0:00:03 > 0:00:07Howdy, friends, welcome to the Grand Ole Opry,
0:00:07 > 0:00:11the capital of country music throughout the world!
0:00:11 > 0:00:13Let her go!
0:00:17 > 0:00:20# I hear the train a-comin'
0:00:20 > 0:00:22# It's rollin' round the bend
0:00:22 > 0:00:26# And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when
0:00:26 > 0:00:29# I'm stuck in Folsom Prison
0:00:29 > 0:00:33# And time keeps draggin' on... #
0:00:33 > 0:00:35They used to call it hillbilly music.
0:00:35 > 0:00:41It was the sound of the working class in forgotten corners of the southern states of America,
0:00:41 > 0:00:44as they tried to scratch a living off the land.
0:00:44 > 0:00:49We were those people back in the mountains, and we lived so hard. Every day was a struggle.
0:00:49 > 0:00:54One of the fundamental ingredients of country music is the sense of home.
0:00:54 > 0:01:00So you hear a lot of wonderful songs about Texas, Tennessee, the Carolinas.
0:01:00 > 0:01:06When you put people on the land trying to make a living in a harsh environment
0:01:06 > 0:01:10at that time, and you get white blues, which is country music.
0:01:11 > 0:01:15The songs and the musical instruments were from a distant time and place,
0:01:15 > 0:01:19but the people who made this music would take it all with them
0:01:19 > 0:01:23on a thrilling and dangerous ride through the 20th century.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28In no time at all, this strange hillbilly sound
0:01:28 > 0:01:32would be transformed into country music that would speak to the world.
0:01:34 > 0:01:38Country music was by, and for, and about adults.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41It's not teenage music and its niche was the white working class.
0:01:41 > 0:01:47I want to hear songs about broken hearts and destroyed lives
0:01:47 > 0:01:51and redemption - you know, melodrama.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56It would be a dramatic journey, with country music forever torn
0:01:56 > 0:02:01between the past and the future, and always walking a tightrope between authenticity and showbusiness.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08It's a longing for place and home and history, that we all have,
0:02:08 > 0:02:10just living in the modern world.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14I know how people like us write these godawful sad songs
0:02:14 > 0:02:17and really mean 'em, because we feel that,
0:02:17 > 0:02:21and I feel everything, to the depths of my soul.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24# Oh, the men I meet
0:02:24 > 0:02:27# They ain't warm and friendly
0:02:27 > 0:02:31# Like the one in old Virginny... #
0:02:31 > 0:02:33'Country music is the cry of the heart.'
0:02:33 > 0:02:37To me, a great country singer comes from somebody that's got it,
0:02:37 > 0:02:38and it's just got to come out.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45As the way of life it came from slowly disappeared
0:02:45 > 0:02:49country music would have to reinvent itself over and over again.
0:02:49 > 0:02:54This constant fight for survival produces a different kind of star.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58There's an iron in the soul of Hank Williams, Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash.
0:02:58 > 0:03:03And their music would define America for the rest of the world.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18The roots of country music go deep,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21and the deeper you go, the nearer you get to the core of the sound -
0:03:21 > 0:03:25an attitude in the blood that's known as Twang.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32What is that "Twang"? That's a weird thing.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36But people use that all the time to talk about country music.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38- You know it when you hear it. - You know it when you hear it!
0:03:38 > 0:03:40Twang!
0:03:40 > 0:03:43MIMICS TWANGING GUITAR
0:03:47 > 0:03:49MIMICS TWANGING GUITAR
0:03:49 > 0:03:52Twang is a kind of musical swagger, I think.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55It's an emotion, it's a gesture.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59Twang is unapologetic - it's not, "I hope you'll like this."
0:03:59 > 0:04:02"I don't care whether you like this or not."
0:04:02 > 0:04:04I'm a hillbilly -
0:04:04 > 0:04:06shove it up your ass.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08HE CHUCKLES
0:04:08 > 0:04:11Twang is hillbilly soul, that's what it is.
