This Is Pop (2021) s01e04 Episode Script
The Boyz II Men Effect
[wind whistling]
[coyote howls]
[country guitar twang]
[bird screeches]
[spurs jangle]
Hello, I'm Orville Peck.
Y'all remember this?
Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse
To the old town road ♪
[Peck] A while back,
a young Atlanta rapper
exploded onto the mainstream
like a pumped-up powder keg
lit up with a stick of cartoon dynamite.
His name was Lil Nas X.
I got the horses in the back ♪
Horse tack is attached ♪
Hat is matte black
Got the boots that's black to match ♪
[Peck] And his song "Old Town Road"
went rocketing up the country charts.
At first, I'll be really honest,
I was like, "I must be getting older
because I don't really understand this."
A gay man of color
has a huge country single,
it's the biggest song in the world,
I'm like, "Yes!" [laughs]
[woman] And next thing I know I'm going
[humming "Old Town Road"]
[laughs]
Can't nobody tell me nothing ♪
You can't tell me nothing ♪
And then just like that [snaps]
It disappeared.
Billboard has pulled it
from the Country Songs Chart
because they no longer
believe that the song is country enough.
It's a very good question, you know,
trying to identify what is a country song,
what is not a country song.
See, country music's funny like that,
it has values, or says it does anyhow.
It prizes certain sounds,
certain artists, certain stories.
What it prizes above all else
is something called authenticity.
[bells chime whimsically]
[blows]
One of them seven-dollar words.
And when capital "C" Country
[gunshot]
moves into the glitzy, gaudy world
of capital "P" Pop music,
well, that can shake things up a bit.
[country-western guitar twanging]
There's this idea that country music
is about the kind of authentic common man,
about these pure, American working people
in a world apart from the city
where everything
is traditional and natural.
The notion of authenticity is very
important to country music
because people want to know
the people they're listening to
really come from that world
and that they can trust those people.
[woman]
They know they have something beautiful,
they've got a bird in the hand,
country music does.
And they want to protect it.
I think that there is gatekeeping
when country music mixes with pop
because there's always been.
It's just history repeating itself.
[country-pop piano playing]
[Haider] In the 1960s,
the music coming out of Nashville
started to sound
less and less like country music.
It started to have orchestras
and singers without Southern accents.
By the '70s, you would have pop artists
like John Denver or Olivia Newton-John
putting out country records.
And in fact, in 1975,
the Country Music Association
gave John Denver an award
for Entertainer of the Year,
the presenter, Charlie Rich,
was so offended by this,
that he burned the card
that had John Denver's name on it.
[Rich] My friend, Mr. John Denver.
[audience cheering]
[Haider] What we traditionally understand
as the reaction to crossovers
that were happening in the '70s
is called outlaw country.
We don't want a bunch of high rollers,
rip-off artists
from other parts of the world
to come in here and foul it up
for the rest of the people.
What they were doing,
the way they were doing it,
and the presentation of it,
had an ability to pull in young kids
listening to rock and roll music.
Kids might not have wanted
to listen to traditional country artists
because those people
seemed like their parents.
But Willie and Waylon seemed like
hippies riding a motorcycle
and smoking a joint along with them.
As soon as it became clear
that country music
was headed in this direction
the industry was moving along with it.
[upbeat country instrumental playing]
Willie left RCA just about the time
that I got there.
He got certified gold.
I think, "I got as good of artists
as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings,
Why can't we sell more?"
"I'm gonna get fired."
That's what I was thinking.
I said, "I've got to do something."
RCA owned some old masters of Waylon,
old masters of Willie,
old masters of Jessi.
Hell, they all outlaws.
A concept for an album.
It spoke for itself, of what
the album cover ought to look like,
brown looking, old wore-out paper
with a couple bullet holes in it.
It didn't take
a rocket scientist to figure that out.
[interviewer] Why do you think
that hit the pop charts?
I have no earthly idea.
I was just trying to get old Waylon
to sell a million records
and me keep my job.
[Scruggs] A lot of
the outlaw thing comes down to
the same thing as with pop-country.
It's just down to marketing.
It's how it sold to people.
Here's the thing. When you listen
to Willie Nelson in 1965 and 1975,
he didn't change that much.
Those guys were already fully formed
in doing what they were doing,
only they had short hair
and were clean shaven.
They finally found a way
to get in with a much bigger audience
than they had beforehand.
The outlaw is a term
that someone came up with
to try to sell records.
Yee-haw.
[playing "Stardust"]
I had rented an apartment on the beach
in Malibu and had just moved in,
I saw a guy running down the beach
who, to me, looked like Willie Nelson.
He looked up and waved,
I said, "That is Willie Nelson."
So, it turns out that he had
rented the apartment underneath me.
So, we ended up jamming at night
just the two of us, on our decks,
on different songs we played as boys.
"Stardust"
and "On the Sunny Side of the Street,"
"Blue Skies,"
and Willie suggested why don't we
go in the studio and record these songs
rather than sitting out on the deck.
[Nelson singing "Stardust"]
Sometimes I wonder why I spend ♪
The lonely nights dreaming of a song ♪
The melody haunts my reverie ♪
[Jones] When I first heard Willie
sing the first line of "Stardust,"
it defined that song for me.
I'd been playing it all my life,
but the way he sang it was the way
it was supposed to be sung.
When I took it home, I can remember
driving down Laurel Canyon Blvd.
and just listened to it
over and over and over again,
and then kind of coming to my senses,
"Oh. This is I'm supposed
to be working here, this is my job."
So, I got to play
on one of my favorite records.
Is in the stardust of a song ♪
Beside the garden wall ♪
[Jones] Willie had made a nice
little reputation for himself in Nashville
with his friends
and they were the outlaws,
so when we came in with a record
that was pop music standards,
the concept was just not something
that seemed plausible at all.
It might seem like a funny move
for some people to think,
"He's really hot right now
doing this rock and country."
Why would he make a record
of old pop standards,
and Hoagy Carmichael tunes
and Gershwin tunes?
I think Willie was just
leaning towards that word "authenticity,"
I think he just didn't care
what the genre was,
if it felt good to him,
he wanted to do it.
But it was just not something
that was done in those days in Nashville.
It just it wasn't traditional.
I got back to California and found out
they released 500 copies.
But then it turned out
that a lot of people liked that music
and the more it got played
the more people bought the record.
They sent me a gold album
and that was just wonderful.
Then they sent me a platinum album
and that was even better.
And the next one I got
had six platinum albums on it.
[Scruggs] What he did was actually genius.
He went from selling records
to the younger kids
that were digging the outlaw thing,
now he's selling records
to their parents too.
Because, "Oh. That guy's not so bad."
"Look, he did this record Stardust
and it's got all these standards on it."
That made him
into a household name celebrity
that transcended country music,
which very few people have done.
[continues playing piano]
[Jones] The stuff that was done
on Tin Pan Alley in that time period
created such beauty
and it's so inspiring and it's something
that will never, ever die.
"Sometimes I wonder
Why I spend the lonely nights
dreaming of a song"
[country instrumental playing]
Hello again.
How are you doing? Having fun?
Learning a lot?
As we just saw, the 1970s
were a turbulent time for country music
and pop interlopers, well,
they weren't exactly
welcomed with open arms.
On the other hand,
wider interest in country music
also provided new opportunities
for established Nashville stars.
There's a real back and forth here, see.
When certain artists
move too far into the pop realm
well, other artists have a way
of clanging back
- [clangs]
- [horse neighs]
In my Tennessee mountain home ♪
Life is as peaceful as a baby's sigh ♪
In my Tennessee mountain home ♪
[Jewly Hight] Dolly Parton was always
a very ambitious artist.
She tried a lot of
different models of music making
just within the country sphere.
She wasn't necessarily
guaranteed the same kind of respect
as a singer-songwriter
as some of her male counterparts,
but she had her own way
of taking her career and elevating it.
To me, Dolly Parton is a country girl
and a marvelous country singer
and I hope she don't get way off
in that far away pop land.
[man] Yeah.
Because I just
I think she's a country person. You know?
