Outlaw country
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Outlaw country was a significant trend in country music during the late 1960s and the 1970s (and even into the 1980s in some cases, commonly referred to as "The Outlaw Movement" (both by fans and by people in the music industry). The focus of the movement has been on self-declared "outlaws" such as Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Johnny Paycheck, Merle Haggard, David Allan Coe, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. The reason for the movement has been attributed to a reaction to the Nashville sound, developed by record producers like Chet Atkins who softened the raw honky tonk sound that was predominant in the music of performers like Jimmie Rodgers, and his successors such as Hank Williams, George Jones and Lefty Frizzell. According to Aaron Fox (2004, p.51) "the fundamental opposition between law-and-order authoritarianism and the image of 'outlaw' authenticity...has structured country's discourse of masculinity since the days of Jimmie Rodgers."
The 1960s was a decade of enormous change and the change was reflected in the revolution in the music of the time. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones cast off the traditional role of the recording artist. They wrote their own material, they had creative input to their albums, they refused to conform to what society required of its youth. At the same time, country music was declining into a fomulaic genre that appeared to offer the establishment what it wanted with artists such as Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton making the kind of music that was anathema to the growing counter culture. While Nashville continued to be the heart of country music, some would say its soul was to be found in Lubbock, Tulsa, Bakersfield and Austin.
The term "outlaw country" is derived from the song "Ladies Love Outlaws" written by Lee Clayton and sung by Waylon Jennings on the 1972 album of the same name. It became associated with singers who grew their hair long, wore denim and leather and looked like hippies in contrast to the clean cut country singers in Nudie suits that were pushing the Nashville sound. The success of these singers did much to restore the rawness and life force to country music. The songs were about drinking, drugs, hard working men and honky tonk heroes. The music was more like rock and roll and there were no strings in the background.
Although Jennings and Nelson are regarded as the stereotypical outlaws, there were several other writers and performers who provided the material that infused the movement with the outlaw spirit. Some people have noted that Waylon and Willie were Nashville veterans whose careers were revived by the movement and that they drew on the energy that was being generated in their home state of Texas to spearhead the attack on the Nashville producers. Waylon, in particular, forced his record company to let him produce his own albums. In 1973 he produced Lonesome, On'ry and Mean. The theme song was written by Steve Young, a brilliant songwriter and performer who never made it in the mainstream but whose songs helped to create the outlaw style. The follow up album for Waylon was Honky Tonk Heroes and the songwriting hero was Texan Billy Joe Shaver. Like Steve Young, Billy Joe never made it big but his 1973 album Old Five and Dimers Like Me is a country classic in the outlaw genre.
Willie Nelson's career as a songwriter in Nashville peaked in the late 1960s. His "Crazy" was a massive hit for Patsy Cline, but as a singer, he was getting nowhere. He left Nashville in 1971 to return to Texas. The musicians he met in Austin had been developing the folk and rock influenced country music that grew into the outlaw genre. Performing and associating with the likes of Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphey and Billy Joe Shaver helped shape his future career. At the same time as Willie was reinventing himself, other significant influencers were writing and playing in Austin and Lubbock. Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore formed The Flatlanders, a group that never sold huge numbers of albums but continues to perform. The three founders have each made a significant contribution to the development of the outlaw genre.
Other Texans like Townes van Zandt, Guy Clark and, latterly, Steve Earle have developed the outlaw ethos through their songs and their lifestyles.
A new Outlaw Movement?
During the mid 1980s and well into the 1990s, the origional Outlaw Movement's momentum had mostly died down. Some believed that country music was becoming too complacent and was once more being controlled more by the producers and record labels, than by the singers and songwriters. New artists, such as Gretchen Wilson and groups, such as Big and Rich and Montgomery Gentry, who grew up during the origional outlaw movement have recently been re-energizing the Outlaw Movement and keeping with the "outlaw spirit". Also, older artists have also been contributing to the resurgance of the outlaw sound. Many fans (most of which feel they're also being opressed, but can't "fight the system" and survive) have embraced this "New Outlaw Movement".Big and Rich have been instrumental in the formation of the Musik Mafia, a group of artists who are treated like family and who seek to help one-another (as well as other new artists), by helping to expose fans of Big and Rich to their music.
Toby Keith now owns his own record label, Show Dog Records. This gives him the freedom to help new artists get record deals, as well as helping fellow established artists who have been experiencing troubles with the record labels they're signed with (or those who've been dropped from a record label).
Brodie Foster Hubbard has coined the phrase outlaw indie rock in reference to his music, which blends country twang, folk storytelling, a punk rock ethic, and an indie pop sensibility, declaring that acts such as Andrew Jackson Jihad and Mishka Shubaly also fit into this category.
Other artist such as Hank III, Steve Earle, Cowboy Troy and Rodeo Kill continue the Outlaw Country way, by staying out of main stream country music and continue to break the rules of traditional country music by combining country elements with punk, rock, and hip hop.
Further reading
- Country Music. The Rough Guide,
Kurt Wolff, Rough Guides, 2000, ISBN 1-85828-534-8
Source
- Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate,
Washburne, Christopher J. and Derno, Maiken (eds.), 2004, Routledge, ISBN 0415943663. - *Fox, Aaron A. "White Trash Alchemies of the Abject Sublime: Country as 'Bad' Music"
External links
- [Outlaw country history]
- [AMG essays on country music themes]
- [Americana Music News, Reviews, Interviews and Podcast Shows]
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