A Rusticated Perspective

There are a plethora of musical genres encompassed by the expression "folk music" and why not; it is all music by folk, right? But at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival this year, it was country(ish) music that caught my ear the most. Which was a little surprising to me, but maybe it shouldn't have been.

Saturday was a long day for Glory and I, but we were intent on staying for at least part of the closing act, Old Crow Medicine Show. They didn't take the stage until nearly 11 pm, but opening up with two high-energy renditions of songs about cocaine, of all things, really enervated the crowd, us included. They were "Cocaine Habit":

Well, that cocaine habit is awful bad
The worst doggone habit that I ever had
Hey, hey, honey take a whiff on me

And "Tell It To Me":

Tell it to me, tell it to me
Drink your corn liquor, let the cocaine be
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead 

Glory was convinced that live-wire frontman Ketch Secor had to be speaking from experience due to a dynamic 110% effort that would put most pro athletes to shame, but that is neither here nor there...

In the weeks afterwards I would often prompt music from the Google Home speaker by requesting "Cocaine Habit" or Tell It To Me and then seeing what sort of selections might follow them up, a technique we call "seed music." Sometimes it would be old-timey country from my "Rusticated" playlist, at others more modern but non-mainstream artists like Corb Lund that I have listened to previously, but on occasion it would pull something delightful from way out in left or right field, or possibly underneath the bench in the dugout.

And I was surprised and delighted to find these slices of Americana incorporate all sorts of themes beyond the truck-driving and freedom-cheering that dominates C&W radio. Consider the environmental apocalypism outlined by The Devil Makes Three in "Allelu":

What will it take to have this place on bended knee 
You run to the forest, you can bet I'll burn the trees 
I will poison the water 'cause it's only getting hotter 
And we came for sons and daughters 

Hallelu

(chorus)
Hallelu, Hallelu, praise the lord and pass the ammunition too 

They say Jesus is coming, he must be walking, he sure ain't running 

Who can blame him, look how we done him, Hallelu 

Or the lament of poor choices by Billy Strings in "Dust In a Baggie", performed here at the Grand Ole Opry (wait, for real?):

I ain't slept in seven days, haven't ate in three
Methamphetamine has got a damn good hold of me
My tweaker friends have got me to the point of no return
I just took the lighter to the bulb and watched it burn

(chorus)
This life of sin has got me in
Well it's got me back in prison once again
I used my only phone call to contact my daddy
I got twenty long years for some dust in a baggie

I mean, the Opry has a long tradition of musical exceptionalism, but I was not expecting something so - I dunno, sordid? - from a genre so strongly associated with conservatism, y'know?

Before Old Crow Medicine Show took the stage at folk fest, we had our first chance to hear Nick Shoulders, probably my fave artist of the whole weekend. In addition to being a tremendous vocalist, whistler and yodeler, he also took pains to share his educate his audience about just what "country" music is, and it might not be what most of us think.

The cartoons permeating this post are from his comic-style essay "Country Music History" which I highly recommend. His position that what was once called "hillbilly music" has more of its roots in geography and poverty than it does with rurality is real food for thought.

Hearing these other "hellbilly" artists talking about the squalid underbelly in rustic settings makes me think of Albertan Corb Lund who has described his style of music as "agricultural tragic" as opposed to country, despite his upbeat and generally humourous takes on that lifestyle.

And some of the darkest musical corners appear to be in Saskatchewan, courtesy of artists like The Dead South:

My life's a bit more colder 

Dead wife is what I told her 

Brass knife sinks into my shoulder 

Oh babe don't know what I'm gonna do 

I see my red head, messed bed, tear shed, queen bee 

My squeeze 

The stage it smells, tells, hell's bells, miss-spells 

Knocks me on my knees 

It didn't hurt, flirt, blood squirt, stuffed shirt 

Hang me on a tree 

After I count down, three rounds, in hell I'll be in good company

...or Colter Wall, who sounds maybe 30-40 years older than he actually is:

Well the raven is a wicked bird
His wings are black as sin
And he floats outside my prison window
Mocking those within

And he sings to me real low
It's hell to where you go
For you did murder Kate McCannon

Of course, every genre of music has its sub-genres (and sub-sub-genres, ad infinitum) and his kind of boundary-crossing is hardly unprecedented, even within country & western music; it is amusing now to recall how Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash were once the standard bearers for "outlaw country."

But hearing twangy music that discomforts more than it typifies, and that sometimes brings an honest outsider's perspective is a great reminder that honest, heartfelt expressions don't need to be pigeonholed or boxed up - just listened to and appreciated.

Like Nick Shoulders said on stage when we saw him, "If you ever wonder why so many punks and goths and metal heads and weirdos seem to be getting into country, don't forget that the fiddle was once referred to as the Devil's instrument. This genre has its roots in rebellion and we are never going away." Or as he sings in "All Bad":

I grew a little into deafening rage 

Every hometown is a well built cage 

Be it high iron, highway or stage 

Don’t let it be all bad 

I’ve been indebted to a surgeon’s blade 

Probation officers and nerves that frayed 

Only the choiceless every gladly stayed 

Refuse to be all bad