And I don't like fiction, man,
I'm a realism person.
- [man] There you go.
- You know?
[Bradley] Porter Wagoner
was producing her,
he was kind of managing her
or thought he was her manager.
She came to me and said,
"I'm getting ready to go pop,
would you support it?"
And I said, "Yeah."
About that time,
the secretary called and said,
"Porter Wagoner's in the building
and he's coming up."
I've never told this story before. Never.
He came in the door,
she was quite upset about it,
he grabbed her by the hand
and told me that he was her manager
and I was never to meet with her again.
And I told him
that she signed a contract with me
and that I would meet with her
any time I wanted to meet with her.
The next morning, she called.
She said,
"Jerry, I'm still going to do it,
but its gonna take me
a little bit longer."
I mean, she went in and she
she cut the ties.
["9 to 5" playing]
Tumble outta bed
And I stumble to the kitchen ♪
Pour myself a cup of ambition ♪
And yawn and stretch
And try to come to life ♪
[Hight] It was a commercial ambition,
an artistic ambition, to be an entertainer
and to be fully present
and participating in pop culture
as a film star, and in tabloids,
on magazine covers,
so that everyone does know who she is.
She's a very, very smart lady.
She knew what she wanted
and she had to go through some,
walk through some
gravel or stones to get there.
Working 9 to 5
What a way to make a living ♪
Barely getting by
It's all taking and no giving ♪
They just use your mind
And you never get the credit ♪
It's enough to drive you crazy
If you let it ♪
[Scruggs] What Taylor Swift has done
and what Shania had done
with crossing over into the pop market,
is the same thing that Dolly Parton did,
which is be a country girl
and come from a country background,
but put this sound behind it
that everybody can relate to.
[Carlile] I don't think anyone's ever
done it as beautifully and as honestly
and as fearlessly as she has done it.
She is pure as the driven snow
and dirty all day long,
and I love everything about her.
It's all taking and no giving ♪
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit ♪
It's enough to drive you crazy
If you let it ♪
In the '80s,
two things happened simultaneously.
One was the idea of country music
as this kitsch symbolism.
I think there was a cowboy
in the Village People.
But at the same time, you had musicians
who were very much about
going back to basics.
[Scruggs] Baby boomers
who viewed music as art,
but had this country foundation,
started making their own music.
It was traditional country,
but it was a little more intellectual,
it was a little more thoughtful.
Hey, pretty baby
Are you ready for me? ♪
It's your good rockin' daddy
Down from Tennessee ♪
I'm just out of Austin
Bound for San Antone ♪
With the radio blastin'
And the bird dog on ♪
[studio audience cheering]
Steve Earle is not your typical
country music celebrity,
in fact, there's a lot of debate
over whether his music
should be played on country radio.
His rock and roll melodies
and liberal lyrics
don't always sit well with industry execs.
[Earle] I got to Nashville in 1974,
I came close to a record deal,
I made demos for RCA and other companies
over 10 years, and I had a kid on the way
so I was kind of panicking
and trying to write more commercial songs.
Everybody said my commercial songs
were too country by that time.
So, I put together
a three-piece rockabilly band
and that got me a record deal
because rockabilly
became a thing for a second.
And the singles
died horrible deaths on the charts.
But I had gone to see Bruce Springsteen
after Epic dropped me,
and I saw him turn a 20,000-seat arena
into a coffee house,
and that was an epiphany as a performer.
And I just went home
and wrote "Guitar Town."
Now I'm smokin' into Texas
With the hammer down ♪
And a rockin' little combo
From the Guitar Town ♪
The only reason "Guitar Town"
went to number one
is because one MCA sales guy
realized that if he got a box of records
to a distributor in Memphis,
which was 200 miles away,
that we might be able to beat Alabama
by a box of records.
And he drove over there
and we came in and we got to number one.
The funny thing is that
it also had an appeal
that spread far beyond
the country audience.
[reporter] While Steve's
biggest success so far
has been on the country charts,
that's changing.
National write ups in magazines
like Time and Rolling Stone,
have given Steve college airplay
and a good chance at crossover.
Wake up in the middle of the night
In a truck stop ♪
Stumble in the restaurant
Wonderin' why I don't stop ♪
[Earle] I see it all as pop music,
it was always aimed at
as big an audience as it could reach,
it was always commercial.
Are you kind of like
Donny and Marie Osmond?
[laughs]
- I mean
- Look at him.
you're a little bit country
and you're a little bit rock and roll.
No, I think what it boils down to
is the Everly Brothers and Elvis,
I don't think they knew
that they were making pop records
when they started making records,
I think they thought they were
making hillbilly records for kids.
As a songwriter,
all those little subdivisions of music
have always driven me nuts
because one thing that held me back
is I write a lot of
different kinds of songs.
If I could have concentrated on one thing,
I'd have made a lot more money. Um
or my ex-wife would have
made a lot more money.
[Scruggs] A lot of people were getting
signed to record deals and having success
who wouldn't have been
typical country stars ten years earlier.
For a minute there,
people were very hopeful
about the future
of mainstream country music
because it seemed like the coming wave
that would take things over,
they referred to as "the integrity scare."
Then Jimmy Bowen
decided he was going to make Garth Brooks
the biggest star
in the history of country music,
and overnight everything exploded
and changed everything.
[country-rock playing]
[Hight] The energy
of what he did registered
as being something very different
and non-traditional.
He loved Styx and Kiss
and pop theatricality
and famously would get a rig
so he could fly through his concerts.
[Scruggs] He was so successful,
expectations became a lot higher.
All of a sudden people realized,
"Hey, country music is big business."
So, all the labels said,
"Let's go find our Garth Brooks."
And I think that caused everything
to get a little more monochromatic.
There wasn't a lot of individuality.
It just became, guy with a black hat on
[chuckling]and that was pretty much
most of the '90s.
[singing along] I want to be free
To feel the way I feel ♪
- Man! ♪
- [Walkman clicks]
[clear throat] Hey, um,
kind of got swept up there, apologies.
So, country in the '80s
suffered another identity crisis.
The turf war between pop
and traditional country was escalating.
Then in the '90s, a new wave came along
and totally exploded
any remaining barriers
between country and pop.
[clicks]
Men's shirts, short skirts
Whoa, oh, oh ♪
[reporter 2] Franklin, Tennessee, 1983.
The Judd's were a normal family.
Mom, Naomi, worked as a nurse
at the local hospital
while raising two daughters
as a single parent.
Her eldest, Wynonna,
went to Franklin High School,
like any other local teen.
Mom and I started on the back porch,
here's a voice
singing with her mother's harmony,
which blood harmony,
there is no closer connection,
and the guitar, that's me,
sitting on that back porch playing.
[reporter 2] In 1983, their DIY demo tape
landed them an audition
with the head of RCA Nashville,
Joe Galante.
We sat down and we sang
and then we went to a nearby O‘Charley's
and our manager at the time
came walking in
and he literally said,
"You're now an RCA artist."
I'm 18 years old, for God's sake,
Elvis was on RCA at 18.
I remember going home that night
knowing my life was forever changed.
[reporter 2]
It didn't take long for the Judds
to become the biggest thing
in country music
with gold, platinum and number one albums.
Within three years,
they have awards from the Grammys,
the Country Music Association
and the Academy of Country Music.
I went to school with a jean jacket
with a Judds patch
sewn onto the back of it,
that my mom made me
during the time of Nirvana.
They were my first,
second and third concert.
[reporter 2] Everything the Judds touched
turned to gold
as they became one of country music's
most successful duos,
but mother and daughter swore
to never let fame change who they were.
I think people saw us,
and no matter how we looked
on Letterman or an award show,
they knew that
we come from a place in Kentucky
that we did our clothes
on a wringer-washer.
It's about the authenticity,
they know the story.
You may have gotten wind of this,
country music and its fans
received a terrible shock yesterday
when the superstar duo
The Judds held a press conference
to announce their breakup.
Today's pretty much
the most difficult day in my life.
[sniffles]
[reporter 3] Sudden news
from the world of country music.
Naomi Judd says she'll retire
to focus on her health
after a yearlong bout with hepatitis.
