WEBVTT - Broken Record Presents: Into the Zone 0:00:15.436 --> 0:00:21.236 Pushkin. Hey, y'all, it's justin Richmond here. We have a 0:00:21.276 --> 0:00:24.876 fantastic new podcast for you to check out. Today, we're 0:00:24.876 --> 0:00:28.196 bringing you a taste of Pushkin's newest show, Into the Zone, 0:00:28.836 --> 0:00:33.196 hosted by novelist Harry Kunzru. Hary loves and has written 0:00:33.196 --> 0:00:36.916 about music a lot over the years. His new podcast 0:00:37.076 --> 0:00:40.116 is all about opposites and how borders are never as 0:00:40.156 --> 0:00:43.276 clear as we think. We have a lot of artificial 0:00:43.316 --> 0:00:46.116 boundaries in the music world, and in this episode, Harry 0:00:46.196 --> 0:00:49.476 takes on the border war between rap and country evoked 0:00:49.516 --> 0:00:53.516 by Lil nas X's chart topping Old Town Road. To 0:00:53.556 --> 0:00:56.116 get out the root of the controversy, Hary heads down 0:00:56.116 --> 0:00:59.036 to the foothills of Virginia, where a legendary collection of 0:00:59.076 --> 0:01:03.596 blues records holds the key understanding the insidious separation of 0:01:03.716 --> 0:01:07.916 quote unquote black and white music. You can find Into 0:01:07.956 --> 0:01:10.956 the Zone on Apple and wherever you get your barcass 0:01:11.556 --> 0:01:19.076 Here's Harry Kanzru and into the Zone. This thing is 0:01:20.076 --> 0:01:24.396 packed up like fort My friend Chris King stands in 0:01:24.436 --> 0:01:27.396 the living room of his old house in rural Virginia. 0:01:28.716 --> 0:01:30.756 But this is where it actually gets fragile. This is 0:01:30.756 --> 0:01:33.996 like doing open heart surgery, because this is when you 0:01:34.036 --> 0:01:38.196 could slice that microscopic vein. Chris takes a kitchen knife 0:01:38.236 --> 0:01:41.516 to a large package, a two by two foot cube. 0:01:44.196 --> 0:01:47.996 My friend cultivates an old timey look. He has a mustache, 0:01:48.476 --> 0:01:52.356 round toward a shell, glasses, suspenders holding up his core. Drois. 0:01:53.476 --> 0:01:57.196 He's approaching this job in a methodical way. Think of 0:01:57.236 --> 0:02:01.396 a nineteen thirties country doctor examining a patient. Holy shit. 0:02:02.556 --> 0:02:07.676 Inside the cube, he finds more packaging, and still more. 0:02:09.116 --> 0:02:13.116 It's as if someone's playing a trick on him. Inside 0:02:13.116 --> 0:02:19.396 one box, there's another, and another, then a sandwich of 0:02:19.476 --> 0:02:25.276 cardboard and foam, and finally, in the very middle, a record, 0:02:27.156 --> 0:02:35.636 just one record, shine mint coffee. Holy shit. This record 0:02:35.836 --> 0:02:38.876 is ninety years old, more or less, made to spin 0:02:38.956 --> 0:02:43.356 at seventy eight revolutions per minute. The disc is fragile. 0:02:43.636 --> 0:02:47.276 It's coated with a substance called shellac, a resin secreted 0:02:47.316 --> 0:02:51.756 by an Indian beetle. Shellac was too expensive to use 0:02:51.756 --> 0:02:54.116 for the whole record, so it's only on the surface. 0:02:54.676 --> 0:02:57.196 The inside of a seventy eight is filled with clay 0:02:57.316 --> 0:03:00.956 and limestone dust. It makes them heavy and very brittle. 0:03:01.676 --> 0:03:05.596 Drop one and it will shatter like a china plate. Yes, 0:03:05.756 --> 0:03:08.396 that's so clean, you can shave off. Then I met 0:03:08.476 --> 0:03:10.636 Chris some year years ago when I was researching my 0:03:10.716 --> 0:03:14.876 novel White Tears. The book is a ghost story about 0:03:14.916 --> 0:03:19.276 record collecting and the Mississippi Blues. To understand that world, 0:03:19.276 --> 0:03:21.836 I needed to talk to a seventy eight collector, someone 0:03:21.836 --> 0:03:25.316 who is deep in the subculture. Chris agreed to help 0:03:25.356 --> 0:03:29.196 me out. He's the kind of source a novelist can 0:03:29.236 --> 0:03:32.996 only dream off. Everything was stitched into the Fate's Harry. 0:03:33.516 --> 0:03:37.316 You know nothing, there's nothing by chance. Now I'm here 0:03:37.356 --> 0:03:41.396 to witness him in his happiest place, somehow or another. 