0:04:11 > 0:04:17It's soul music, made by country music people. That's twang.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23# T for Texas
0:04:23 > 0:04:25# T for Tennessee... #
0:04:25 > 0:04:28The Godfather of Twang was Jimmie Rodgers.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33Born and raised in Mississippi, he was musically right where he needed to be.
0:04:33 > 0:04:40He took blues, gospel and mountain music, mixed it all up and added yodelling.
0:04:40 > 0:04:43HE YODELS
0:04:46 > 0:04:49Jimmie Rodgers was THE father of country music,
0:04:49 > 0:04:52he was one of the first artists
0:04:52 > 0:04:56to really get the following of, say, a pop star of the day.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59'He was doing country music,
0:04:59 > 0:05:03'or hillbilly music as it was called then, and he created the blue yodel.'
0:05:08 > 0:05:11Jimmie Rodgers rose to fame in the 1920s,
0:05:11 > 0:05:16when America was an industrial and economic powerhouse.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19New York was already like a city from the future,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22and many people from the rural backwaters of the South
0:05:22 > 0:05:27could see a completely different way of life coming down the tracks.
0:05:27 > 0:05:30This was exciting, and scary.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36The entertainment on offer at this time was glitzy and aspirational,
0:05:36 > 0:05:39just like the USA itself.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42But Jimmie Rodgers was from the South,
0:05:42 > 0:05:44which didn't move quite so fast.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46In an era of fabulous wealth,
0:05:46 > 0:05:50Jimmie Rodgers represented the guy at the bottom of the heap,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54with no chance of sipping champagne in Manhattan.
0:05:56 > 0:05:58His act, in effect, was being poor,
0:05:58 > 0:06:02and country music has been living off this idea ever since.
0:06:06 > 0:06:12He needed a character and a costume that would tell his audience he was just like them.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14His first job had been on the railways,
0:06:14 > 0:06:18so he chose to become Jimmie Rodgers, the singing brakeman.
0:06:18 > 0:06:23What you have to remember about country music, it became commercially popular
0:06:23 > 0:06:27and country radio happened right as vaudeville was dying,
0:06:27 > 0:06:31and so the live performance in the United States
0:06:31 > 0:06:34in the '20s, 30s and even into the '40s,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37was very much influenced by vaudeville.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40So when you see Jimmie Rodgers stepping out in the early '30s
0:06:40 > 0:06:44in a brakeman's uniform on stage, you're seeing him
0:06:44 > 0:06:48clearly take on the character, because this is what you did when you entertained people.
0:06:48 > 0:06:53People didn't give a good idea what their singing stars looked like before that, very often.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57You saw them in vaudeville once a year, maybe, so you didn't know what these people looked like.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00It was kind of a new subject.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02What do I seem like when you look at me?
0:07:04 > 0:07:08In many ways, Jimmie Rodgers wrote the rule book for country music.
0:07:08 > 0:07:13Wear the right thing, do the right thing and never forget the train song.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20Anybody who's any good in country music likes trains.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23# Hey look a-yonder comin'
0:07:23 > 0:07:26# Comin' down that railroad track... #
0:07:26 > 0:07:29The rhythm of the train, the sound that it makes,
0:07:29 > 0:07:35what it can bring out of you, I mean, it's very intense.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38# Bringin' my baby back, woo! #
0:07:40 > 0:07:43It's very musical, when you get right down to it.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46You start playing the guitar along with that "Ch-ch-ch..."
0:07:46 > 0:07:48And pretty soon, you're singing that...
0:07:48 > 0:07:51# Big eight-wheeler rollin' down the track... #
0:07:51 > 0:07:53It's just part of it!