Her daughter Wynonna
will step onto the stage on her own
with her solo album
expected in early 1992.
I was very raw and vulnerable
because I was leaving Mom behind
and venturing off to a new city
where I didn't know anybody.
And I wanted to be more exciting and fun
just because I was ready,
I was ready to go party in the city.
I've been a rock
And I've got my fences ♪
I never let them down ♪
When it comes to love
I keep my senses ♪
I don't think it was a conscious decision
for me to go, "I want to be pop-country."
I just remember the sound
grooving my brains out and going,
"I really love horns."
I grew up on horns,
Tower of Power were my inspiration
and I wanted that in my music.
How did you get to me? ♪
No one else on Earth
Could ever hurt me ♪
Break my heart the way you do ♪
[interviewer] Was there any push back
from the country world?
[Wynonna] Yes and no.
I didn't know what was going on,
I just did what came naturally.
And I think people went, "You know what,
even though I don't necessarily
groove with the song or really love it
because it's not The Judds,
it's that voice."
I think people bought it because
I didn't try to be something I'm not
as much as I was like,
"Let me add to this,
make it even more exciting and different."
They believed it, that was a huge success.
No one like you ♪
No one like you ♪
No one else on Earth
Was ever worth it ♪
Let's go, girls
[man 2] Cameras are up.
[indistinct chatter]
[man 2] Everybody good? Cool.
C'mon.
["Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" playing]
I'm goin' out tonight
I'm feelin' all right ♪
Gonna let it all hang out ♪
I was eight years old
when I started taking singing seriously,
and ten years old when I started
taking song-writing seriously.
When I first went to Nashville,
I had nothing to go back to in Canada.
I had no formal education,
so I was relying completely
on my music career.
You might not have wanted
to know me during those days.
I was I was so focused
and so serious about what I was doing.
Country music had homogenized a lot,
and I realized very quickly
that thinking outside the box
was not a popular thing to do.
This one lady said,
"Let me starch your jeans,
and you need to get yourself
into some boots."
And I said, "Dolly Parton
doesn't wear starched jeans
and she doesn't wear boots!"
Oh, oh, oh, go totally crazy ♪
Forget I'm a lady ♪
Men's shirts, short skirts
Oh, oh, oh ♪
Really go wild, yeah
Doin' it in style ♪
Oh, oh, oh ♪
It was such a variety of artists
that I grew up listening to,
Kate Bush, Rush,
folk artists like Joni Mitchell,
and so it just ended up just being
this blend of all the things I loved.
And then getting together with Mutt
with his rock influence.
[Hight] Mutt Lange had produced
all these big theatrical rock albums.
They were sort of a self-contained,
creative force unto themselves.
They created a sound
that is definitely country,
but fit right in on pop radio
at the same time.
You can't deny how listenable
that music is,
even if it's not your cup of tea,
it makes your ears feel good.
The best thing about being a woman ♪
Is the prerogative
To have a little fun ♪
That is one reason why she had,
very quickly, such broad cultural appeal.
But every time someone
in country music creates a sound
that overlaps with other styles,
people start to panic.
I was already getting a lot of flak
from the more traditional industry,
and then Come On Over comes out,
I really got no respect.
We haven't seen or heard so much
about a belly button
- since I Dream of Jeannie.
- [laughs]
Has this been a help
or hindrance to your career?
[Earle] I wasn't a fan
of Shania Twain records for the most
Well, I take that back,
there were a couple singles I liked.
[interviewer] Which ones?
Um, I don't know, I can't remember
off the top of my head.
Man, I feel like a woman ♪
The country music fans,
they were the reason why I didn't
get kicked out of country by the industry,
because the fans were loving it.
One thing that Shania Twain did
that was really interesting
was multiple mixes of her album Up.
The country mix, the pop mix,
then an international mix.
I felt like I was liberated
to play and experiment with the music,
but it became a very exciting
and new, novel idea.
Really, that's no different than something
Bob Wills did back in the early 1940s.
Bob Wills recorded "San Antonio Rose"
as just a fiddle tune,
and then they wrote lyrics for it
and recorded it with a big band
and it was a national pop hit.
You look at Taylor Swift's career,
transitioning from country
to full-fledged pop.
Shania Twain made that possible.
She changed the game,
changed the conversation.
She didn't just bring pop music
into country,
she made country music popular.
Come on, baby ♪
Hoo, hoo, hoo ♪
I feel like a woman ♪
[whistles] The queen of country pop.
- Hi, cuteness.
- [Moser] Hello, cutie.
Hi, Honey. You're very cute.
I didn't shave or anything.
It's okay because you're raw
and that's what we want.
[interviewer]
You're the queen of country pop
and we have
another queen of country pop coming.
- When she first hit the scene, what was?
- I was angry.
You were angry?
I knew you'd want me to say that,
so I said it.
I saw his face like, "What?" [chuckles]
This is a true story, and she knows it.
I was post-partum,
I had just finished cleaning a toilet.
Can you get any more dramatic?
I come walking out and I look up
and I had CMT on,
and here comes this gorgeous babe
showing her belly,
and I literally go, "What the heck?"
I just stood there like,
"This is happening."
You know, I'd just had a baby,
and I remember being so sad
because I thought,
"The world's going on without me."
And the next thing I know, I'm like,
"They want us to hate each other,
I'm sure they want this."
And I really liked her
and remember becoming friends with her,
but yet we were in this
diva and diva thing,
and I thought, "Here's what's cool,
we're both really good at what we do
in our own yard,
so we're too busy
being grateful and successful
to sit around and go,
'Well, you have what I don't.'"
"And, yeah, we can go there
if we're in a bad mood,
but we're too busy being fabulous."
I'm with about the happiest man
in the universe today
who received, I understand,
12 awards on stage.
Can you believe it?
[laughs] I was shocked.
I don't think you can believe it.
You started screaming
over the quadruple platinum.
You did not expect that?
No, I never got over that one.
[reporter 4]
Led by Garth Brooks and Shania Twain,
Country Music in the '90's
has crossed over like never before.
These days, country pop stars
aren't just singing "Do-Re-Mi."
They're making plenty of it to boot.
Oh! [clears throat]
Pardon me, just making sure
I got enough folding money
for my alimony payment.
Anyhoo, in the '90s the hat acts,
hillbilly hunks,
and so-called country babes,
opened up country's possibilities
and exposed it to new audiences.
But not every country star
was living high on the hog.
And while some were being accused
of selling out country music's
characteristic authenticity,
others were working to restore it.
["Furnace Room Lullaby" playing]
I twisted you
Over and under to take you ♪
The coals went so wild
As they swallowed the rest ♪
I twisted you
Under and under to break you ♪
I just couldn't breathe
With your throne on my chest ♪
[Scruggs] In the '90s,
after the Garth Brooks thing happened
and the Shania thing happened,
traditional country music
got sidelined for a few years
and it regrouped as
what at first was called alt-country,
but what is now called Americana.
One of my favorite artists
of that movement is Neko Case.
So far under the bed ♪
Into the beams you've gone ♪
I've gone, you've gone ♪
[interviewer]
There's a perception that country
is all about honesty and integrity.
[laughs]
That's a total
I don't even know how somebody
could say that with a straight face.
[laughs]
The idea that country music
is the music of honesty and integrity
versus pop music,
that's something else, like, that's
what large entities say
when they want poor people
to think that they notice them.
I'm wrapped in the depths
Of these deeds ♪
That have made me ♪
I can't bring a sound from my head
Though I try ♪
There was a movement of saying,
"We don't have to have anything
to do with mainstream country."
"We'll do this on our own terms
and we're going to give it
its own definition,"
while mainstream country
was just sort of like bulldozing through,
selling millions of records,
making lots of money.
[Case] Country music is,
in some ways, the love of my life
and then in some ways
it's kind of the only art form,
according to its institutions,
it's almost like there's
absolutely no room to evolve.
Punk rock marketed country music to me
way better than country music did.
And, you know, I was already in it,
but I was able to embrace it
and take it forward.
