Category Archives: Austin

Creedence Clearwater Revival

My roommates and I are all University of Texas students who live in a couple of old houses on a property in West Campus. Although my roommates are all from Dallas, I met them under different circumstances. I went to preschool with one, met another in little league baseball, was in a band in high school with two of them, and met the others in college.

Growing up in Dallas, we were all force-fed country music either by our parents or by the environment itself. The first song I ever remember hearing was Patsy Cline’s version of “You Belong To Me.” When I was a kid, my dad played Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison on the drive to preschool virtually every day. I hated it. If our parents weren’t playing country music, we’d hear it at school, at the baseball game, at the pool, pretty much everywhere we went. I rebelled against country’s early incursions in my life, instead, alongside my peers, opting for The Rolling Stones and other harder hitting classic rock bands. This same story parallels my roommates’ experiences growing up in Dallas. They were all brought up on Waylon and Willie but were instead drawn towards Hendrix and Clapton.

In high school however, things began to change for us. Playing in classic rock bands, we started noticing similarities in sound between country and rock music. A lot of those classic rock stars actually grew up on country music. Jimi Hendrix consistently tuned in to the Grand Ole Opry as a child. When the Rolling Stones came to America to tour in the early 70’s they stayed out on a ranch in West Texas to play out childhood fantasies playing slide guitar and sipping sweet tea on the porch, shaded from the sweltering Texas sun.

My roommates’ had this same musical epiphany. Eventually just like our musical tastes, the guys in my rock band and the bluegrass band I’d joined fell in together. We went back and embraced the music we were given as kids. We’d just as soon play Willie’s “Whiskey River” as Grateful Dead’s “I Know You Rider” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.” Music wasn’t really black and white anymore. The lines became blurred between Country, Blues, Rock & Roll, and Rhythm & Blues. I found this change of outlook listening to Johnny Cash’s train songs. One of my roommates found it through the bluegrass music of Bill Monroe while another through Dwight Yoakum and the Texas Tornadoes.

Country music brought us all back to our roots, which in turn led us to take a more open-minded approach to music.

When I saw Rhetoric of Country Music as a class option last spring during registration, I immediately signed up. I figured, I listen to country music a lot of the time, so this class should be fun and interesting. I totally underestimated how much I would learn about the different kinds of country music, improve my blogging and rhetoric skills, and genuinely enjoy learning about older artists who I previously had no knowledge of. Since acquiring more knowledge on the genre, experiencing different “country” activities has had a whole new meaning.

1. Two-Stepping the Night Away

In September, my friends and I boarded a bus to an unknown destination. All we knew was to wear a country looking dress and cowboy boots (my favorite shoes.) The bus ride was long, about 45 minutes, but we entertained ourselves blaring country music and dancing the whole way there. We arrived at Coupland Dance Hall in Coupland, Texas, which had a southern-comfort atmosphere and a HUGE dance floor. While I had a great time at Coupland, there are many other options closer to Austin for people wanting to two-step:

• Broken Spoke– 3201 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704
• Donn’s Depot– 1600 W 5^th St, Austin Tx 78703
• The White Horse– 500 Comal St, Austin, TX 78702
• The Little Longhorn Saloon– 5434 Burnet Rd, Austin, TX 78756

2. I’ve Always Wanted To Go To Nashville…

But it looks like for now I will have to stick with Nashville the TV show. I first heard about the show a few years ago, and my sister watched it religiously as it aired on ABC every week, so I ventured to watch a few episodes. The cast list has two of my favorite actresses as stars in the show: Rayna Jaymes and Hayden Panettiere. While I fell in love with Rayna during her time on Friday Night Lights, I love her as Connie Britton on the show. Hayden was introduced to me as a Disney actress, I think it was Ice Princess, and how typical of a young Disney star to emerge as a talented singer as well as actress. While I didn’t know about Lennon and Maisy before the show, their cover of “Ho Hey” by the Lumineers is better than the real version in my opinion. This show does a great job of producing songs with a nice country twist to them.

