Byline: Bill Friskics-Warren

Music journalist Bill Friskics-Warren will be online Monday, Nov. 14, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss his Sunday Source article, "Country Music 101" and his latest book, "I'll Take You There: Pop Music and the Urge for Transcendence."

Read the article: Country Music 101 (Post, Nov. 13)

His latest book is about spirituality in pop music and is titled "I'll Take You There: Pop Music and the Urge for Transcendence."

A transcript follows.

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Harrisburg, Pa.: What is your take on the evolution of country music (even back to when it was calaled country "and western" music)? It seems the western and cowboy themes are much fewer, and much of what is considered country today would have been considered rock and roll back thirty years ago. To what factors do you attribute this evolution?

Bill Friskics-Warren: Sonically and thematically, today's country music reflects the suburbanization--and attendant homoginization--of life in many parts of the United States. Much is made, too often condescendingly, of the proverbially soccer mom and the NASCAR dad making up country's core demographic, and while I don't doubt that's the case, I suspect that the audience for country music throughout the nation is less monolithic than that suggests. It'll certainly be interesting to see how the CMA Awards go down in Manhattan tomorrow night. As for the absence of cowboy-type themes, I wonder if they aren't latent in the personas of singers like Toby Keith (the loudmouth saloon brawler), Alan Jackson (the strong silent type) and Tim McGraw (the good-time buddy). The SUV might have replaced the horse as the ride of choice, but some of the trappings remain.

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Burke, Va.: I am a huge fan of the Dixie Chicks. I discovered them off a movie soundtrack and from there I got into country music. It was so upsetting when radio stopped playing the Chicks. Even now, more than two years later, you rarely hear them on the radio. It seems like country music prides itself on being homogenous in terms of values, beliefs, and politics but that can't really be the case. Certainly, I agree far more with the Chicks' statements than those of Dirks Bentley or Toby Keith. Do you think country music will accept the Chicks and other artists that are outspoken liberals or will they continue to be blacklisted? Won't that hurt country music in the long term, artistically if not by numbers of fans?

Bill Friskics-Warren: I'm with you re: the Chicks, and likewise appreciate their outspokenness and where they're coming from politically. Word has it that Tim McGraw is a democrat, and Merle Haggard has lately spoken out against the war in Iraq. All of which is to say that there are more left-leaning people in the country music industry--especially among record execs and other behind the scenes folks in the business--than most people think. The trouble is, these liberal voices aren't the loudest and their messages tend to be subtler--and thus harder to get across--than those who identify more with the right. A group here called Music Row Democrats has sought to address this perception, and to elevate the level of political discourse within the industry, but I'm not sure how effective they've has been.

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Washington, D.C.: Your column in yesterday's paper covered a wide range of country music, from the 1920s to the 21st century. With your new book, however, you range beyond country and talk about spirituality in everything from rock and soul music to punk and rap. Why this interest in such a broad scope of popular music?"

Bill Friskics-Warren: One of the main things I wanted to accomplish with my new book was to uncover the spirituality that undergirds and informs so much pop music. Whether we're talking about obvious candidates like Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye and Moby or about the not-so-obvious likes of Madonna, PJ Harvey and Public Enemy, an underlying spiritual restlessness--a hunger for transcendence--can be heard in the records that they make. What other than transcendence is Jimi Hendrix getting at when he shouts, "Scuse me while I kiss the sky," before enleashing a volcanic burst of guitar noise in "Purple Haze?" In order to demonstrate just how pervasive this hunger for something deeper and more abiding than the everyday is in pop music, it was crucial for me to show how it could be heard in rock, rap, disco, country and electronic music, among other genres--that is, across the board. This isn't to say that all pop music conveys a hunger for transcendence, or to deny that some of it serves banal, venal or oppressive ends. It is, however, to stress that spirituality runs through more pop music than most people suspect.

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Baltimore, Md.: The greatest country singers, like Johnny Cash, transcended categorical boundaries. But Nashville is uncomfortable with a band fitting into several record bins. How is it that bands like the Kentucky Headhunters and Night Train strike a chord with the public (pardon the pun), but struggle to get airplay and mass recognition? Big Boss Man and 8th Grade Bride are classics in the genre!

Bill Friskics-Warren: Today's niche marketing certainly has narrowed the way that country records now sound. I think it's refreshing, though, that acts like Big & Rich and Cowboy Troy--the entire MuzikMafia, really--are embracing sounds from all over the musical spectrum. I think you hear this musical reach in Brooks & Dunn's music, too. Sara Evans' latest album has a sleek, electronic sheen that a colleague of mine likened to Cupid & Psyche 85, an album by 80s synth-n-beat band Scritti Politti. It's a pretty thrilling record.

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Tuscumbia, Mo.: One aspect of country music which has had some influence on popular music have been innovative instrumentalists such as Chet Atkins, Earl Scruggs and Floyd Cramer. For example, Cramer's piano was background for many country as well as popular recording artists in the sixties and seventies and his "bending" of melody notes has been said to have been an important contribution to the "Nashville Sound." Atkins perfected the "walking base" style of guitar playing and is recognized as having one of the most distinctive sounds of any American guitar player. Scruggs innovated the three digit method of playing the five string banjo, a style copied thereafter by almost all banjo players in folk and country music. Have you written about your favorite country instrumental artists?

Bill Friskics-Warren: In Heartaches by the Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles, my co-author David Cantwell and I went to great lengths to discuss not just the contributions instrumentalists have made to the music, but the innovations that producers, arrangers and others have made as well. One of the main themes of our book was that great recordings are by nature collaborative--that the person's name on the label of this or that hit single doesn't begin to tell the story of what went into making the record. Thus we wrote entries that focused on how producer Billy Sherrill introduced aspects of soul and gospel music into the countrypolitan sound, or on how Hank Garland's love of jazz seeped into his playing on great records by Red Foley, among so many others. We also included entries that centered on the harmonies of the Jordanaires and the Anita Kerr singers, as well as on pickers ranging from Bud Isaacs and Bob Dunn to Pete Drake and Pig Robbins.

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Santa Barbara, Calif.: Bill -- You point out correctly that country is not just one sound, but has many varieties. Currently though, many "country acts," Travis Tritt, Gretchen Wilson, etc., are much more influenced by rock than country. Take away the boots, accent and hat, and it's more like older mainstream rock. Agree or Disagree?

Bill Friskics-Warren: Oh, absolutely. Rock music is a huge influence on today's mainstream country acts and their producers. Just look at the tributes to the Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top that Music Row has produced in recent years. And you can spot influences ranging from Springsteen to the Stones to Delaney & Bonnie all over an album like Brooks & Dunn's Red Dirt Road. But there are also nods to Southern soul and black gospel music on that album, as well as on records by, say, Big & Rich and Trisha Yearwood. Country music has always been highly referential, but these days, it seems that these sorts of nods are everywhere. Sometimes I wonder if they're a substitute for originality or if they function creatively the way that samples do in pop and hip hop.

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