Almost like how punk rock broke off from
mainstream rock music in the 1970s
because rock got too slick
and far away from its roots,
the same happened
in country music in the '90s.
I think it was part of this idea of
reclaiming a kind of independent spirit
and a working-class consciousness.
One of the icons for that was Johnny Cash.
Oh, the beast in me ♪
Is caged by frail and fragile bars ♪
Restless by day and by night ♪
[Haider] I mean, when you talk about
the concept of authenticity in country,
I think Johnny Cash
is its greatest beneficiary.
People think of him
as just being this very pure soul
who there was no artifice to him.
Things had really started
to slow down for him in the '90s
and he had been dropped
from Columbia Records.
Why is Johnny Cash being
ignored by this business?
It was obvious to me that he was.
[Scruggs]
It was Rick Rubin, of all people,
who decided to take Johnny Cash on
as an artist.
This happens, where somebody recognizes
something important in country music
that the country music world doesn't see,
even though it's in front of their face.
[Cash] Here I could finally do an album
that I really felt from the heart
and the gut.
That this guy can see
the beauty of simplicity.
God help the beast in me ♪
[Haider] That resurgence
on those Rick Rubin albums,
it's full of him
covering Nine Inch Nails, Beck.
Some people assume
that those songs are traditional
or that they're by Johnny Cash.
[Scruggs] There was a lot of real
fluff music coming out in the rock world,
and I think the rock and roll audience
was looking for elder statesmen.
He went from playing to half empty halls
to selling places out
and playing for people young enough
to be his grandchildren.
I think the new generation,
they recognize truth and honesty,
and I think they appreciate that.
[Carlile] Johnny Cash transcended genres,
he transcended politics,
he transcended religion
in a way that resonated with young people
when American Recordings came out,
whether they knew why or not.
It's very necessary
for young people to know
where their country music came from
because then they also know
where rock and roll comes from,
their first amendment rights come from,
their right to express themselves
authentically comes from.
[interviewer] When did you first start
listening to Tanya Tucker?
Well, when I was eight years old,
I became a Tanya Tucker impersonator.
I learned how to sing “San Antonio Stroll”
and then “Delta Dawn.”
And I took that love of Tanya
with me all these years,
um, and only recently wondered
why she hadn't made an album in 17 years.
She's forty-one
And her daddy still calls her "baby" ♪
All the folks around Brownsville
Say she's crazy ♪
[interviewer] Tell me how you first
broke into the music business.
Wow, that's a long story.
How much tape you got? Um
No, I started singing at a very early age,
around seven or eight,
and my dad noticed it
and at nine years old he brought me
to Nashville the first time.
And they weren't ready for me.
So, finally I cut my first record
March of '72.
When you say my name,
I think that song comes right behind it.
Delta Dawn
What's that flower you have on? ♪
Could it be a faded rose ♪
From days gone by? ♪
And did I hear you say ♪
He was a-meeting you here today ♪
To take you to his mansion
In the sky? ♪
Because she was a child star
entering in music that was,
up until recently,
explicitly identified as an adult music,
this is way before Taylor Swift,
you had to prove your mettle.
[Carlile] Tanya sounded tough,
she sounded like how I felt in my gender.
It made me feel like
I could have a broad gait
and stare down the audience
like I was in a bar fight.
[Tucker] I did a lot of things
that were not traditional
and, I think, a lot like a man.
I told someone the other day,
"I can't wear miniskirts anymore
because my balls keep showing."
Her way of trying
to take that a step further,
to do something that would have
pop-level production for the time,
was to do this album called TNT.
[Tucker] My thinking then was,
"Man, the world thinks we're down here
in a horse and buggy in Nashville,
it's not just, 'Twang, twang, twang, '
singing through your nose now."
- "We've come a long way."
- [snoring]
[interviewer] Can we wake
Stella up just a bit?
Her snoring is kind of
just getting on our
Okay, you can't snore.
Come on, get down, baby.
Go snore somewhere else.
Okay um, you know, uh
- TNT we're talking about?
- Yeah.
So, I wanted to take country music
to another level
and show the world that we have
much more to offer than they think.
The hype was bigger
and better than the record.
I don't think Tanya Tucker
has the legacy that she deserves,
and I have a theory as to why.
She has a bumpy road behind her,
she had problems with drugs,
and problems with being able
to honor her commitments as a result.
We are all aware of these men
and their past
with drugs and alcohol and infidelity,
dishonesty, and some even criminality,
but we cannot forgive Tanya Tucker
for the same shit.
The album that she made
with Shooter Jennings,
son of Waylon Jennings,
and Brandi Carlile,
I think they wanted
to kind of right that wrong.
[Carlile] Tanya kept canceling the album
and saying that she wasn't sure
about the songs,
she wasn't sure it was her time,
she wasn't sure
she wanted to do another album.
Shooter told me,
he said, "Call Rick Rubin."
He said, "Because I don't think
it could have been easy for Rick Rubin
to convince Johnny Cash
to sing a Nine Inch Nails song."
And so I asked him and he laughed
and he said, "Hell, no, it wasn't easy."
"But if you focus on your good intentions,
you can't go wrong teaching kids
where their country music came from."
She's got a soul that is authentic,
absolutely beautiful,
and she's got a lot to say to us.
My whole goal in making this album
was to show her
that the world has more love for her
than she could really imagine.
[Tucker] The response was just amazing,
really amazing,
and I'm still taken back by it.
I've been through the wringer,
and out of the wringer,
and in the washer, and the dryer,
and I've come out
somehow smelling like a rose.
[country music playing]
[Peck] Mm-mm-mm.
That's an all-time barn raiser.
So, now, as we gallop our way through
the new millennium,
more and more artists are laying claim
to country in their own way.
New sounds, new songs and new identities.
Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse
To the old town road ♪
I'm gonna ride 'til I can't no more ♪
I'm gonna take my horse
To the old town road ♪
When Billboard took
"Old Town Road" off the charts,
a lot of even country musicians started
to say, "That doesn't make any sense."
One of them was Billy Ray Cyrus.
When I'm dead and gone,
people will be talking about Lil Nas
being one of the great thinkers
of our time.
It's interesting how Billy Ray Cyrus
played into legitimizing "Old Town Road"
for the country audience in the '90s.
He had that song "Achy Breaky Heart,"
which was
the "Old Town Road" of that generation.
It had a lot to do with
the whole line dance craze,
which the country music world
was sort of resistant to.
"Achy Breaky Heart" was hugely successful,
but was often the subject of mockery
from country fans at the time.
Now, of course, decades later
it's viewed as a stamp of approval
to have him sign off on something.
[woman] B-54.
[door slams]
Hat down, cross town
Livin' like a rock star ♪
Spent a lot of money
On my brand new guitar ♪
[Scruggs]
A lot of it is just down the familiarity.
You know, country music listeners
like what they're familiar with.
Even if 20 years ago
it was not their cup of tea,
20 years later they're okay with it.
It's a country song
if country people say that it is,
and if country people listen to it.
It seems that they're listening to it,
so who's going to argue with that?
[Carlile] Every time
there was a controversial sharp left turn
away from country music tradition,
it was always the most extreme version
that had ever happened.
I think that probably
a more extreme thing than "Old Town Road"
will happen five years from now,
and we'll be having this conversation
again and it'll be beautiful again.
[song continues]
[stops]
"Cowboy hat from Gucci,
Wranglers on my booty,"
there's a line even Hank Williams
or Harlan Howard might have penned.
And as far as adding
a trap beat to country music,
is it really all that different
from Ernest Tubbs
singing along to an electric guitar?
So, what's country and what's not country,
what's pop and what isn't?
Well, it can sometimes
feel a little academic,
same with this whole idea
we talked about up top, authenticity.
Authenticity, that thing
that country music trades in
and pop music swallows up,
is itself a kind of artifice.
The gloss, the put-ons, the personas,
well, they're just different ways
to get at the truth.
- [knocking]
- [woman] Orville, we're ready for you!
Oh! That'd be my cue.
[crowd cheering]
[cheering intensifies]
Hello, I'm Orville Peck.
