Soul, Country, and the USA

Race and Identity in American Music Culture

S. Shonekan

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781137378095
• eBook ISBN: 9781137378101
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Soul music and country music propel American popular culture. Using ethnomusicological tools, Shonekan examines their socio-cultural influences and consequences: the perception of and resistance to hegemonic structures from within their respective constituencies, the definition of national identity, and the understanding of the 'American Dream.'

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

In his 1903 seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, African American scholar W. E. B. DuBois boldly predicted that the problem of the twentieth century would be “the problem of the color line” (3). This pronouncement was made as he was perched on that shaky threshold between the morally tragic nineteenth century and the tentatively hopeful twentieth century. As hope gave way to helplessness in the early twentieth century, in spite of valiant waves of resistance to the most violent racism and bigotry, DuBois’s statement seemed eerily prophetic as the problematic matter of race in America continued to dig its jagged roots into the receptive sociocultural soil of the United States. Once imagined as a contained field of contamination in the Deep South, historical evidence has shown that these divisive roots had spread from sea to shining sea. Discourses that revolve in complicated circles around media representations of American culture, the educational and criminal justice systems, and campaign rhetoric during voting season in the United States reveal the fruit of those racial roots, further reminding observers that DuBois’s statement may be an apt measuring stick for investigating the twenty-first century.

Halfway through DuBois’s century, writer Susan Sontag reflected on the status of race and racism in the United States: “This is a passionately racist country; it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future” (“White Woman Black Vision,” 50). During this intense period in American history, artists and intellectuals of the Black Arts Movement—Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and Larry Neal—reiterated this verdict. At the dawn of a new century, this work seeks to examine the enduring implications of this assertion. While DuBois presented sociological evidence that explored religion, labor, leadership, and education, this work rests its theoretical basis on the cultural pillars of soul and country music as the gateway into the question of race, identity, and relationship in twenty-first-century United States. These musical genres serve as cultural markers, similar to the two ends of a dial on a compass that leads a traveler on a journey along the historically sensitive and complex road that is layered with troubled race relations and restless identity formation in the United States.

As I have embarked on this intriguing road, I am often asked: What does a scholar with African and Caribbean roots have to do with American music and culture? This is a recurring question especially as I pose questions and begin my line of inquiry with music fans and citizens of the United States. The raised eyebrows, the disbelieving half-smiles, the gasps of laughter, all point to the incredulous bemusement that welcomes my announcement of a research interest in these two iconic American musical genres. I suspect the raised brows are more about the country music than the soul. The thought is that scholars with a heritage like mine may not possess the cultural credibility to interrogate country music. There seems to be an unwritten law that states that non-Americans are not supposed to seriously consider and comment on the other side of American history, culture, and identity. That honor is reserved for Americans. So, what do I have to say about soul and country music? What could I possibly have to add to the already great scholarship on these two genres?

Besides the fact that these two genres are rarely linked, this work attempts to do something that has been done many times, but in the reverse direction. Westerners have often focused their investigative lens on the African continent. From the first European explorers to the early Western anthropologists and literary scholars to the more recent American scholars of postcolonial studies, various cultural and historical aspects of Africa have been carefully examined, scrutinized and sampled, tested and tasted by outsiders. These endeavors have produced definitive studies such as David Livingstone’s Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi (1865) and novels like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1903). Others have focused more specifically on cultural aspects of African life, for instance, John Middleton on East African traditional religion, Polly Hill on rural capitalism in Ghana, G. I. Jones on the political life of Western Nigeria, and O. F. Raum on childhood and education in an East African “tribe.”

From these texts, conclusions have been made about Africa, her people, and her traditions. Early accounts from the outside have exposed and portrayed Africans as anything from simple, childlike creatures to being primitive, savage, and unmanageable. According to Livingstone, “Our experience tends to prove that the European constitution has a power of endurance, even in the tropics, greater than that of the hardiest of the meat-eating Africans.” In another section of that book, he says “The natives . . . are said to be expert thieves” and “Can thick lips ever have been thought beautiful?” he asks as he describes the women of the Maruru tribe. These types of conclusions have had enduring effects on how Africans and people of African descent are perceived centuries later.