0:07:53 > 0:07:56It's the vehicle that takes everybody from home,
0:07:56 > 0:07:59brings the mail, and it takes everyone away.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11The train symbolised progress and opportunity.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15It was the iron horse that was building America,
0:08:15 > 0:08:19transporting people from the isolation of the country to the alienation of the city.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24There was an element of cool in singing about trains,
0:08:24 > 0:08:26they were fast, they connected places.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29They were modern transportation, and they got you there.
0:08:36 > 0:08:42The first wave of country music stars, like The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers
0:08:42 > 0:08:45had arrived in the economic boom of the '20s,
0:08:45 > 0:08:50but the Wall Street Crash of 1929 changed everything.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54Say goodbye to the Singing Brakeman and howdy to the Singing Cowboy.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59I think the Singing Cowboy came along at just the right time,
0:08:59 > 0:09:01just a couple of years after the Depression.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04It was a very hard time throughout the country,
0:09:04 > 0:09:08and here suddenly, you had this handsome guy, lovely voice,
0:09:08 > 0:09:12he doesn't answer to any boss, he's not out of work, doesn't care,
0:09:12 > 0:09:14he's got his horse, his guitar,
0:09:14 > 0:09:16yodels a tune and he's got a beautiful girl.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18It's just a great fantasy.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22Solves the problems of right and wrong with his fists
0:09:22 > 0:09:26and his six-guns, and everybody ends up happy.
0:09:26 > 0:09:30It was just what a nation in the grip of an economic depression needed
0:09:30 > 0:09:33and every singer in town wanted to be a cowboy with a guitar.
0:09:33 > 0:09:41And Orvon Grover Autry became the most famous singing cowboy of them all - Gene Autry.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46The Singing Cowboy was a Hollywood invention,
0:09:46 > 0:09:53but Gene Autry brought a glamour to country music that would inspire the next generation.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56The whole cowboy, Western thing really presented this fantasy
0:09:56 > 0:09:58to people that were having very hard lives.
0:09:58 > 0:10:04Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson spoke about living in pretty impoverished conditions,
0:10:04 > 0:10:07kind of expected to have to pick cotton as a child,
0:10:07 > 0:10:11grow up, be a farmer, it's a really, really hard life.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15All of a sudden they saw the Singing Cowboy saving the day,
0:10:15 > 0:10:19playing his guitar, singing songs, winning the girl through music.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23They didn't want to learn how to ride a horse, they wanted the guitar.
0:10:23 > 0:10:25They wanted to sing. They saw that as a way out.
0:10:25 > 0:10:31Cowboy hats and boots would soon spread through country music,
0:10:31 > 0:10:36but back in Nashville, they still did things the hillbilly way.
0:10:36 > 0:10:42Welcome to the Grand Ole Opry, the capital of country music throughout the world!
0:10:46 > 0:10:50The Grand Ole Opry was a radio show which featured old-time music
0:10:50 > 0:10:53in an idealised rural setting, designed to be comforting to an audience
0:10:53 > 0:11:00who needed a break from the Depression, the dust bowl and the speed of the modern world.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04Nashville was the industrial centre of country music, the recording centre,
0:11:04 > 0:11:08and with the Grand Ole Opry, had the most powerful radio programme.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13There was still an urge to kind of present something familiar,
0:11:13 > 0:11:19and present it in a way that invited people into this sort of ideal
0:11:19 > 0:11:25of what rural life was, and into a shared common experience of it.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29So in a way, the hay bales which we look at now, and they look so hokey,
0:11:29 > 0:11:34but those were signifiers to an audience that, "Hey, we're from the farm, we're simple people,
0:11:34 > 0:11:41"we're not going to scare you away with our rhetoric and anything high-minded here,
0:11:41 > 0:11:43"we're just gathering together to have a good time."
0:11:43 > 0:11:48Some of the promoters really wanted them to dress the part of the hayseed, the country bumpkin,
0:11:48 > 0:11:53so the guys would be wearing overalls and patched clothing,
0:11:53 > 0:11:56beat-up chequered shirts, straw hats.