0:03:41.596 --> 0:03:44.236 The day that I was born, it was written into 0:03:44.276 --> 0:03:46.476 my favorite that I was going to play this record 0:03:46.516 --> 0:03:52.596 for you, and carefully lowers the needle into the groove. 0:04:03.836 --> 0:04:09.196 This is Into the Zone, a podcast about opposites and 0:04:09.236 --> 0:04:15.556 how borders are never as clear as we think. I'm 0:04:15.636 --> 0:04:20.356 hurry Kun's room. This episode is about music and authenticity. 0:04:21.316 --> 0:04:34.916 It's about tradition and modernity. It's about black and white. 0:04:37.436 --> 0:04:42.596 Seventy eight collectors are notoriously secretive. The first one I 0:04:42.676 --> 0:04:46.236 contacted while writing White Tears, well, he told me that 0:04:46.316 --> 0:04:50.036 revealing information about collecting would be against his self interest, 0:04:51.036 --> 0:04:53.916 because if more people realize how amazing these records are, 0:04:53.956 --> 0:04:55.796 the prices would go up and it would be harder 0:04:55.796 --> 0:04:58.356 for him to collect. But Chris is the kind of 0:04:58.356 --> 0:05:01.836 guy who wants to share what he loves. He welcomed 0:05:01.836 --> 0:05:04.636 me into his lair in Virginia, and I wanted an 0:05:04.636 --> 0:05:08.796 excuse to go back. Ever since we're lucky enough to 0:05:08.876 --> 0:05:10.756 be in your I mean, do you call it a 0:05:10.796 --> 0:05:15.316 listening room? What do you call this place? Now? Yeah? 0:05:15.316 --> 0:05:18.196 I can do more than listen here. Chris isn't lying. 0:05:18.636 --> 0:05:20.676 He won a Grammy in two thousand and two for 0:05:20.756 --> 0:05:24.716 his work compiling early recordings. He remasters old records for 0:05:24.796 --> 0:05:27.956 re release. This room is a shrine to the early 0:05:28.076 --> 0:05:32.196 years of recorded sound. Thousands of records in identical brown 0:05:32.276 --> 0:05:36.076 cardboard sleeves sit on shelves. The walls are hung with 0:05:36.116 --> 0:05:40.716 memorabiliar portraits of long dead fiddlers and jug bands. There's 0:05:40.716 --> 0:05:45.316 a mixing desk, a turntable, two monitor speakers hung on 0:05:45.396 --> 0:05:51.076 cables from the ceilings. To your collecting of American music, 0:05:51.076 --> 0:05:53.196 I mean, do you have anything after the Second World War? 0:05:53.396 --> 0:05:56.996 I don't collect anything. Sucks don't collect anything that sucks. 0:05:57.396 --> 0:06:00.916 I think that is a valid collecting strategy. Well, there's 0:06:01.036 --> 0:06:04.516 there's completely a good rule for anybody. But is there 0:06:04.556 --> 0:06:07.796 a date at which you stop? Yeah, well, I mean 0:06:08.356 --> 0:06:12.476 I don't. I don't have hardly any post War War two. 0:06:13.116 --> 0:06:15.756 I have no post World War two blues, and I 0:06:15.836 --> 0:06:18.756 have like maybe one or two post World War two 0:06:19.436 --> 0:06:23.036 your belly things. The record Chris Just Unpacked is by 0:06:23.036 --> 0:06:27.836 Mississippi musician Robert Wilkins. The song is called rolling Stone 0:06:27.916 --> 0:06:39.676 Part one Hallo. Hearing this on an original seventy eight 0:06:39.836 --> 0:06:42.316 is like the second Coming for blues fans. There are 0:06:42.436 --> 0:06:45.156 very few known copies, and this is the one in 0:06:45.196 --> 0:06:59.156 the best condition rule Someday. Robert Wilkins is not the 0:06:59.276 --> 0:07:02.276 only early blues musician to have recorded a song with 0:07:02.476 --> 0:07:05.316 rolling Stone in the title, but he's the one the 0:07:05.356 --> 0:07:08.516 English band called the Rolling Stones had to pay royalties 0:07:09.676 --> 0:07:12.876 On the album Beggars Banquet. There's a track called Prodigal Son. 0:07:13.796 --> 0:07:16.636 When it was released back in nineteen sixty eight, it 0:07:16.676 --> 0:07:20.276 was credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It's actually 0:07:20.316 --> 0:07:22.916 a pretty straight cover of a song by Wilkins that 0:07:22.996 --> 0:07:26.276 he'd been playing since the nineteen twenties, after a long 0:07:26.396 --> 0:07:30.236 court case, the elderly bluesman finally got what he was owed. 0:07:34.236 --> 0:07:38.516 There are many stories like