[cheering continues]
[cheering fades]
[crickets chirping]
[coyote howls]
[wind whistling]
[coyote howls]
[country guitar twang]
[bird screeches]
[spurs jangle]
Hello, I'm Orville Peck.
Y'all remember this?
Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse
To the old town road ♪
[Peck] A while back,
a young Atlanta rapper
exploded onto the mainstream
like a pumped-up powder keg
lit up with a stick of cartoon dynamite.
His name was Lil Nas X.
I got the horses in the back ♪
Horse tack is attached ♪
Hat is matte black
Got the boots that's black to match ♪
[Peck] And his song "Old Town Road"
went rocketing up the country charts.
At first, I'll be really honest,
I was like, "I must be getting older
because I don't really understand this."
A gay man of color
has a huge country single,
it's the biggest song in the world,
I'm like, "Yes!" [laughs]
[woman] And next thing I know I'm going
[humming "Old Town Road"]
[laughs]
Can't nobody tell me nothing ♪
You can't tell me nothing ♪
And then just like that [snaps]
It disappeared.
Billboard has pulled it
from the Country Songs Chart
because they no longer
believe that the song is country enough.
It's a very good question, you know,
trying to identify what is a country song,
what is not a country song.
See, country music's funny like that,
it has values, or says it does anyhow.
It prizes certain sounds,
certain artists, certain stories.
What it prizes above all else
is something called authenticity.
[bells chime whimsically]
[blows]
One of them seven-dollar words.
And when capital "C" Country
[gunshot]
moves into the glitzy, gaudy world
of capital "P" Pop music,
well, that can shake things up a bit.
[country-western guitar twanging]
There's this idea that country music
is about the kind of authentic common man,
about these pure, American working people
in a world apart from the city
where everything
is traditional and natural.
The notion of authenticity is very
important to country music
because people want to know
the people they're listening to
really come from that world
and that they can trust those people.
[woman]
They know they have something beautiful,
they've got a bird in the hand,
country music does.
And they want to protect it.
I think that there is gatekeeping
when country music mixes with pop
because there's always been.
It's just history repeating itself.
[country-pop piano playing]
[Haider] In the 1960s,
the music coming out of Nashville
started to sound
less and less like country music.
It started to have orchestras
and singers without Southern accents.
By the '70s, you would have pop artists
like John Denver or Olivia Newton-John
putting out country records.
And in fact, in 1975,
the Country Music Association
gave John Denver an award
for Entertainer of the Year,
the presenter, Charlie Rich,
was so offended by this,
that he burned the card
that had John Denver's name on it.
[Rich] My friend, Mr. John Denver.
[audience cheering]
[Haider] What we traditionally understand
as the reaction to crossovers
that were happening in the '70s
is called outlaw country.
We don't want a bunch of high rollers,
rip-off artists
from other parts of the world
to come in here and foul it up
for the rest of the people.
What they were doing,
the way they were doing it,
and the presentation of it,
had an ability to pull in young kids
listening to rock and roll music.
Kids might not have wanted
to listen to traditional country artists
because those people
seemed like their parents.
But Willie and Waylon seemed like
hippies riding a motorcycle
and smoking a joint along with them.
As soon as it became clear
that country music
was headed in this direction
the industry was moving along with it.
[upbeat country instrumental playing]
Willie left RCA just about the time
that I got there.
He got certified gold.
I think, "I got as good of artists
as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings,
Why can't we sell more?"
"I'm gonna get fired."
That's what I was thinking.
I said, "I've got to do something."
RCA owned some old masters of Waylon,
old masters of Willie,
old masters of Jessi.
Hell, they all outlaws.
A concept for an album.
It spoke for itself, of what
the album cover ought to look like,
brown looking, old wore-out paper
with a couple bullet holes in it.
It didn't take
a rocket scientist to figure that out.
[interviewer] Why do you think
that hit the pop charts?
I have no earthly idea.
I was just trying to get old Waylon
to sell a million records
and me keep my job.
[Scruggs] A lot of
the outlaw thing comes down to
the same thing as with pop-country.
It's just down to marketing.
It's how it sold to people.
Here's the thing. When you listen
to Willie Nelson in 1965 and 1975,
he didn't change that much.
Those guys were already fully formed
in doing what they were doing,
only they had short hair
and were clean shaven.
They finally found a way
to get in with a much bigger audience
than they had beforehand.
The outlaw is a term
that someone came up with
to try to sell records.
Yee-haw.
[playing "Stardust"]
I had rented an apartment on the beach
in Malibu and had just moved in,
I saw a guy running down the beach
who, to me, looked like Willie Nelson.
He looked up and waved,
I said, "That is Willie Nelson."
So, it turns out that he had
rented the apartment underneath me.
So, we ended up jamming at night
just the two of us, on our decks,
on different songs we played as boys.
"Stardust"
and "On the Sunny Side of the Street,"
"Blue Skies,"
and Willie suggested why don't we
go in the studio and record these songs
rather than sitting out on the deck.
[Nelson singing "Stardust"]
Sometimes I wonder why I spend ♪
The lonely nights dreaming of a song ♪
The melody haunts my reverie ♪
[Jones] When I first heard Willie
sing the first line of "Stardust,"
it defined that song for me.
I'd been playing it all my life,
but the way he sang it was the way
it was supposed to be sung.
When I took it home, I can remember
driving down Laurel Canyon Blvd.
and just listened to it
over and over and over again,
and then kind of coming to my senses,
"Oh. This is I'm supposed
to be working here, this is my job."
So, I got to play
on one of my favorite records.
Is in the stardust of a song ♪
Beside the garden wall ♪
[Jones] Willie had made a nice
little reputation for himself in Nashville
with his friends
and they were the outlaws,
so when we came in with a record
that was pop music standards,
the concept was just not something
that seemed plausible at all.
It might seem like a funny move
for some people to think,
"He's really hot right now
doing this rock and country."
Why would he make a record
of old pop standards,
and Hoagy Carmichael tunes
and Gershwin tunes?
I think Willie was just
leaning towards that word "authenticity,"
I think he just didn't care
what the genre was,
if it felt good to him,
he wanted to do it.
But it was just not something
that was done in those days in Nashville.
It just it wasn't traditional.
I got back to California and found out
they released 500 copies.
But then it turned out
that a lot of people liked that music
and the more it got played
the more people bought the record.
They sent me a gold album
and that was just wonderful.
Then they sent me a platinum album
and that was even better.
And the next one I got
had six platinum albums on it.
[Scruggs] What he did was actually genius.
He went from selling records
to the younger kids
that were digging the outlaw thing,
now he's selling records
to their parents too.
Because, "Oh. That guy's not so bad."
"Look, he did this record Stardust
and it's got all these standards on it."
That made him
into a household name celebrity
that transcended country music,
which very few people have done.
[continues playing piano]
[Jones] The stuff that was done
on Tin Pan Alley in that time period
created such beauty
and it's so inspiring and it's something
that will never, ever die.
"Sometimes I wonder
Why I spend the lonely nights
dreaming of a song"
[country instrumental playing]
Hello again.
How are you doing? Having fun?
Learning a lot?
As we just saw, the 1970s
were a turbulent time for country music
and pop interlopers, well,
they weren't exactly
welcomed with open arms.
On the other hand,
wider interest in country music
also provided new opportunities
for established Nashville stars.
There's a real back and forth here, see.
When certain artists
move too far into the pop realm
well, other artists have a way
of clanging back
- [clangs]
- [horse neighs]
In my Tennessee mountain home ♪
Life is as peaceful as a baby's sigh ♪
In my Tennessee mountain home ♪
[Jewly Hight] Dolly Parton was always
a very ambitious artist.
She tried a lot of
different models of music making
just within the country sphere.
She wasn't necessarily
guaranteed the same kind of respect
as a singer-songwriter
as some of her male counterparts,
but she had her own way
of taking her career and elevating it.
To me, Dolly Parton is a country girl
and a marvelous country singer
and I hope she don't get way off
in that far away pop land.
[man] Yeah.
Because I just
I think she's a country person. You know?
And I don't like fiction, man,
I'm a realism person.
- [man] There you go.