0:11:56 > 0:12:02The gals would wear, maybe the gingham square dance dresses, and things like that.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06So all of a sudden, there are bands called the Fruit Jar Drinkers,
0:12:06 > 0:12:10which the people themselves might have thought was corny. It was show business.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13It was absolutely vaudeville. Those were costumes.
0:12:13 > 0:12:20From the early '40s, the show was broadcast across the South from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23There were no cowboys here because this wasn't the Wild West.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27The Grand Ole Opry was nostalgic about farmers and family,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30and singing brothers were a symbol of everything it stood for.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34Men in checked shirts who made their mothers proud,
0:12:34 > 0:12:36like the Delmore Brothers.
0:12:36 > 0:12:38# I know a fella from that Alabama way
0:12:38 > 0:12:40# He plays the blues in a different sort of way
0:12:40 > 0:12:43# He got no piano for the A to the bar
0:12:43 > 0:12:45# But he picks out the boogie on his old guitar
0:12:45 > 0:12:47# He plays the Hillbilly Boogie
0:12:47 > 0:12:50# In a lowdown way
0:12:50 > 0:12:51# He can play the Boogie
0:12:51 > 0:12:54# Play it for me any ole day... #
0:12:54 > 0:13:00The Monroe Brothers Bill and Charlie just didn't get on well enough to stay together as a brother act.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03They had left the mountains in search of factory work,
0:13:03 > 0:13:08but the further away they went from home, the more it pulled them back.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13# Oh you oughta been uptown and seen the train come down
0:13:13 > 0:13:17# And hear the whistle blowin' 100 times
0:13:17 > 0:13:20# Oh I thought I heard that train comin' round the bend
0:13:20 > 0:13:24# She blows like she'll never blow no more... #
0:13:24 > 0:13:30In 1939, Bill Monroe's yearning for the lost world of his Kentucky childhood
0:13:30 > 0:13:32led him to invent a new form of music
0:13:32 > 0:13:35that came to be known as Bluegrass.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39Named after his new band, The Bluegrass Boys.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42# If the train runs right, see my woman Saturday night
0:13:42 > 0:13:46# I'm tired of living this a-way... #
0:13:46 > 0:13:50Bluegrass was new, but it sounded as old as the hills.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54His childhood was fading away, but Bill Monroe came up with rules
0:13:54 > 0:13:58to ensure the music, at least, would never change.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01No electric instruments and strictly no drums.
0:14:07 > 0:14:11It's the high lonesome. It's the sound of mountains.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13I love it, you know.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Somebody up on a mountain, it's the sound of on top of Old Smokie,
0:14:16 > 0:14:22it's the sound of somebody all alone, singing into the hills.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29The harmonies in bluegrass and the style they have
0:14:29 > 0:14:33is what I think defines bluegrass music
0:14:33 > 0:14:36from country music, mountain music,
0:14:36 > 0:14:39and then there was little mixes, flavours in between.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43Because there's just that "yep n'", how they stop the note,
0:14:43 > 0:14:47and I do a lot of that, cos I feel that stuff, too.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00Meanwhile, down in Texas, change was embraced.
0:15:00 > 0:15:06The oil boom had brought people from far and near to fuel America's economic recovery.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09This was the industrialisation that bluegrass was running away from,
0:15:09 > 0:15:13but Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys thrived on this energy.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19Texas was the spiritual home of the cowboy and cattle,
0:15:19 > 0:15:23but it was also building big cities, like Houston and Dallas.
0:15:25 > 0:15:30This melting pot of new ideas would inspire Bob Wills to create Western Swing.
0:15:30 > 0:15:36What's interesting about Bob Wills is he kind of absorbed all these different styles of music.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40There's country, there's blues, there's mariachi, there's jazz,
0:15:40 > 0:15:43all this stuff piled in together,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46it's a real kind of hybrid border music,
0:15:46 > 0:15:50music that takes a bit of whatever's useful
0:15:50 > 0:15:52and turns it into something completely new.
