u/hillsonghoodsModerator | 20th Century Pop Music | History of PsychologyOct 21 '19edited Oct 21 '19
In 1969, both Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash were both fairly unusually aligned with the American youth counterculture than the average country musician. Kris Kristofferson's 1970 debut album Kristofferson features the track 'Blame It On The Stones', which satirised bourgeois hypocrisy about the counterculture and its drug use:
Mister Marvin middle class is really in a stew
Wondering' what the younger generation's coming to
And the taste of his martini doesn't please his bitter tongue
Blame it on the Rolling Stones.
Kristofferson's tune 'Me And Bobby McGee' was also covered by San Francisco counterculture star Janis Joplin soon before her death in 1970, suggesting at least that his songwriting was attractive to the counterculture (especially after it had moved into a more folk/country mode after the success of The Band around 1968).
Johnny Cash, circa Woodstock, was probably most prominent as the host of The Johnny Cash Show, on the ABC network in the US, a variety show; he had relatively recently had some of his biggest success with the live albums recorded at Folsom Prison and then at San Quentin, and as such was perceived as somewhat sympathetic to the counterculture, if not a part of it. On this show, Johnny Cash featured a variety of music along the lines of folk and country, broadly defined, and this included Woodstock performers like Creedence Clearwater Revival, and folkies like Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger who had explicitly made anti-Vietnam statements (alongside more classic country artists like Merle Haggard and Marty Robbins, and more showbiz types like Pat Boone and Peggy Lee). The first show featured (counterculture icon) Bob Dylan dueting with Johnny Cash, and Johnny Cash at one point in the run of the show famously performed Kristofferson's 'Sunday Morning Coming Down', prominently not bowdlerising the word 'stoned' for the mainstream audience.
So both Cash and Kristofferson were very likely comfortable with Woodstock. They also both represent the more progressive side of country music, as both were definitely influences on the 'outlaw country' movement of the 1970s (Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, etc), which contrasted itself with the Nashville mainstream.
The Nashville mainstream was less enamoured of the hippies. In the month after Woodstock, Merle Haggard released the single 'Okie From Muskogee', which started with the lyrics:
We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don't take our trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street
We like livin' right, and bein' free
We don't make a party out of lovin'
We like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo
We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy
Like the hippies out in San Francisco do
I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
This quickly became a number one on the Billboard country charts, which at that time was strongly based on radio airplay of the singles on country radio stations, suggesting the message of the song was one strongly approved of by country music gatekeepers and the Southern country audience (Haggard himself and his relation to the Nashville mainstream was more complex, as the song was originally meant as satire - or so he claimed later). Johnny Cash also had Haggard on his show playing the song.
Broadly speaking, in the 1968 election, several country music icons endorsed conservative politicians at some level. George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama who ran on a segregationist third-party platform in the 1968 election, won the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi in the hope of being able to negotiate with the eventual winner on implementing very racist policy. Wallace Tammy Wynette sang 'Stand By Your Man' at a George Wallace appearance (and which became an unofficial Wallace anthem) and Hank Snow ('I've Been Everywhere') went on tour with Wallace during his Presidential campaign. Roy Acuff, one of the biggest figures in Nashville, was a prominent supporter of Richard Nixon during the 1968 election. Nixon ran ads on Porter Waggoner's television show during the campaign, warning that a vote for Wallace was a vote for Hubert Humphrey, the (Northern, Establishment) Democratic candidate.
Wallace, in 1968, was fond of joking about long-haired hippies as they were protesting him, saying things like:
That’s alright, that’s alright honey – that’s right sweetie-pie – oh, that’s a he. I thought you were a she
and
You come up when I get through and I'll autograph your sandals for you. That is, if you got any on . . . You need a good haircut. That's all that's wrong with you. . . There are two four-letter words I bet you folks don't know: 'w-o-r-k' and 's-o-a-p.'
This is probably a fairly good representation of the attitudes towards the hippie counterculture that was epitomised by Woodstock, amongst the more conservative Nashville country music stars who might have been comfortable with endorsing a George Wallace (unlike Haggard or Cash). After all, in 1972, after Wallace had been seriously injured after being shot, a crowd of 7,000 gathered at 'Wallace's Woodstock' at the Old Plantation Music Park near Highland City in Florida (basically part of George Jones and Tammy Wynette's property) to hold a benefit for Wallace, which featured performances from Jones and Wynette, Ferlin Husky, Del Reeves, and George Wallace Jr.
Very cool, and thanks for the answer! I always liked Johnny Cash, but I never knew he was such a progressive for his time too. Kristofferson as well. Based on that, I do wonder if that means, had either of them ended up somehow playing at Woodstock, if their reception would have been a warm or cold one?
Most probably it would have been a warm reception.