Other books, such as those by Martin Meredith (2011), Barbara Kingsolver (2005), David Locke (1985), and Bernth Lindfors (2000), have been more careful, presenting thoughtful analyses that inspire deeper thought and more nuanced understandings of the history, politics, religion, music, and literature. Regardless of their motivation and/or the quality of their work, these Westerners, driven by curiosity, brought an objective (and inevitably shaded) lens to their inquiry about Africa and Africans.

With this book, I get the opportunity to deploy the same impetus that has driven Western inquisition into non-Western cultures. Instead of David Livingstone and his quest to define “the African,” you have an African who is searching for an understanding of the “American” and the meaning of the legendary “American dream.” An ethnomusicologist and longtime connoisseur of American popular music, I am intrigued by how soul and country music serve as a springboard to view American life and culture. Globally, friends and foes of the United States are fascinated and attracted to an ideal that seems to explain America’s position as arguably the most powerful nation on earth. Throughout the twentieth century and certainly since the end of the Cold War, countries in the developing world have tried to imitate and appropriate America’s model of democracy and structures of capitalism, with varying and questionable degrees of success. There is an attraction to this way of life and mode of government that is embodied in the statement that American children pledge in classrooms every day: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Implicit in that statement are ideals of American life that outsiders covet and to which they feverishly aspire. Diversity and unity are emphasized in the reference to “one nation” that is “indivisible”; freedom is indicated through concepts of “liberty” and “justice”; faith is clear in the reference to God; and loyalty is signified in the very notion and act of pledging allegiance. And yet, “allegiance” is tightly anchored to a contestable foundation where perspectives and points of view shift and shake, creating an ambiguous gray area that belies a unified understanding of US identity and nationalism. The pledge seems to rest on a certain romanticization of an American ideal that is challenged by the reality of the distinct cultural worldviews that comprise the very notion of “one nation.”

Like so many people around the world, I have always been fascinated with the concept of a “United States”—a place where states, with their various immigrant populations, are drawn together by their common understanding of unity in diversity. How is it that this variously populous nation appears to have a unified allegiance that allows it to continue as a unified and prospering entity? I am inspired to find new ways of exploring how the United States and her citizens live up to this pledge. Through the vista of popular music, I am on a quest to explore the different identities that comprise the diversity and the ways in which these subgroups intersect with the intricate matrix that either connects or separates at least two cultural groups in the United States—the rural white Southern culture and urban black culture. This matrix consists of aspects of socially constructed identity and gender; the approach to and the concept of God; the sense of what democracy means; and at the center of it all, understandings of race and class.

An Outsider’s Perspective

As a little girl growing up across the Atlantic in a small town in Nigeria’s middle belt, I was first introduced to cultural images of the United States by television sitcom characters like J. R. Ewing, Laura Ingalls, Flip Wilson, and Fred Sanford. When televisions found their way to us in the early 1970s, I was enthralled with shows that exposed the various facets of American life. Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, Dallas, and The Lone Ranger showed me the big landscapes of the West. Comedies like Sanford and Sons and The Jeffersons showed me a different side, an urban space that was very different from the first group. Seated in front of our small 12-inch television screen, I began a confused journey to capture the essence and idea of the United States. Perhaps the two shows that best exemplified this growing realization that America comprised at least two different worlds were Good Times and The Beverly Hillbillies. Once a week, we would settle down to watch these two shows. We laughed along with the laugh track even though we did not fully understand the context for the jokes and antics of the colorful characters.