- You know?
[Bradley] Porter Wagoner
was producing her,
he was kind of managing her
or thought he was her manager.
She came to me and said,
"I'm getting ready to go pop,
would you support it?"
And I said, "Yeah."
About that time,
the secretary called and said,
"Porter Wagoner's in the building
and he's coming up."
I've never told this story before. Never.
He came in the door,
she was quite upset about it,
he grabbed her by the hand
and told me that he was her manager
and I was never to meet with her again.
And I told him
that she signed a contract with me
and that I would meet with her
any time I wanted to meet with her.
The next morning, she called.
She said,
"Jerry, I'm still going to do it,
but its gonna take me
a little bit longer."
I mean, she went in and she
she cut the ties.
["9 to 5" playing]
Tumble outta bed
And I stumble to the kitchen ♪
Pour myself a cup of ambition ♪
And yawn and stretch
And try to come to life ♪
[Hight] It was a commercial ambition,
an artistic ambition, to be an entertainer
and to be fully present
and participating in pop culture
as a film star, and in tabloids,
on magazine covers,
so that everyone does know who she is.
She's a very, very smart lady.
She knew what she wanted
and she had to go through some,
walk through some
gravel or stones to get there.
Working 9 to 5
What a way to make a living ♪
Barely getting by
It's all taking and no giving ♪
They just use your mind
And you never get the credit ♪
It's enough to drive you crazy
If you let it ♪
[Scruggs] What Taylor Swift has done
and what Shania had done
with crossing over into the pop market,
is the same thing that Dolly Parton did,
which is be a country girl
and come from a country background,
but put this sound behind it
that everybody can relate to.
[Carlile] I don't think anyone's ever
done it as beautifully and as honestly
and as fearlessly as she has done it.
She is pure as the driven snow
and dirty all day long,
and I love everything about her.
It's all taking and no giving ♪
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit ♪
It's enough to drive you crazy
If you let it ♪
In the '80s,
two things happened simultaneously.
One was the idea of country music
as this kitsch symbolism.
I think there was a cowboy
in the Village People.
But at the same time, you had musicians
who were very much about
going back to basics.
[Scruggs] Baby boomers
who viewed music as art,
but had this country foundation,
started making their own music.
It was traditional country,
but it was a little more intellectual,
it was a little more thoughtful.
Hey, pretty baby
Are you ready for me? ♪
It's your good rockin' daddy
Down from Tennessee ♪
I'm just out of Austin
Bound for San Antone ♪
With the radio blastin'
And the bird dog on ♪
[studio audience cheering]
Steve Earle is not your typical
country music celebrity,
in fact, there's a lot of debate
over whether his music
should be played on country radio.
His rock and roll melodies
and liberal lyrics
don't always sit well with industry execs.
[Earle] I got to Nashville in 1974,
I came close to a record deal,
I made demos for RCA and other companies
over 10 years, and I had a kid on the way
so I was kind of panicking
and trying to write more commercial songs.
Everybody said my commercial songs
were too country by that time.
So, I put together
a three-piece rockabilly band
and that got me a record deal
because rockabilly
became a thing for a second.
And the singles
died horrible deaths on the charts.
But I had gone to see Bruce Springsteen
after Epic dropped me,
and I saw him turn a 20,000-seat arena
into a coffee house,
and that was an epiphany as a performer.
And I just went home
and wrote "Guitar Town."
Now I'm smokin' into Texas
With the hammer down ♪
And a rockin' little combo
From the Guitar Town ♪
The only reason "Guitar Town"
went to number one
is because one MCA sales guy
realized that if he got a box of records
to a distributor in Memphis,
which was 200 miles away,
that we might be able to beat Alabama
by a box of records.
And he drove over there
and we came in and we got to number one.
The funny thing is that
it also had an appeal
that spread far beyond
the country audience.
[reporter] While Steve's
biggest success so far
has been on the country charts,
that's changing.
National write ups in magazines
like Time and Rolling Stone,
have given Steve college airplay
and a good chance at crossover.
Wake up in the middle of the night
In a truck stop ♪
Stumble in the restaurant
Wonderin' why I don't stop ♪
[Earle] I see it all as pop music,
it was always aimed at
as big an audience as it could reach,
it was always commercial.
Are you kind of like
Donny and Marie Osmond?
[laughs]
- I mean
- Look at him.
you're a little bit country
and you're a little bit rock and roll.
No, I think what it boils down to
is the Everly Brothers and Elvis,
I don't think they knew
that they were making pop records
when they started making records,
I think they thought they were
making hillbilly records for kids.
As a songwriter,
all those little subdivisions of music
have always driven me nuts
because one thing that held me back
is I write a lot of
different kinds of songs.
If I could have concentrated on one thing,
I'd have made a lot more money. Um
or my ex-wife would have
made a lot more money.
[Scruggs] A lot of people were getting
signed to record deals and having success
who wouldn't have been
typical country stars ten years earlier.
For a minute there,
people were very hopeful
about the future
of mainstream country music
because it seemed like the coming wave
that would take things over,
they referred to as "the integrity scare."
Then Jimmy Bowen
decided he was going to make Garth Brooks
the biggest star
in the history of country music,
and overnight everything exploded
and changed everything.
[country-rock playing]
[Hight] The energy
of what he did registered
as being something very different
and non-traditional.
He loved Styx and Kiss
and pop theatricality
and famously would get a rig
so he could fly through his concerts.
[Scruggs] He was so successful,
expectations became a lot higher.
All of a sudden people realized,
"Hey, country music is big business."
So, all the labels said,
"Let's go find our Garth Brooks."
And I think that caused everything
to get a little more monochromatic.
There wasn't a lot of individuality.
It just became, guy with a black hat on
[chuckling]and that was pretty much
most of the '90s.
[singing along] I want to be free
To feel the way I feel ♪
- Man! ♪
- [Walkman clicks]
[clear throat] Hey, um,
kind of got swept up there, apologies.
So, country in the '80s
suffered another identity crisis.
The turf war between pop
and traditional country was escalating.
Then in the '90s, a new wave came along
and totally exploded
any remaining barriers
between country and pop.
[clicks]
Men's shirts, short skirts
Whoa, oh, oh ♪
[reporter 2] Franklin, Tennessee, 1983.
The Judd's were a normal family.
Mom, Naomi, worked as a nurse
at the local hospital
while raising two daughters
as a single parent.
Her eldest, Wynonna,
went to Franklin High School,
like any other local teen.
Mom and I started on the back porch,
here's a voice
singing with her mother's harmony,
which blood harmony,
there is no closer connection,
and the guitar, that's me,
sitting on that back porch playing.
[reporter 2] In 1983, their DIY demo tape
landed them an audition
with the head of RCA Nashville,
Joe Galante.
We sat down and we sang
and then we went to a nearby O‘Charley's
and our manager at the time
came walking in
and he literally said,
"You're now an RCA artist."
I'm 18 years old, for God's sake,
Elvis was on RCA at 18.
I remember going home that night
knowing my life was forever changed.
[reporter 2]
It didn't take long for the Judds
to become the biggest thing
in country music
with gold, platinum and number one albums.
Within three years,
they have awards from the Grammys,
the Country Music Association
and the Academy of Country Music.
I went to school with a jean jacket
with a Judds patch
sewn onto the back of it,
that my mom made me
during the time of Nirvana.
They were my first,
second and third concert.
[reporter 2] Everything the Judds touched
turned to gold
as they became one of country music's
most successful duos,
but mother and daughter swore
to never let fame change who they were.
I think people saw us,
and no matter how we looked
on Letterman or an award show,
they knew that
we come from a place in Kentucky
that we did our clothes
on a wringer-washer.
It's about the authenticity,
they know the story.
You may have gotten wind of this,
country music and its fans
received a terrible shock yesterday
when the superstar duo
The Judds held a press conference
to announce their breakup.
Today's pretty much
the most difficult day in my life.
[sniffles]
[reporter 3] Sudden news
from the world of country music.
Naomi Judd says she'll retire
to focus on her health
after a yearlong bout with hepatitis.