0:15:52 > 0:15:57They were modernising, which is a big part of all the country music story.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01They were really interested in jazz, they wanted to be hip guys, they often were,
0:16:01 > 0:16:04and they started to mix what they knew with what they loved,
0:16:04 > 0:16:07so a steel guitar takes the place of a trombone,
0:16:07 > 0:16:10and the next thing, you have these jazz bands,
0:16:10 > 0:16:16which cut back and forth between breakdown, hoedown country music and jazz.
0:16:16 > 0:16:22Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys had a sound that was from everywhere and nowhere.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26It was a mould-breaking cocktail of swing jazz and hillbilly.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30What they needed was a look to tie it all together,
0:16:30 > 0:16:33so the Playboys became Cowboys.
0:16:33 > 0:16:38Then they broke out of Texas to hit the big time on the West Coast.
0:16:38 > 0:16:40Here's those boys again!
0:16:40 > 0:16:44They were so popular in California, especially during the war years,
0:16:44 > 0:16:48so many migrants from Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas who had come to Los Angeles,
0:16:48 > 0:16:52because their farms were just blowing away, and there was the work.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54Especially during the war,
0:16:54 > 0:17:00they needed all the...those factories were building bombs and planes full-time,
0:17:00 > 0:17:04and these people would get off work, they wanted to blow off some steam,
0:17:04 > 0:17:07have some fun, let's go dance to Bob Wills!
0:17:12 > 0:17:18Out west in California, where the movie stars who were the Singing Cowboys were based,
0:17:18 > 0:17:23more and more of the artists out there studied wearing the fancy western outfits.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27So gradually, as this look became popular in Nashville,
0:17:27 > 0:17:33more and more of the male singers started wearing the fancy cowboy boots, fancy cowboy shirts,
0:17:33 > 0:17:39because what's more dashing, a cowboy outfit that accentuates your broad shoulders and gives you height,
0:17:39 > 0:17:44or the hayseed bumpkin look, with the overalls and that kind of thing?
0:17:44 > 0:17:46There's no question about it.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02Cowboy clothes were the secret showbiz ingredient that changed the whole perception of hillbilly music.
0:18:02 > 0:18:08From now on, country musicians would dress like film stars.
0:18:08 > 0:18:14Hillbilly had gone Hollywood, and a new sound was born - Honky Tonk.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24The Second World War was now over,
0:18:24 > 0:18:28but the lives of so many people had changed for ever.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33There were new rules for the game of love and relationships in the 1940s and '50s,
0:18:33 > 0:18:38and Honky Tonk was the soundtrack from the southern states that played through it all.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42Honky Tonk music took its name from the bars and beer joints
0:18:42 > 0:18:48where young men and women could now get drunk together and dance the night away.
0:18:48 > 0:18:50Think of how it must have felt, sitting in these places
0:18:50 > 0:18:54and having had a few drinks, and the beginning of inebriation,
0:18:54 > 0:18:58and then hearing this music that had this beat, it was very compelling.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02It drove people to the dancefloor, drove them to have another drink.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08The acts of the 1930s sang of the little cabin home on the hill,
0:19:08 > 0:19:10and the wild wood flower,
0:19:10 > 0:19:13and the more innocent, country living kind of topics,
0:19:13 > 0:19:15and after the war, those topics went away,
0:19:15 > 0:19:22to be replaced by drinking, adultery, dancing...
0:19:22 > 0:19:26The war broke down a lot of social mores,
0:19:26 > 0:19:31and the experiences in the honky tonk very much reflect that.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36Honky tonks were places where alcohol was sold,
0:19:36 > 0:19:39they'd have music, a live band or a jukebox,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42there'd be space to dance. But they weren't fancy places,
0:19:42 > 0:19:46this is a working-class environment
0:19:46 > 0:19:52where people who'd moved from all over the country to new places to find work
0:19:52 > 0:19:56were going to socialise, and let off steam on a Friday and Saturday night.