In The Beverly Hillbillies, we observed the nouveau-riche Clampett family move from the Appalachian hills to the luxurious setting of Beverly Hills, California. As the country bumpkins stumble over the sophisticated trappings of their new surroundings, they unconsciously expose their unshakable identity as rural Southern folk. Even with their newfound wealth, the great American equalizer, they are unapologetic in the display of their identity. One gets a sense that they are proud of where they come from, even though in the pilot episode, Cousin Pearl urges Jed to move away from their Southern roots: “Look around you. You’re eight miles from your nearest neighbor, you’re overrun with skunks, coyotes . . . you’re drinkin’ homemade moonshine, and your bathroom is fifty feet from the house.” Convinced to make the physical move, the Clampetts—Granny, Jed, Jethro, and Elly Mae—remain true to their cultural roots. Their clothing, vernacular, their way of life constantly rubs abrasively against the sophisticated and classy essence of their new surroundings.

As I watched the Clampetts week after week, in spite of their money, I began to form a composite of the white Southern working-class identity. These were simple people who valued their proximity to the elements, who lived and survived on bare necessities, who did not know much of the world and who did not feel a need to go searching beyond their physical and mental boundaries. The rural Southern borders that framed them culturally, if not physically, were comfortable and secure. These were proud Americans. Cultural historian Anthony Harkins underscores the distinction of this identity as “uniquely positioned as a white ‘other,’ a construction both within and beyond the confines of American ‘whiteness.’” He asserts that this hillbilly identity carried with it personal and cultural pride (72).

A completely different American world emerged from the set of Good Times. The Evans, an African American family, live in the hard concrete jungle of urban Chicago. This family lives in the Projects and struggles from day to day. The father, James Evans, hovers over that precarious line between unemployment and indentured labor. The children—JJ, Thelma, and Michael—are encouraged to do well at school, stay out of the trouble, which constantly lurks close by, and like the generation before them, try and reach at least for a little piece of the American dream. On one episode, the youngest child, Michael, is kicked out of school for insulting the memory of George Washington. When his mother, Florida, reprimands him, young Michael explains that George Washington was president for white America, not black America, because, after all, he owned slaves too. Finally, Florida sighs and carefully agrees with Michael’s position.

Raymond Gunn’s ethnographic study of young African American males in inner cities substantiates Michael’s views: “Academically oriented young black males from low-resource urban communities almost invariably face a quandary. On the one hand, they must convince their peers in the neighborhood that they are as masculine as the rest of them; on the other hand, they must convince school personnel that they are different from the rest” (63). While Michael struggles, JJ and Thelma deal with their own challenges that are grounded in their existence as urban African Americans, for as Gunn explains, “life on the big-city streets is lived very differently from life in other parts of the country” (64). And yet, like the Clampetts, these too are proud Americans. Each week, the young Evans boy—and indeed the entire show—presented one side of the two Americas in a way that exposed hilarious circumstances that were framed by revealing social commentary.

Both the Evans and the Clampetts were part of the American working class that I began to observe with keen interest. The theme music of each show also shed more light on their existence. For The Beverly Hillbillies, “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” performed by bluegrass greats, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, relayed the story eloquently: “Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed / A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed.” The Good Times theme song told a similar story. The gospel-infused voices of R & B/soul singers, Sandra Williams and Jim Gilstrap, tell the story of “temporary lay offs . . . Easy credit rip offs . . . / Scratchin’ and surviving.”

The struggles of the Clampetts and the Evans contained in the songs and the stories of each episode were grounded in the same poverty that plagues thousands of Americans; yet their degree of contentment and the collective psyche of their distinct American subcultural backgrounds expose two different Americas. Though they were both comedic shows, our involvement with and responses to their experiences was different. We laughed at and with the Clampetts with happy abandon because that family seems so secure in their existence. One gets the impression, even in that first episode when they are still poor, that they are happy with life. While we laugh at JJ’s antics in Good Times, there is a sense of tragedy, or what Langston Hughes referred to as “laughing to keep from crying” (Anderson). My research into these two subcultures began with these childhood observations and deepened in my work as an ethnomusicologist interested in popular culture and as a teacher of American students. The music, theme songs, and soundtracks that formed the introduction to these two shows serve as reminders of the aesthetic and philosophical divergences between two cultural groups.