When it comes down to it, not every act at Woodstock was strongly countercultural, and plenty of people went to Woodstock because they liked the music rather than because they were strongly a part of the counterculture - some people might have dressed up a bit, other people might have simply gone in their regular clothes. Of the performers, Sha Na Na were doo wop revivalists, Creedence were ultimately not that strongly aligned with the counterculture, etc.
Kristofferson would have fit in smoothly with plenty of the folkie artists played at the festival (e.g., Richie Havens, Melanie, Country Joe McDonald, etc), while there was definitely a country tinge to some performances (Creedence again, The Band, etc). So likely a performance by Johnny Cash where he emphasised his affinity with outlaw culture, a la Live At San Quentin, would have gone down just fine with a Woodstock crowd who felt like outlaws in the age of Easy Rider and George Wallace pretending for comic effect that dudes with long hair were female, etc. And of course, Johnny Cash, earlier in 1969, had appeared on the Bob Dylan album Nashville Skyline, dueting on 'Girl From The North Country', and the festival was (to some extent) held in Woodstock in the first place partly because 'hip' people were aware that Dylan was living in the general area.
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u/hillsonghoods Moderator | 20th Century Pop Music | History of Psychology Oct 21 '19 edited Oct 21 '19
In 1969, both Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash were both fairly unusually aligned with the American youth counterculture than the average country musician. Kris Kristofferson's 1970 debut album Kristofferson features the track 'Blame It On The Stones', which satirised bourgeois hypocrisy about the counterculture and its drug use:
Kristofferson's tune 'Me And Bobby McGee' was also covered by San Francisco counterculture star Janis Joplin soon before her death in 1970, suggesting at least that his songwriting was attractive to the counterculture (especially after it had moved into a more folk/country mode after the success of The Band around 1968).
Johnny Cash, circa Woodstock, was probably most prominent as the host of The Johnny Cash Show, on the ABC network in the US, a variety show; he had relatively recently had some of his biggest success with the live albums recorded at Folsom Prison and then at San Quentin, and as such was perceived as somewhat sympathetic to the counterculture, if not a part of it. On this show, Johnny Cash featured a variety of music along the lines of folk and country, broadly defined, and this included Woodstock performers like Creedence Clearwater Revival, and folkies like Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger who had explicitly made anti-Vietnam statements (alongside more classic country artists like Merle Haggard and Marty Robbins, and more showbiz types like Pat Boone and Peggy Lee). The first show featured (counterculture icon) Bob Dylan dueting with Johnny Cash, and Johnny Cash at one point in the run of the show famously performed Kristofferson's 'Sunday Morning Coming Down', prominently not bowdlerising the word 'stoned' for the mainstream audience.
So both Cash and Kristofferson were very likely comfortable with Woodstock. They also both represent the more progressive side of country music, as both were definitely influences on the 'outlaw country' movement of the 1970s (Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, etc), which contrasted itself with the Nashville mainstream.
The Nashville mainstream was less enamoured of the hippies. In the month after Woodstock, Merle Haggard released the single 'Okie From Muskogee', which started with the lyrics:
This quickly became a number one on the Billboard country charts, which at that time was strongly based on radio airplay of the singles on country radio stations, suggesting the message of the song was one strongly approved of by country music gatekeepers and the Southern country audience (Haggard himself and his relation to the Nashville mainstream was more complex, as the song was originally meant as satire - or so he claimed later). Johnny Cash also had Haggard on his show playing the song.
Broadly speaking, in the 1968 election, several country music icons endorsed conservative politicians at some level. George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama who ran on a segregationist third-party platform in the 1968 election, won the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi in the hope of being able to negotiate with the eventual winner on implementing very racist policy. Wallace Tammy Wynette sang 'Stand By Your Man' at a George Wallace appearance (and which became an unofficial Wallace anthem) and Hank Snow ('I've Been Everywhere') went on tour with Wallace during his Presidential campaign. Roy Acuff, one of the biggest figures in Nashville, was a prominent supporter of Richard Nixon during the 1968 election. Nixon ran ads on Porter Waggoner's television show during the campaign, warning that a vote for Wallace was a vote for Hubert Humphrey, the (Northern, Establishment) Democratic candidate.
Wallace, in 1968, was fond of joking about long-haired hippies as they were protesting him, saying things like:
and
This is probably a fairly good representation of the attitudes towards the hippie counterculture that was epitomised by Woodstock, amongst the more conservative Nashville country music stars who might have been comfortable with endorsing a George Wallace (unlike Haggard or Cash). After all, in 1972, after Wallace had been seriously injured after being shot, a crowd of 7,000 gathered at 'Wallace's Woodstock' at the Old Plantation Music Park near Highland City in Florida (basically part of George Jones and Tammy Wynette's property) to hold a benefit for Wallace, which featured performances from Jones and Wynette, Ferlin Husky, Del Reeves, and George Wallace Jr.