this. The British invasion bands 0:07:38.516 --> 0:07:41.676 of the nineteen sixties, like Cream and led Zeppelin did 0:07:41.716 --> 0:07:44.916 a good job of repackaging country blues and selling it 0:07:44.956 --> 0:07:48.556 back to Americans with an English accent. I grew up 0:07:48.556 --> 0:07:50.596 in England listening to a lot of those bands, and 0:07:50.876 --> 0:07:53.596 like many people, I eventually found my way back to 0:07:53.676 --> 0:07:57.276 the blues tradition that they were borrowing from. But it 0:07:57.316 --> 0:08:00.196 was a long time before I really understood how strange 0:08:00.196 --> 0:08:03.356 it is that rock and roll music that comes from 0:08:03.396 --> 0:08:06.716 the blues came to be thought of as a white style. 0:08:07.596 --> 0:08:09.796 It's one of the reasons I went to to talk 0:08:09.836 --> 0:08:13.156 to Chris. He knows this history better than almost anyone 0:08:14.676 --> 0:08:19.636 in modern popular music. We make this distinction between black 0:08:19.676 --> 0:08:23.756 and white traditions in America, and do you think that 0:08:24.316 --> 0:08:28.996 distinction has any validity? Well, obviously it has validity now, 0:08:29.516 --> 0:08:34.916 But if you go back to basically the Civil War, 0:08:34.996 --> 0:08:38.516 the American Civil War up until essentially the dawn of 0:08:38.596 --> 0:08:42.156 the of the recording industry, that was a false dichotomy. 0:08:42.876 --> 0:08:46.916 There was a pre blues tradition that was mixed, it 0:08:46.996 --> 0:08:50.396 was shared. It was neither neither white nor black. It 0:08:50.436 --> 0:08:53.836 was mongrel. It was everything. Maybe you should you should 0:08:53.836 --> 0:08:55.956 play something, and we I mean we could play the 0:08:56.596 --> 0:08:59.676 guesting game and see and and and imagine who might 0:08:59.716 --> 0:09:03.316 be playing. Yeah, okay, so I mean I'll play two records. 0:09:03.356 --> 0:09:06.276 One is by black musicians, one is by white musicians, 0:09:06.796 --> 0:09:11.236 but largely the frumentation and the repertoire and the style 0:09:11.716 --> 0:09:16.116 is the same. And this sort of shows that. Um, 0:09:16.356 --> 0:09:19.676 if anything, it was the recording industry that started to 0:09:19.716 --> 0:09:24.196 parce out and say this is black and this is white. 0:09:32.636 --> 0:09:48.916 I think him now will be read around him as 0:09:48.996 --> 0:09:52.036 far as ending, yeah, I think that they were very 0:09:52.116 --> 0:09:54.356 high during that session. You can hear the guy kind 0:09:54.356 --> 0:09:58.876 of like mumbling and the way he's just experimenting with, 0:09:59.036 --> 0:10:03.156 like just how long he draws that New Orleans. Yeah, 0:10:03.156 --> 0:10:06.796 it was a completely improvised session. It sounded like black 0:10:06.956 --> 0:10:10.156 musicians to me, not so much because of how they 0:10:10.156 --> 0:10:13.756 were playing, but because of their accents. Chris pulls out 0:10:14.036 --> 0:10:18.956 the other record. This record also nineteen twenty nine. And 0:10:19.196 --> 0:10:21.276 also I didn't realize it until I pulled it. This 0:10:21.356 --> 0:10:25.876 is also Atlanta Georgia. So both recorded in the same place, 0:10:25.876 --> 0:10:28.596 the same place. They probably knew each other. They probably 0:10:28.676 --> 0:10:44.436 bring around you. One of the speakers says, quit your 0:10:44.436 --> 0:10:48.716 foolishness round here. He says it, Yeah, I hear white 0:10:48.716 --> 0:10:51.836 people in that straight away. Maybe you say, who were 0:10:51.836 --> 0:10:54.236 we listening to? So we were listening. The first track 0:10:54.396 --> 0:10:58.236 was Chitland Supper by peg Leg Howel and Jim Hill 0:10:59.356 --> 0:11:02.316 peg Leg how he had a peg leg peg Leg 0:11:02.596 --> 0:11:06.556 and his band in Atlanta were black, as I guessed correctly. 