes the tradition of the past generations in which the man chooses the woman and in which the woman must adhere to his rules. As a history major I can respect something for its significance and meaning under its own era, but that doesn't mean I think it's appropriate for the modern listener. And I think independence and equality, very appropriately, are more relevant today. "Stand By Your Man" is problematic to me for obvious reasons:
Sometimes it's hard to be a woman Giving all your love to just one man You'll have bad times And he'll have good times Doing things that you don't understand But if you love him you'll forgive him Even though he's hard to understand And if you love him Oh be proud of him 'Cause after all he's just a man
While the message that love can withstand anything doesn't bother me, the expectation that it's okay for a man to make mistakes does. And his woman is just supposed to grin and bear it because she loves him? No, it's a little too passive for my taste and with the little dig he's just a man included.
Okay, so that's how I feel about "Stand By Your Man." Keep in mind this is the bias I had in my head as I was listening to the album. I got annoyed again at "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" because it emphasized this "right" and "wrong" of what a woman should be - a woman should not be familiar with bars and should not know what whiskey tastes like. Okay. What the hell?
But I changed my mind. I compared the 1967 song to the recent dance hit by Cobra Starship "Good Girls Go Bad," the similarity being in the titular words and the theme of well... good girls and bad girls. Both songs seem to suggest the same thing about what is right and what is wrong. What separates them, I noticed, is that the speaker in Tammy Wynette's song makes her own choice, while the Cobra Starship song seems to suggest even more masculine power than the song that came decades before it. Moreover, it is littered with offensive objectification.
I do not know if this observation is to the advantage of Tammy Wynette or the detriment of Cobra Starship (or both), but it made me aware that Tammy is probably a lot less traditional than "Stand By Me" seems to suggest, and I'd be willing to explore it further for sure.
I mentioned before that Tammy Wynette is not my Queen, and I still stand by that. I think Loretta Lynn is worthy of the title, but I also have emphasized choosing based on personal experience. As I've said, the country I relate to most is what I grew up with so I'd choose either Patsy Cline (my mom's favorite - don't get me started) or Dolly Parton who was a significant part of my childhood (we went to Dollywood!).
So. Congrats if you got through all that. I really appreciate it. Now, who are your Kings and Queens in your favorite genres? Is your choice different from what has been popularized?
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