3. Kacey Musgraves…. I Feel Like I Know Her Personally

As I did some browsing through Texas Music Magazine’s online site, I came across a feature written about Kacey Musgraves and I felt a sense of pride. Something about dedicating 2 weeks worth of research into one person connects you on a weird, personal level with them, even though it is definitely one-sided, I feel like I know everything about her and coming across an article written so positively about her makes me feel like one of my good friends is being honored. The article described why she was deserving of being the magazine’s artist of the year, and many of the points the author hit were running right along with mine! It felt cool knowing that I had similar thoughts with an artist who gets paid to write for a famous magazine.

Rhetoric of Country Music will be one of those classes that I will specifically remember as a favorite college class. It was a class I looked forward to every day because I knew I would learn something new that interested me every time I went to class. I learned more about a genre I thought I was an expert in and I learned how to be a better writer. Classes like these are the most valuable in my opinion because they combine the interests of students with academic progression, which is the most beneficial for learning.

I have grown up in a house that absolutely does not believe in country music. My dad always said, “I would like country music, but I don’t drive a pick up truck or sleep with my sister.” A little extreme if you ask me, but his perspective has kept my knowledge of country music and history in the dark. I have learned more about prominent country artists and the evolution of country music in the past 15 weeks than I have in the past 15 years.

The rhetoric of country music class made me more eager to discover what exactly I had been missing out on. One thing that really sparked my interest was learning about the outlaws. These artists were the transcendentalists within country music, and I admired their talent, dedication, and passion towards making brilliant music despite what others thought. So I was beyond thrilled when I found out Willie Nelson was playing in Fort Worth over Thanksgiving break.

Willie Nelson Concert

This man is a legend, and I got to see him live! The turnout at Billy Bobs was unbelievable. It was amazing to see generations of people there. There were kids my age, their parents, their parents’ parents, and quite possibly their parents’ parents’ parents. Everybody was singing along, dancing, and screaming “Willie Nelson!!!” as he sung some of his famous hits like, “On the Road Again”, “Always on My Mind”, and “Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys”.

Although our seats were pretty much right next to the entrance, I was analyzing him from the big screen. He is a magnificent performer and took a maximum of two breaths between every song. He sang non-stop for 90 minutes while flawlessly playing the guitar and throwing multiple bandanas to those lucky fans in the front row. His voice was a balance of smooth and nasally with a smoky age to it, while his music offered flavors of bluegrass, Nashville, and folk.

Willie Nelson Statue

His concert led me all the way to his statue in Austin. I was hungry for more information on Willie Nelson and his impact. The singer’s acclaimed musical talent is what prompted the creation of the statue in the first place. The bronze statue was “inadvertently” unveiled on 4/20, which further denoted the stoner reputation Nelson has. His thriving musical career as an outlaw in the country music industry has permanently, pun intended, made him a legendary icon.

Dixie Chicks’ Documentary

After discussing the outlaws of country music in class, I thought about the Dixie Chicks and wondered if they belong under this category after their scandal. I decided to revisit the band’s political mishap and watch their documentary, “Shut Up and Sing”. The main singer, Natalie Maines, decided to disclose a small comment during one of their shows, “…we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas”. This left their career severely wounded and caused families, fans, and American citizens to trash their various Dixie Chicks CDs. Although The Dixie Chicks voiced their honest opinion, they disrespected a large quantity of people in the US and were reprimanded by and removed from multiple radio stations. This same mindset of ‘doing what you want and not caring what others think’ can be found in many prevalent country artists in the ‘70s that are viewed as outlaws. However, such artists, like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, were fighting against Nashville, while the Dixie Chicks were fighting against a bigger and more political problem. Still, such rebelliousness, even though not in the same boat as Jennings and Nelson, can somewhat be considered outlaw.

Since the beginning of the 2015 fall semester, I have done a complete 180 and learned so much about the most popular and historic music genre in Texas. I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to take this class and the chance to understand country music in a new light. Watching documentaries about famous country artists, attending a concert of a legendary country icon, and seeing 2000 pound statue of a country singer in the center of downtown, Austin, all help process the impact country music has had on Texas and the people who live in it. I am truly excited to continue my learning and apply what I know to future events.