0:11:06.916 --> 0:11:09.876 And then the second record is the South Georgia Highballers 0:11:09.916 --> 0:11:13.596 doing bluegrass Twist, and they were a white group. The 0:11:13.636 --> 0:11:16.556 point of Chris's demonstration wasn't that back in the day, 0:11:16.676 --> 0:11:20.476 black and white musicians sounded into changeable, though it's true 0:11:20.516 --> 0:11:22.796 that they did seem to play their instruments in almost 0:11:22.796 --> 0:11:26.356 the same way. No, Chris's point was that someone has 0:11:26.396 --> 0:11:29.916 been training us all these decades to hear and recognize 0:11:29.956 --> 0:11:35.156 slight differences and immediately attribute them to race. We've been 0:11:35.196 --> 0:11:39.556 taught categories, and every day we're taught them anew by 0:11:39.556 --> 0:11:43.796 those who patrol the boundaries. Let's play a little game 0:11:43.796 --> 0:11:47.836 called that ain't country. This game has just played by 0:11:47.916 --> 0:11:51.636 me talking about stuff that ain't country. That's the country 0:11:51.716 --> 0:11:55.396 music YouTuber called Grady Tate who wants us to know 0:11:55.596 --> 0:11:58.876 what ain't country. And the first one and main one 0:11:58.876 --> 0:12:02.756 that really inspired this video is as I'm sure you've 0:12:02.796 --> 0:12:07.916 heard this song Old Town Road by Little Nasax. You 0:12:07.996 --> 0:12:12.356 might remember the net drama around Old Town Road. For 0:12:12.396 --> 0:12:16.916 a while, TikTok was dominated by teenagers magically transforming themselves 0:12:16.916 --> 0:12:19.836 into cowboys and cowgirls to the sound of this song. 0:12:20.796 --> 0:12:24.556 Sixty seven million views later, Old Town Road topped the 0:12:24.596 --> 0:12:28.756 Billboard Hot one hundred for nineteen weeks, a record, and 0:12:28.836 --> 0:12:33.156 it made both the country and the R and B charts. 0:12:34.356 --> 0:12:36.836 I'm not actually even mad at Lil Nazas at all 0:12:36.876 --> 0:12:39.196 for making this song. Who I'm mad at is like 0:12:39.236 --> 0:12:42.636 the gatekeepers over at iTunes and over on Billboard that 0:12:42.676 --> 0:12:46.076 are letting the song chart as a country song and 0:12:46.156 --> 0:12:48.316 it's not a country song at all. This is a 0:12:48.396 --> 0:12:52.516 hip hop song that I guess is about horses that 0:12:52.636 --> 0:12:55.956 ain't country. Was just a tiny part of the backlash 0:12:55.996 --> 0:13:00.596 against Lil nas and eventually Billboard pulled Oldtown Road from 0:13:00.596 --> 0:13:05.436 the country category it did not contain quote enough elements 0:13:05.476 --> 0:13:11.916 of today's country music, Lil Nasax was officially not country. 0:13:13.596 --> 0:13:16.876 Like many people, I thought I detected a racial subtext 0:13:16.916 --> 0:13:20.916 in this argument. Old Town Road has a heavy trap 0:13:20.956 --> 0:13:25.196 beat and big bass, but lots of contemporary country music 0:13:25.356 --> 0:13:29.876 uses elements of other popular styles, including hip hop. Why 0:13:29.956 --> 0:13:34.836 pick on Lelnar's X people said his song didn't sound authentic. 0:13:36.156 --> 0:13:38.876 I'm always on the alert when I hear the word authentic. 0:13:39.156 --> 0:13:42.756 It's a gate keeping word, a word used to exclude. 0:13:43.476 --> 0:13:48.916 It's also racially loaded. My mum's English and my dad's Indian. 0:13:49.676 --> 0:13:52.436 When I was growing up, I was made to feel 0:13:52.476 --> 0:13:56.276 that I wasn't white enough, but also that I wasn't 0:13:56.316 --> 0:14:00.676 brown enough. As a writer, I've always told stories that 0:14:00.876 --> 0:14:04.676 challenge simple ideas about authenticity, that try to show how 0:14:04.676 --> 0:14:07.356 the world is complex and more mixed up than we 0:14:07.396 --> 0:14:10.316 give it credit for the kind of stories I'm telling 0:14:10.316 --> 0:14:14.956 in this podcast. To get a better handle on authenticity 0:14:14.996 --> 0:14:19.076 in American popular music, I took the A train. It 0:14:19.156 --> 0:14:20.956 goes all the way uptown from where I live in 0:14:20.996 --> 0:14:24.316 Brooklyn to Harlem. I was going to see a writer 0:14:24.396 --> 0:14:28.516 friend called Kevin Young. Kevin is a poet and the 0:14:28.596 --> 0:14:31.396 director of one of the most important libraries in the US, 0:14:32.036 --> 0:14:37.516 the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture. I wanted 0:14:37.516 --> 0:14:41.156 to ask Kevin. By dressing up as a cowboy, was 0:14:41.236 --> 0:14:46.396 Lil nas X somehow appropriating white culture? Well, I mean 0:14:46.876 --> 0:14:49.596 cowboy face. Is that what you're suggesting is that there's 0:14:49.636 --> 0:14:51.436 such a thing. Now we'd have to go back and 0:14:51.476 --> 0:14:54.676 talk about cowboys who weren't all white. In fact, there 0:14:54.716 --> 0:15:00.516 were many, many black and brown and Asian cowboys. The 0:15:00.556 --> 0:15:04.156 way we think of cowboys is shaped, I think entirely 0:15:04.196 --> 0:15:07.956 by cinema. And John Wayne couldn't ride a horse. I 0:15:07.956 --> 0:15:10.636 should leap in here say that, of course John Wayne 0:15:10.676 --> 0:15:13.836 could ride, he just wasn't that fond of horses, and 0:15:13.916 --> 0:15:17.116 he only rode on set, never for fun. But Lil 0:15:17.236 --> 0:15:19.996 nas X isn't playing a cowboy in the same way 0:15:20.076 --> 0:15:24.076 as John Wayne is playing a cowboy. John Wayne fans 0:15:24.156 --> 0:15:27.916 revere him because they feel he's channeling something authentic. He 0:15:27.956 --> 0:15:32.676 convinces them that he's a cowboy in his dazzling stage suits. 0:15:32.916 --> 0:15:35.396 Lil nas X isn't trying to convince you of anything 0:15:35.476 --> 0:15:41.676 but his fabulousness. He's giving a knowing performance. It's cowboys style. 0:15:42.316 --> 0:15:45.476 It's camp, a kind of camp with deep roots in 0:15:45.516 --> 0:15:50.636 African American culture. And here's where things get really interesting. 0:15:51.596 --> 0:15:54.596 Kevin connects that form of camp to the cake walk, 0:15:55.076 --> 0:15:57.996 a parade like competitive dance that started in the days 0:15:58.036 --> 0:16:02.076 of slavery. It was performed for a prize, sometimes a cake. 0:16:04.596 --> 0:16:09.836 It was a dance from the plantation of blacks, the slaved, 0:16:10.596 --> 0:16:15.316 mocking there would be masters. They're putative slave owners, the 0:16:15.356 --> 0:16:20.996 holders of them. Supposedly they are imitating them, you know, 0:16:21.236 --> 0:16:24.396 being quote fancy. And of course it depends on where 0:16:24.436 --> 0:16:26.636 you stand. How you took that. If you were the 0:16:26.876 --> 0:16:30.396 white slaveholder, you thought, wow, look at them, not quite 0:16:30.396 --> 0:16:33.596 able to do what I do in my elegant dance. 0:16:34.156 --> 0:16:37.196 And if you were the black performer, you were like, boy, 0:16:37.236 --> 0:16:39.756 they don't understand how much fun we're making of them, 0:16:40.436 --> 0:16:42.356 you know, and how much fun we're having in this 0:16:42.476 --> 0:16:46.636 limited system which within which we can only operate this way. 0:16:47.236 --> 0:16:50.116 The k Kolk was the ancestor of everything from the 0:16:50.196 --> 0:16:54.316 line dance on Soul Train to bull room voguing. It's 0:16:54.316 --> 0:16:57.956 the ancestor of Lil Nazek sacheting along in his hot 0:16:57.996 --> 0:17:02.756 pink mesh cowboy shit. At the same time, you know, 0:17:02.996 --> 0:17:08.116 there's this parodic, satiric quality of the music that you know. 0:17:08.156 --> 0:17:10.836 I'm tracing back to the Cakewalk, but we can trace 0:17:10.876 --> 0:17:14.036 back any number of ways, which is, give me a form, 0:17:14.076 --> 0:17:16.636 and I'm gonna make fun of it, and I'm gonna 0:17:16.676 --> 0:17:20.076 make it better than you made it. Of course, when 0:17:20.156 --> 0:17:22.716 Lil nas X was having a showdown with a country 0:17:22.836 --> 0:17:28.676 music authenticity Sheriff's an outlaw rode to his rescue, Billy 0:17:28.836 --> 0:17:33.996 ray Cyrus, famous mullet haver and father of Miley, teamed 0:17:34.076 --> 0:17:38.236 up with Nas. It should be fat. We'll settle in 0:17:38.316 --> 0:17:44.076 here for the night. I don't know, man, last time 0:17:44.116 --> 0:17:46.196 I was here. They want to welcome and the outsiders. 0:17:46.236 --> 0:17:49.556 In the video they made together, Nas rides a horse 0:17:49.636 --> 0:17:53.316 down a street in East la He and Billy also 0:17:53.516 --> 0:17:55.996 face down an all white crowd of seniors in a 0:17:56.076 --> 0:18:03.956 community hall. The segregated bingo game turns into a line dance, 0:18:04.596 --> 0:18:07.916 and it all ends in a sweet interracial prom photo. 