Her daughter Wynonna
will step onto the stage on her own
with her solo album
expected in early 1992.
I was very raw and vulnerable
because I was leaving Mom behind
and venturing off to a new city
where I didn't know anybody.
And I wanted to be more exciting and fun
just because I was ready,
I was ready to go party in the city.
I've been a rock
And I've got my fences ♪
I never let them down ♪
When it comes to love
I keep my senses ♪
I don't think it was a conscious decision
for me to go, "I want to be pop-country."
I just remember the sound
grooving my brains out and going,
"I really love horns."
I grew up on horns,
Tower of Power were my inspiration
and I wanted that in my music.
How did you get to me? ♪
No one else on Earth
Could ever hurt me ♪
Break my heart the way you do ♪
[interviewer] Was there any push back
from the country world?
[Wynonna] Yes and no.
I didn't know what was going on,
I just did what came naturally.
And I think people went, "You know what,
even though I don't necessarily
groove with the song or really love it
because it's not The Judds,
it's that voice."
I think people bought it because
I didn't try to be something I'm not
as much as I was like,
"Let me add to this,
make it even more exciting and different."
They believed it, that was a huge success.
No one like you ♪
No one like you ♪
No one else on Earth
Was ever worth it ♪
Let's go, girls
[man 2] Cameras are up.
[indistinct chatter]
[man 2] Everybody good? Cool.
C'mon.
["Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" playing]
I'm goin' out tonight
I'm feelin' all right ♪
Gonna let it all hang out ♪
I was eight years old
when I started taking singing seriously,
and ten years old when I started
taking song-writing seriously.
When I first went to Nashville,
I had nothing to go back to in Canada.
I had no formal education,
so I was relying completely
on my music career.
You might not have wanted
to know me during those days.
I was I was so focused
and so serious about what I was doing.
Country music had homogenized a lot,
and I realized very quickly
that thinking outside the box
was not a popular thing to do.
This one lady said,
"Let me starch your jeans,
and you need to get yourself
into some boots."
And I said, "Dolly Parton
doesn't wear starched jeans
and she doesn't wear boots!"
Oh, oh, oh, go totally crazy ♪
Forget I'm a lady ♪
Men's shirts, short skirts
Oh, oh, oh ♪
Really go wild, yeah
Doin' it in style ♪
Oh, oh, oh ♪
It was such a variety of artists
that I grew up listening to,
Kate Bush, Rush,
folk artists like Joni Mitchell,
and so it just ended up just being
this blend of all the things I loved.
And then getting together with Mutt
with his rock influence.
[Hight] Mutt Lange had produced
all these big theatrical rock albums.
They were sort of a self-contained,
creative force unto themselves.
They created a sound
that is definitely country,
but fit right in on pop radio
at the same time.
You can't deny how listenable
that music is,
even if it's not your cup of tea,
it makes your ears feel good.
The best thing about being a woman ♪
Is the prerogative
To have a little fun ♪
That is one reason why she had,
very quickly, such broad cultural appeal.
But every time someone
in country music creates a sound
that overlaps with other styles,
people start to panic.
I was already getting a lot of flak
from the more traditional industry,
and then Come On Over comes out,
I really got no respect.
We haven't seen or heard so much
about a belly button
- since I Dream of Jeannie.
- [laughs]
Has this been a help
or hindrance to your career?
[Earle] I wasn't a fan
of Shania Twain records for the most
Well, I take that back,
there were a couple singles I liked.
[interviewer] Which ones?
Um, I don't know, I can't remember
off the top of my head.
Man, I feel like a woman ♪
The country music fans,
they were the reason why I didn't
get kicked out of country by the industry,
because the fans were loving it.
One thing that Shania Twain did
that was really interesting
was multiple mixes of her album Up.
The country mix, the pop mix,
then an international mix.
I felt like I was liberated
to play and experiment with the music,
but it became a very exciting
and new, novel idea.
Really, that's no different than something
Bob Wills did back in the early 1940s.
Bob Wills recorded "San Antonio Rose"
as just a fiddle tune,
and then they wrote lyrics for it
and recorded it with a big band
and it was a national pop hit.
You look at Taylor Swift's career,
transitioning from country
to full-fledged pop.
Shania Twain made that possible.
She changed the game,
changed the conversation.
She didn't just bring pop music
into country,
she made country music popular.
Come on, baby ♪
Hoo, hoo, hoo ♪
I feel like a woman ♪
[whistles] The queen of country pop.
- Hi, cuteness.
- [Moser] Hello, cutie.
Hi, Honey. You're very cute.
I didn't shave or anything.
It's okay because you're raw
and that's what we want.
[interviewer]
You're the queen of country pop
and we have
another queen of country pop coming.
- When she first hit the scene, what was?
- I was angry.
You were angry?
I knew you'd want me to say that,
so I said it.
I saw his face like, "What?" [chuckles]
This is a true story, and she knows it.
I was post-partum,
I had just finished cleaning a toilet.
Can you get any more dramatic?
I come walking out and I look up
and I had CMT on,
and here comes this gorgeous babe
showing her belly,
and I literally go, "What the heck?"
I just stood there like,
"This is happening."
You know, I'd just had a baby,
and I remember being so sad
because I thought,
"The world's going on without me."
And the next thing I know, I'm like,
"They want us to hate each other,
I'm sure they want this."
And I really liked her
and remember becoming friends with her,
but yet we were in this
diva and diva thing,
and I thought, "Here's what's cool,
we're both really good at what we do
in our own yard,
so we're too busy
being grateful and successful
to sit around and go,
'Well, you have what I don't.'"
"And, yeah, we can go there
if we're in a bad mood,
but we're too busy being fabulous."
I'm with about the happiest man
in the universe today
who received, I understand,
12 awards on stage.
Can you believe it?
[laughs] I was shocked.
I don't think you can believe it.
You started screaming
over the quadruple platinum.
You did not expect that?
No, I never got over that one.
[reporter 4]
Led by Garth Brooks and Shania Twain,
Country Music in the '90's
has crossed over like never before.
These days, country pop stars
aren't just singing "Do-Re-Mi."
They're making plenty of it to boot.
Oh! [clears throat]
Pardon me, just making sure
I got enough folding money
for my alimony payment.
Anyhoo, in the '90s the hat acts,
hillbilly hunks,
and so-called country babes,
opened up country's possibilities
and exposed it to new audiences.
But not every country star
was living high on the hog.
And while some were being accused
of selling out country music's
characteristic authenticity,
others were working to restore it.
["Furnace Room Lullaby" playing]
I twisted you
Over and under to take you ♪
The coals went so wild
As they swallowed the rest ♪
I twisted you
Under and under to break you ♪
I just couldn't breathe
With your throne on my chest ♪
[Scruggs] In the '90s,
after the Garth Brooks thing happened
and the Shania thing happened,
traditional country music
got sidelined for a few years
and it regrouped as
what at first was called alt-country,
but what is now called Americana.
One of my favorite artists
of that movement is Neko Case.
So far under the bed ♪
Into the beams you've gone ♪
I've gone, you've gone ♪
[interviewer]
There's a perception that country
is all about honesty and integrity.
[laughs]
That's a total
I don't even know how somebody
could say that with a straight face.
[laughs]
The idea that country music
is the music of honesty and integrity
versus pop music,
that's something else, like, that's
what large entities say
when they want poor people
to think that they notice them.
I'm wrapped in the depths
Of these deeds ♪
That have made me ♪
I can't bring a sound from my head
Though I try ♪
There was a movement of saying,
"We don't have to have anything
to do with mainstream country."
"We'll do this on our own terms
and we're going to give it
its own definition,"
while mainstream country
was just sort of like bulldozing through,
selling millions of records,
making lots of money.
[Case] Country music is,
in some ways, the love of my life
and then in some ways
it's kind of the only art form,
according to its institutions,
it's almost like there's
absolutely no room to evolve.
Punk rock marketed country music to me
way better than country music did.
And, you know, I was already in it,
but I was able to embrace it
and take it forward.
Almost like how punk rock broke off from
mainstream rock music in the 1970s
because rock got too slick
and far away from its roots,
the same happened
in country music in the '90s.