Sensitized by the musical backdrop of Good Times and The Beverly Hillbillies, throughout the 1970s, my ears continued to perk with interest whenever I heard groups like Sly and the Family Stone and their funky grooves seep through the thin walls of my teenage brother’s bedroom and whenever I heard artists like Don Williams and his calm country twang flow from the sound system of the local bookshop that was attached to the Baptist mission in my small Nigerian town. It is interesting that these two sonic experiences presented themselves to me as mutually exclusive, like the worlds of Good Times and The Beverly Hillbillies. I never saw any hillbillies on the set of Good Times, and neither did I observe any Black American urbanites visit the Clampetts. So, instead of the two sides of a sound system where treble and bass merge seamlessly into one harmonious sound, soul and country music and culture form two separate, parallel worlds where convergence seems unlikely.

Multiethnic or multicultural nations are bound to have opposing sides, ethnic groups that may subscribe to the same national identity but harbor separate ethnic-specific allegiances. My own background as a Nigerian gains from this experience. My paternal heritage is Igbo, a group that is almost diametrically opposed to my husband’s Yoruba heritage. The mild hostility that continually simmers just beneath the surface is a carryover from a bitter civil war. It is tempting to view these divisions as similar to that between the Clampetts and the Evans, or the rural white South and the urban blacks in America. Two 1970s’ Nigerian comedic sitcoms that emerged from the two ethnic groups in question illustrate their division. Masquerade was a show that was set in Igboland, the eastern side of Nigeria. Most of the characters were Igbo and the culture was proudly portrayed each week as Chief Zebrudiah commanded his household. Village Headmaster was another popular show that was built around the palace of a Yoruba traditional ruler, Kabiyesi, and his hilarious village chiefs. The two shows are easily identifiable as situated in the different ethnicities; however, on each show, there were characters from the other side. On Masquerade, there was Jegede, the Yoruba man who often visited Zebrudiah. And on Village Headmaster, one of the main characters was the easterner Sisi Clara. The crossover of these ethnicities was believable. Yet, throughout the nine years of The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971) and the five years of Good Times (1974–1979), there were no recurring appearances from the respective alternate worlds.

Therefore, on closer observation, the Igbo/Yoruba divide, in spite of the Nigerian civil war memories, is not as vast as the black/white divide in the United States. While there has not been the same history between blacks and whites in the United States, there is a shared awareness of a past where the two were set in opposition against each other in order to maintain racial hierarchy. Tim Wise explains this evolution in White Like Me: “The white race is a quite modern creation, which only emerged as a term and a concept to describe Europeans in the late 1600s and after” (148). So the Clampetts and their community fit well into this concept of whiteness. In opposition would be the very impetus for the creation of whiteness as a hierarchical privileged category—namely black folk. Cornell West defines blackness as having “no meaning outside of a system of race-conscious people and practices . . . Being black means being minimally subject to white supremacist abuse and being part of a rich culture and community that has struggled against such abuse” (25).

This work posits that the distance between the Clampetts and the Evans—and the worlds of country and soul music—is farther, deeper, and wider, than that between my Igbos and the Yorubas. For skin color or race as an indicator of difference in America, because of its visual immediacy and deep historical resonances, produces a uniquely searing form of discrimination that differs from ethnic divisions. The journey ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1.  Introduction: Outside Looking In
• 2.  Folk Roots to Pop Masses: An Entangled History
• 3.  Money and Media: Radio; Television; Film Representations
• 4.  Race and Identity: Homies and Hillbillies
• 5.  Gender and Relationships: Women and Femininity
• 6.  Semiotics and Songs: Visual and Oral Meanings
• 7.  Politics and Power: Left or Right
• 8.  Religion and Faith: Jesus Walks or Takes the Wheel
• 9.  Conclusion: The American Dream
• Works Cited
• Index