0:18:08.596 --> 0:18:11.836 Nas is a smile and his old white lady dance 0:18:11.876 --> 0:18:18.596 partner gazes admiringly up at him. But let's be honest, 0:18:19.636 --> 0:18:22.156 this kind of thing is exactly what makes a lot 0:18:22.196 --> 0:18:25.996 of country music fans uneasy in a world of style 0:18:26.076 --> 0:18:30.516 and flim flam. Country sells itself on authenticity, on realness. 0:18:31.276 --> 0:18:35.596 Though it sometimes wears Ryan stones and hairspray. Country means 0:18:35.596 --> 0:18:41.156 songs about growing up poor, about enduring hard times, and 0:18:41.196 --> 0:18:44.996 it has musical traditions. Country fans feel there's a way 0:18:45.036 --> 0:18:49.276 it ought to sound. Everyone knows that country has that 0:18:49.436 --> 0:18:55.116 thing that twang. No, you can't take my door. I 0:18:55.156 --> 0:19:03.756 don't want to love you anymore. My face whiskey good, whiskey. 0:19:03.956 --> 0:19:14.356 Straighten you gay. If that sounded off to you, congratulations, 0:19:14.436 --> 0:19:18.956 your bullshit detectors are still functioning. That was country music 0:19:19.036 --> 0:19:23.996 generated by artificial intelligence. Researchers trained a neural network on 0:19:24.116 --> 0:19:27.756 country music's greatest hits. This was what it came up with, 0:19:29.596 --> 0:19:35.156 a show away. The melody and the lyrics were the 0:19:35.196 --> 0:19:40.756 work of the AI, the arrangement and singing humans. Elsewhere 0:19:40.836 --> 0:19:42.956 on the internet, there's a twenty four to seven live 0:19:43.036 --> 0:19:46.436 stream of AI generated death metal, created on the fly 0:19:46.636 --> 0:19:49.636 with no human intervention at all. I don't want to 0:19:49.676 --> 0:19:53.676 make you listen to that. I really don't, all right, 0:19:53.836 --> 0:20:10.236 I do. Sorry. At some point, be very late at night, 0:20:10.796 --> 0:20:14.276 I realized that in twenty twenty, any conversation about country 0:20:14.356 --> 0:20:17.796 music and authenticity is best conducted by two men of 0:20:17.836 --> 0:20:21.436 South Asian descent in a living room in Brooklyn, drinking 0:20:21.436 --> 0:20:27.396 old fashions. I am from Pennsylvania and I grew up 0:20:27.396 --> 0:20:30.356 in a college town. I've always loved music, but I 0:20:30.396 --> 0:20:33.876 think that I came across country music just artificially, just 0:20:34.556 --> 0:20:39.436 you know, collecting records as a teenager, discovering that unexpectedly 0:20:39.956 --> 0:20:43.716 I really liked this stuff. This is Shuja Hide. Shujia 0:20:43.836 --> 0:20:46.676 is a smart cultural critic who's always happy to share 0:20:46.676 --> 0:20:50.316 his opinions on political philosophy or the best Michael Mann 0:20:50.356 --> 0:20:56.156 movie Collateral. Shuja also loves country music, and I think 0:20:56.156 --> 0:20:58.316 it may actually have something to do with with my 0:20:58.476 --> 0:21:00.676 South Asian background. That you know, I grew up on 0:21:01.276 --> 0:21:05.156 hearing the sort of Bollywood music of the forties and 0:21:05.196 --> 0:21:07.916 fifties and sixties that my dad used to play. And 0:21:07.996 --> 0:21:12.076 those songs are all full of stories, you know, they 0:21:12.076 --> 0:21:15.316 were associated with the movies of the time. They describe 0:21:15.996 --> 0:21:22.156 rural life or urban life in India, and they're written 0:21:22.156 --> 0:21:25.516 by you know, some great poets. The lyrics well, would 0:21:25.556 --> 0:21:29.276 some favorites of USB Well, my dad loved Muhammad Raffi 0:21:29.396 --> 0:21:36.596 and Tatis mud n Johnny Tuk. Yeah, these are songs 0:21:36.676 --> 0:21:39.596 that are very intricately written. They draw on the folk 0:21:39.636 --> 0:21:44.516 traditions of the landscape, and I think country music kind 0:21:44.516 --> 0:21:47.796 of does the same thing. Jiujia has written about his 0:21:47.836 --> 0:21:50.876 own attempt to pin down the essence of country music 0:21:51.436 --> 0:21:56.236 that's set in something that feel that twang. Twang is 0:21:56.276 --> 0:21:59.636 a word that initially is used to describe