A few years ago, Joe and I binge-watched all ten episodes of Country Music, A Film by Ken Burns (2019). Although I didn’t consider myself a true fan of “country music” before that viewing, afterwards, I realized that country music runs through my blood as much as it does that frat boy’s sitting in his gleaming white Ford F-350, blasting Morgan Wallen for all the world to hear.
In fact, if you asked me then what music I liked, I’d answer, “Everything but teeny-bop and country.” But to hear me squealing my excitement and singing along with every episode of Country Music, you’d rightly call that out as a bald-faced lie. And full disclosure: I thoroughly enjoyed watching Taylor Swift’s Tiny Desk Concert just last night.
Back to the binge.
With high Ken Burnsian expectations, I settled on the couch with Joe, a glass of wine, and our three little dogs to watch the first episode, “The Rub (Beginnings – 1933). Immediately, I was transfixed, recalling the exact moment I discovered the haunting music of The Carter Family for myself.
I must’ve been about nine years old the day I put my mother’s Carter Family album on the turntable. I was confused. I listened over and over, mesmerized and spooked by those hard consonants and eerie harmonies.
I couldn’t decide if I liked the Carter Family’s music. I had a pressing understanding that even if I didn’t get it, there was something going on.
“Is this good?” I asked my mama.
“Just keep listening,” she answered.
My mother, who damaged her hearing listening to Mozart operas on high volume through her earphones in her later years, appreciated a wide range of music. She gave me my first grown-up album, Abbey Road, when I was six. She introduced me to Bob Dylan, and together we memorized “Mr. Tambourine Man.” We exercised to John Denver, oddly enough.
It was under Mama’s watch that I attended Christmas Eve midnight services at the Lutheran Church. She taught me to stand for Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, and why.
My father’s taste in music was quite narrow. He was a Waylon & Willie man. Daddy blamed the Beatles for what he called the destruction of America’s moral compass, and he boasted about falling asleep during a chamber music concert.
“I can’t stand that deedle-deedle-deedle,” he’d announce, obnoxiously imitating a squeaky violin.
Sometimes I think music acted as a catalyst to my parents’ inevitable divorce when I was twelve.
However, watching the documentary night after night, I had a powerful realization that my mother was the true country music aficionado. She taught me the words to “The Wabash Cannonball” and “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” She knew all the haunting hillbilly songs.
Right in the middle of the documentary, I called her.
“You loved Merle Haggard too, didn’t you?” I asked, trying to piece together the frayed rope of my parents’ musical tastes.
“I did,” she said, and went on to tell me about seeing him in concert. She couldn’t get my dad to go with her, so she went alone. “And let me tell you,” she added, “Merle Haggard was as handsome a man as ever walked this earth.”
As well as relishing the curious combination of bittersweet, flat-out sweet, and downright melancholic emotions I experienced during our binge watch, I pieced together the origin of a family legend.
My dad, who could whistle out of both sides of his mouth in harmony, used to tell us that his father, Logan Mount, was also an excellent whistler and had whistled at the Grand Ole Opry under the name, “The Dixie Mockingbird.” I’ve never found any evidence of this, but watching the documentary I learned that the National Life Insurance Company started the Grand Ole Opry to support its radio station WSM (“We Shield Millions”). My Granddaddy Logan was a salesman for National Life Insurance, which lends merit to the legend.
Recently, I listened to Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album. After the last song, I immediately started over and listened to it again, all 27 tracks, uninterrupted.
With respect to those circles that don’t go unbroken, the name of Beyonce’s album a direct nod to the Carter Family, and my mother’s own mysterious and wide-ranging musical tastes, I recognized that although I may not understand it, there’s something going on with Cowboy Carter. I had the notion that everyone in the country ought to listen to this album, but didn’t quite know why.
Since then, I’ve done a little digging and am gobsmacked by how much history Beyonce’s encapsulated in this collection. The musical tributes are as varied as the musicians who join her on this odyssey of an album. But alone in my car that day, on my first listen, I didn’t know what I was hearing. Was it country? Was it good?
“What is this,” I asked myself.
And as clear as a bell, I heard my late mother answer, “Just keep listening.”
Sweet, Mary.