Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism serves a dual purpose: Joseph M. Thompson’s book convincingly documents the close association of country music with the U.S. military while also providing lesser-known narratives about the careers of some famous country performers.
While never denigrating their talent, Thompson describes ways that close ties with the military helped the careers of Grandpa Jones and Faron Young, to name but two. More than assisting individual artists, Cold War Country argues that the entire country music genre owes a large part of its current success and longevity to its post-war military connections.
Thompson says the relationship was mutually beneficial. Country music was defining itself with fiercely nationalistic trappings, while the military benefited from an increased number of incoming recruits influenced by country music’s patriotic mindset. This symbiotic assistance was achieved through tours and transcriptions.
The tours included overseas shows where country performers played at distant military bases to entertain homesick boys with wholesome American music. The transcription discs were recorded for both foreign and domestic radio stations for broadcast to troops. These military-endorsed radio shows originally featured various music genres, but their focus soon narrowed to an almost exclusive avenue for white, male country performers.
Many of these artists prospered because of businessmen. At the top of this list is Connie B. Gay, who saw potential for the growth of country music and a pathway for satisfying his own ambitions. In addition to booking lucrative tours for the military, Gay finds and polishes raw talent – including Jimmy Dean. Initially an accordion-playing rube act, Dean is transformed by Gay into a mainstream country star who has chart hits (“Big Bad John”) and is ultimately inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Gay became rich through his dealings with the military, but Thompson portrays Gay as a visionary businessman who earned his wealth.
Although it became an almost exclusively white endeavor, Cold War Country addresses the role of African American performers. O.B. McClinton cleverly maneuvered a contract with Stax Records of Memphis, but the label was stymied by the age old question: How to market a black man in the country music market. The Air Force’s partnership with Music Row provided the answer.
McClinton’s military connections would never lead to fame on the level of a Faron Young, but the portrayal of McClinton speaks to the book’s depth. Joseph M. Thompson goes into detail with performers both well known and barely remembered. Famous or obscure, though, the author also shows how most artists must pay dearly for fame enhanced by exposure through military channels. They are now agents of the U.S. government, and their art must at all times reflect this allegiance.
Because results of the partnership could be documented, the collaboration was immediately viewed as a success by both country music businessmen and the military. As early as 1947, Billboard magazine reported potential sales of a million discs a month to servicemen in PXs on foreign bases. Most record sales were of country performers. Special sections in each PX were allocated for records, meaning that more than 800 new retail outlets were suddenly created.
Thompson says one reason for country music’s increasing popularity on these bases was because song lyrics described to soldiers the tangible things they were fighting for. Abstract causes were augmented by realism when Ernest Tubb sang, “It’s for God, and Country, and You Mom.”
As the narrative moves into the 1960s, Cold War Country tells of the literal protection given to the genre. Beginning in 1965, military policy prohibited any derogatory remarks about country music in its official publications and elsewhere. Even casual references to country as being “hillbilly” or for “hicks” was seen as denigrating to the music, its artists, and its audience — the very pool of young men the military was now striving to recruit. Such mockery, or any criticism of the form, could lead to official repercussions.
The military’s mandated respect for the music fell in line with Ernest Tubb’s ongoing crusade to make country more respectable by getting rid of terms like “hillbilly.” Meanwhile, Chet Atkins was at work on the music itself, creating the “countrypolitan” sound in hopes of appealing to an increasingly broad audience. Soon, both George Strait and Dwight Yoakam would circumvent any attempt to downplay country’s roots, but as the Vietnam War was escalating in the ’60s, the U.S. military had great influence over how country music was presented.
A strength of this book is how Thompson himself won’t wave a flag. He discusses the growing conscience of country music in the ’60s and how some performers loved their nation but were concerned by its direction. This inner turmoil was reflected in their songs. Protest music had always been seen as the property of the folk community, but now Tom T. Hall was portraying a different view of the war in his “Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken).” The single didn’t get much radio play, but the fact that Hall would record this portrait of a disabled Vietnam veteran said a lot about conflicted feelings.
Hall was not alone, but for every song like Bill Withers’ “I Can’t Write Left-Handed,” there are a dozen proclaiming the nobility of battle, like Marty Robbins’ “Private Wilson White.” The military was successful in infiltrating country music, and its influence only grew. Lest we forget, the No. 1 song for all of 1966 was SSgt. Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets.”
The title reads like a conspiracy theory: Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism – and maybe it is. But Joseph M. Thompson makes his case, plumbing the depths of successful business arrangements between music and military that continue to have a strong impact on the country music we hear today.
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