language people 0:21:59.636 --> 0:22:03.396 who speak with various kinds of accents, the way you 0:22:03.516 --> 0:22:06.356 articulate a vowel or so on. We're often described as 0:22:06.356 --> 0:22:09.636 twang all the way back to Europe in the seventeen century, 0:22:09.876 --> 0:22:13.516 and it often is used to denote a Southern accent, 0:22:14.276 --> 0:22:17.156 dropping the geese and you know, kind of twirling your 0:22:17.196 --> 0:22:23.036 vowels and so on. I would ride number nine hidden 0:22:23.196 --> 0:22:28.956 frol and that's a sound that I think at the 0:22:29.036 --> 0:22:32.076 time that people in the South started to migrate to 0:22:32.116 --> 0:22:35.356 California towards the north, towards city centers, they brought their 0:22:35.396 --> 0:22:38.276 accents with them, and they brought their musical traditions with them, 0:22:38.516 --> 0:22:40.836 and once they came into contact with the new technologies 0:22:40.876 --> 0:22:43.676 that we're being used to produce music and to record music, 0:22:44.156 --> 0:22:46.756 they started to emerge in new ways. So you have 0:22:46.796 --> 0:22:50.476 the sound of an electrified string, you know, being picked 0:22:50.556 --> 0:22:53.676 up by a magnet that's being fed into an amplifier, 0:22:55.036 --> 0:22:57.636 and people are giving it the same kind of articulation 0:22:57.676 --> 0:23:00.156 that they would give their speech. And I think that's 0:23:00.196 --> 0:23:09.676 what we call twang. Choose your point. Sound that twang. 0:23:10.356 --> 0:23:12.516 The sound I think of when I think of country 0:23:12.596 --> 0:23:16.836 music is an electrified sound. The sound of an instrument 0:23:16.916 --> 0:23:20.516 called the pedal steel. Pedal steel is a wooden board 0:23:20.596 --> 0:23:23.796 that has strings across it, and rather than actually being 0:23:23.916 --> 0:23:28.116 touched with fingers, it's played with a steel bar and 0:23:28.396 --> 0:23:34.436 usually sort of false like metal clause. And it's got 0:23:34.716 --> 0:23:37.676 not just not just the steel bar to change the notes, 0:23:37.716 --> 0:23:40.476 but also a system of pedals that change the notes 0:23:40.556 --> 0:23:47.636 after they've already been articulated. The quintessential sound of a 0:23:47.716 --> 0:23:51.956 genre that prides itself on tradition is the sound of 0:23:51.996 --> 0:23:55.316 a modern instrument pedal steel. Sums it up. It was 0:23:55.356 --> 0:23:57.956 invented in the twentieth century. It was constantly revised and 0:23:57.996 --> 0:24:01.396 tinkered with. You know, it originally has its roots in 0:24:01.556 --> 0:24:05.196 Hawaiian music with the lap steel. So you can't play 0:24:05.236 --> 0:24:09.276 the pedal steel on a farm. The pedal steel is 0:24:09.276 --> 0:24:13.076 an electric instrument. It needs to be amplified otherwise you 0:24:13.116 --> 0:24:14.996 can't really hear it. And it's really kind of a 0:24:15.036 --> 0:24:16.996 space age sound, you know. It sounds something like the 0:24:17.036 --> 0:24:22.316 phomin or. It even sounds like a synthesizer. You know. 0:24:30.716 --> 0:24:34.156 This is what commercial country and Western music sounded like. 0:24:34.276 --> 0:24:39.396 In nineteen thirty seven, Blue Yodel number two recorded in 0:24:39.436 --> 0:25:02.836 Los Angeles by a band called The Rhythm Records. This 0:25:02.916 --> 0:25:08.036 song is a cosmic collision of styles and influences. It's 0:25:08.036 --> 0:25:12.436 a blues about a loving gal called Lucille. The growling 0:25:12.556 --> 0:25:16.476 vocal is copied from black singers like Bessie Smith, but 0:25:16.556 --> 0:25:19.316 the singer is a fourteen year old white boy from 0:25:19.316 --> 0:25:38.516 Oklahoma who goes by Whitie McPherson. And what about that yodel? 0:25:39.156 --> 0:25:43.476 It sounds so good, yet it's so weird. Yodeling was 0:25:43.516 --> 0:25:46.116 actually a solid part of American life for at least 0:25:46.116 --> 0:25:50.036 a hundred years. Yodling started in the Swiss Alps, of course, 0:25:50.076 --> 0:25:54.596 but American yodeling had a long history in blackface minstrel shows. 0:25:55.396 --> 0:25:58.676 The writer of this song was the huge star Jimmy Rogers. 