I think it was part of this idea of
reclaiming a kind of independent spirit
and a working-class consciousness.
One of the icons for that was Johnny Cash.
Oh, the beast in me ♪
Is caged by frail and fragile bars ♪
Restless by day and by night ♪
[Haider] I mean, when you talk about
the concept of authenticity in country,
I think Johnny Cash
is its greatest beneficiary.
People think of him
as just being this very pure soul
who there was no artifice to him.
Things had really started
to slow down for him in the '90s
and he had been dropped
from Columbia Records.
Why is Johnny Cash being
ignored by this business?
It was obvious to me that he was.
[Scruggs]
It was Rick Rubin, of all people,
who decided to take Johnny Cash on
as an artist.
This happens, where somebody recognizes
something important in country music
that the country music world doesn't see,
even though it's in front of their face.
[Cash] Here I could finally do an album
that I really felt from the heart
and the gut.
That this guy can see
the beauty of simplicity.
God help the beast in me ♪
[Haider] That resurgence
on those Rick Rubin albums,
it's full of him
covering Nine Inch Nails, Beck.
Some people assume
that those songs are traditional
or that they're by Johnny Cash.
[Scruggs] There was a lot of real
fluff music coming out in the rock world,
and I think the rock and roll audience
was looking for elder statesmen.
He went from playing to half empty halls
to selling places out
and playing for people young enough
to be his grandchildren.
I think the new generation,
they recognize truth and honesty,
and I think they appreciate that.
[Carlile] Johnny Cash transcended genres,
he transcended politics,
he transcended religion
in a way that resonated with young people
when American Recordings came out,
whether they knew why or not.
It's very necessary
for young people to know
where their country music came from
because then they also know
where rock and roll comes from,
their first amendment rights come from,
their right to express themselves
authentically comes from.
[interviewer] When did you first start
listening to Tanya Tucker?
Well, when I was eight years old,
I became a Tanya Tucker impersonator.
I learned how to sing “San Antonio Stroll”
and then “Delta Dawn.”
And I took that love of Tanya
with me all these years,
um, and only recently wondered
why she hadn't made an album in 17 years.
She's forty-one
And her daddy still calls her "baby" ♪
All the folks around Brownsville
Say she's crazy ♪
[interviewer] Tell me how you first
broke into the music business.
Wow, that's a long story.
How much tape you got? Um
No, I started singing at a very early age,
around seven or eight,
and my dad noticed it
and at nine years old he brought me
to Nashville the first time.
And they weren't ready for me.
So, finally I cut my first record
March of '72.
When you say my name,
I think that song comes right behind it.
Delta Dawn
What's that flower you have on? ♪
Could it be a faded rose ♪
From days gone by? ♪
And did I hear you say ♪
He was a-meeting you here today ♪
To take you to his mansion
In the sky? ♪
Because she was a child star
entering in music that was,
up until recently,
explicitly identified as an adult music,
this is way before Taylor Swift,
you had to prove your mettle.
[Carlile] Tanya sounded tough,
she sounded like how I felt in my gender.
It made me feel like
I could have a broad gait
and stare down the audience
like I was in a bar fight.
[Tucker] I did a lot of things
that were not traditional
and, I think, a lot like a man.
I told someone the other day,
"I can't wear miniskirts anymore
because my balls keep showing."
Her way of trying
to take that a step further,
to do something that would have
pop-level production for the time,
was to do this album called TNT.
[Tucker] My thinking then was,
"Man, the world thinks we're down here
in a horse and buggy in Nashville,
it's not just, 'Twang, twang, twang, '
singing through your nose now."
- "We've come a long way."
- [snoring]
[interviewer] Can we wake
Stella up just a bit?
Her snoring is kind of
just getting on our
Okay, you can't snore.
Come on, get down, baby.
Go snore somewhere else.
Okay um, you know, uh
- TNT we're talking about?
- Yeah.
So, I wanted to take country music
to another level
and show the world that we have
much more to offer than they think.
The hype was bigger
and better than the record.
I don't think Tanya Tucker
has the legacy that she deserves,
and I have a theory as to why.
She has a bumpy road behind her,
she had problems with drugs,
and problems with being able
to honor her commitments as a result.
We are all aware of these men
and their past
with drugs and alcohol and infidelity,
dishonesty, and some even criminality,
but we cannot forgive Tanya Tucker
for the same shit.
The album that she made
with Shooter Jennings,
son of Waylon Jennings,
and Brandi Carlile,
I think they wanted
to kind of right that wrong.
[Carlile] Tanya kept canceling the album
and saying that she wasn't sure
about the songs,
she wasn't sure it was her time,
she wasn't sure
she wanted to do another album.
Shooter told me,
he said, "Call Rick Rubin."
He said, "Because I don't think
it could have been easy for Rick Rubin
to convince Johnny Cash
to sing a Nine Inch Nails song."
And so I asked him and he laughed
and he said, "Hell, no, it wasn't easy."
"But if you focus on your good intentions,
you can't go wrong teaching kids
where their country music came from."
She's got a soul that is authentic,
absolutely beautiful,
and she's got a lot to say to us.
My whole goal in making this album
was to show her
that the world has more love for her
than she could really imagine.
[Tucker] The response was just amazing,
really amazing,
and I'm still taken back by it.
I've been through the wringer,
and out of the wringer,
and in the washer, and the dryer,
and I've come out
somehow smelling like a rose.
[country music playing]
[Peck] Mm-mm-mm.
That's an all-time barn raiser.
So, now, as we gallop our way through
the new millennium,
more and more artists are laying claim
to country in their own way.
New sounds, new songs and new identities.
Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse
To the old town road ♪
I'm gonna ride 'til I can't no more ♪
I'm gonna take my horse
To the old town road ♪
When Billboard took
"Old Town Road" off the charts,
a lot of even country musicians started
to say, "That doesn't make any sense."
One of them was Billy Ray Cyrus.
When I'm dead and gone,
people will be talking about Lil Nas
being one of the great thinkers
of our time.
It's interesting how Billy Ray Cyrus
played into legitimizing "Old Town Road"
for the country audience in the '90s.
He had that song "Achy Breaky Heart,"
which was
the "Old Town Road" of that generation.
It had a lot to do with
the whole line dance craze,
which the country music world
was sort of resistant to.
"Achy Breaky Heart" was hugely successful,
but was often the subject of mockery
from country fans at the time.
Now, of course, decades later
it's viewed as a stamp of approval
to have him sign off on something.
[woman] B-54.
[door slams]
Hat down, cross town
Livin' like a rock star ♪
Spent a lot of money
On my brand new guitar ♪
[Scruggs]
A lot of it is just down the familiarity.
You know, country music listeners
like what they're familiar with.
Even if 20 years ago
it was not their cup of tea,
20 years later they're okay with it.
It's a country song
if country people say that it is,
and if country people listen to it.
It seems that they're listening to it,
so who's going to argue with that?
[Carlile] Every time
there was a controversial sharp left turn
away from country music tradition,
it was always the most extreme version
that had ever happened.
I think that probably
a more extreme thing than "Old Town Road"
will happen five years from now,
and we'll be having this conversation
again and it'll be beautiful again.
[song continues]
[stops]
"Cowboy hat from Gucci,
Wranglers on my booty,"
there's a line even Hank Williams
or Harlan Howard might have penned.
And as far as adding
a trap beat to country music,
is it really all that different
from Ernest Tubbs
singing along to an electric guitar?
So, what's country and what's not country,
what's pop and what isn't?
Well, it can sometimes
feel a little academic,
same with this whole idea
we talked about up top, authenticity.
Authenticity, that thing
that country music trades in
and pop music swallows up,
is itself a kind of artifice.
The gloss, the put-ons, the personas,
well, they're just different ways
to get at the truth.
- [knocking]
- [woman] Orville, we're ready for you!
Oh! That'd be my cue.
[crowd cheering]
[cheering intensifies]
Hello, I'm Orville Peck.
[cheering continues]
[cheering fades]
[crickets chirping]
[coyote howls]
[wind whistling]