0:25:59.276 --> 0:26:05.276 He started out performing as a black face minstrel. What 0:26:05.396 --> 0:26:11.036 You're hearing is in fact a space age Hawaiian alpine 0:26:11.436 --> 0:26:47.556 black face minstrel song. May carry me back to old Virginia. 0:26:48.116 --> 0:26:50.796 That's where the cotton and the corn and the tatoes grow. 0:26:51.716 --> 0:26:55.356 That's where the birds warble sweet in the springtime. There's 0:26:55.396 --> 0:27:00.396 where the darky's heart am long to go. That's an 0:27:00.436 --> 0:27:04.716 old minstrel song. Until nineteen ninety seven, it was also 0:27:04.836 --> 0:27:08.196 the state song of Virginia. This version was sung by 0:27:08.236 --> 0:27:11.196 Marion and the first black singer to appear at the 0:27:11.236 --> 0:27:15.836 Metropolitan Opera House. Carry Me Back was written in eighteen 0:27:15.876 --> 0:27:19.876 seventy eight by a black singer and composer called James A. Bland. 0:27:21.236 --> 0:27:28.196 But would you say the song was black music? Marion 0:27:28.276 --> 0:27:33.196 Anderson sings in a European style with European orchestration, and 0:27:33.356 --> 0:27:36.836 Bland's lyrics repeat one of the primary racist fantasies of 0:27:36.836 --> 0:27:40.716 the South that free black people long for the certainties 0:27:40.756 --> 0:27:44.836 of the plantation, that they actually want to be enslaved again. 0:27:46.196 --> 0:27:48.916 The black man who wrote the words had never been 0:27:48.956 --> 0:27:52.116 a slave on a Virginia plantation. He was a Howard 0:27:52.196 --> 0:27:56.316 University graduate from Flushing, Queens who made his living writing 0:27:56.356 --> 0:28:00.356 minstrel songs. Carry Me back to Old Virginny has a 0:28:00.436 --> 0:28:05.636 quality I find in Oldtown Road, in Blue Yodel Number 0:28:05.636 --> 0:28:14.396 two and so many other American popular It's like a 0:28:14.476 --> 0:28:18.076 Merbius strip with a white side and a black side 0:28:18.076 --> 0:28:23.076 that run together, impossible to separate. My Virginia friend, Chris 0:28:23.116 --> 0:28:28.876 the collector, lives inside that strip. He loves it. It's 0:28:28.916 --> 0:28:31.836 a wonder that you can find anything, because these are 0:28:31.916 --> 0:28:36.956 all identically sleeved records. They're all in these uniform brown 0:28:37.396 --> 0:28:39.676 paper sleeves. And I mean, I don't know how many 0:28:39.796 --> 0:28:41.556 you have. He had enough. You know how many you 0:28:41.556 --> 0:28:48.436 have here? He has five thousand, five hundred records. Could you, 0:28:48.596 --> 0:28:51.996 I mean, talk about your cataloging? How do you? Oddly enough? 0:28:52.436 --> 0:28:58.156 Oddly enough talking about segregation? So this is all black shelf, 0:28:58.236 --> 0:29:01.396 it's about here, and then go on from there yonder 0:29:01.476 --> 0:29:05.236 is all Cajun, and then from here over to there 0:29:05.396 --> 0:29:18.396 is all white Hillbilly, and then Ukrainian, Polish, Indian, Albanian, Greek, Turkish, African, Mongolian. 0:29:19.716 --> 0:29:25.756 I didn't know you didn't know you did Mongolian. As 0:29:25.796 --> 0:29:30.316 our evening together gets later and later, Chris ranges across topics, 0:29:30.836 --> 0:29:34.396 occasionally pausing to roll a cigarette to refill out glasses. 0:29:34.676 --> 0:29:36.356 All right, I'm gonna get another glass of wine and 0:29:36.316 --> 0:29:38.956 then I'll play you something that will go good with that, 0:29:39.276 --> 0:29:41.236 but but black. But you won't be able to tell 0:29:41.276 --> 0:29:58.516 it's black. I swear to God. At that time, in 0:29:58.636 --> 0:30:01.116 nineteen twenty nine, you would have been able to encounter 0:30:01.836 --> 0:30:05.036 William Moore playing that piece, and then somebody like my 0:30:05.116 --> 0:30:08.716 grandfather playing the exact same piece with probably the same 0:30:08.796 --> 0:30:13.556 vogue election the same style. In Britain, folk singers revived 0:30:13.556 --> 0:30:18.116 ballads and traditional regional songs, always striving to sound as 0:30:18.156 --> 0:30:22.396 authentic as possible, searching back in time for some pure 0:30:22.596 --> 0:30:28.196