0:19:57 > 0:20:01Some of the guys were kind of rawhide, you might say,
0:20:01 > 0:20:04and it would get... sometimes cause some fights.
0:20:05 > 0:20:10And of course at that time, everybody drank a lot in the beer joints.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13And sometimes they'd chuck beer bottles,
0:20:13 > 0:20:16they had screen wire put up in front of some of the stages,
0:20:16 > 0:20:19in case they chucked beer bottles at you.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26# Hey good lookin'
0:20:26 > 0:20:28# What you got cookin'
0:20:28 > 0:20:34# How's about cookin' somethin' up with me? #
0:20:34 > 0:20:38In 1947, with the USA still high on victory in the war,
0:20:38 > 0:20:41Hank Williams burst onto the scene like a firework.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45He was the embodiment of the spirit of Honky Tonk -
0:20:45 > 0:20:47young, careless and living in the moment.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51# So if you wanna have fun, come along with me... #
0:20:51 > 0:20:53He was eating it, living it, breathing it.
0:20:53 > 0:21:00It was about...really singing about the heart pain.
0:21:00 > 0:21:06...a tune called Cold, Cold Heart.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11# I tried so hard my dear to show
0:21:11 > 0:21:15# That you're my every dream
0:21:16 > 0:21:22# Yet you're afraid each thing I do
0:21:22 > 0:21:26# Is just some evil scheme... #
0:21:26 > 0:21:31Hank Williams made country music modern by singing about his own life.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35His songs were heartbreaking, and all true.
0:21:35 > 0:21:40After a difficult childhood in Alabama, he married Audrey Mae Shepherd when he was 21,
0:21:40 > 0:21:45and the conflict in their relationship would inspire his greatest songs.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49# And melt your cold, cold heart... #
0:21:49 > 0:21:52It was through a rough time when they weren't seeing eye to eye,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55and it was...
0:21:57 > 0:22:04..revenge, in a little different kind of way, for him.
0:22:07 > 0:22:12He was having a lot of trouble when we was living together. He was going through a divorce.
0:22:12 > 0:22:14And it was working on him pretty bad.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21The angst and sense of doom in Hank Williams' songs
0:22:21 > 0:22:25was a reworking of the traditional lonesome blues of earlier country music
0:22:25 > 0:22:28but turned inward on his own life.
0:22:32 > 0:22:34Cowboy clothes were a suit of armour
0:22:34 > 0:22:40at a time when masculinity was being redefined by industrialisation.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43Nobody looked better in cowboy gear than Hank Williams,
0:22:43 > 0:22:48but in truth, he was a frail kid, who ended up an alcoholic, to cope with chronic back pain.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56He was pretty thin, and what most people would consider weak, most of his life,
0:22:56 > 0:23:01so those two combinations were definitely pretty hard on him.
0:23:01 > 0:23:06I would say it would be physical pain, and the heartache,
0:23:06 > 0:23:07the pain of a childhood,
0:23:07 > 0:23:11of not having that very strong of a family,
0:23:11 > 0:23:15but I would definitely say that the heartbreak had a lot to do with it,
0:23:15 > 0:23:23because you never hear him complaining much about his physical pain that much.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27It was more singing about the love pain.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31# You're lookin' at a mad that's gettin' kinda mad
0:23:31 > 0:23:35# I had lots of luck but it's all been bad
0:23:35 > 0:23:39# No matter how I struggle and strive
0:23:39 > 0:23:44# I'll never get out of this world alive... #
0:23:44 > 0:23:46If he did know anything,
0:23:46 > 0:23:51I think he knew that he wasn't going to be around that long,
0:23:51 > 0:23:55and that he had to do as much as he could, while he could.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00When the divorce happened, and he left, he got alcoholic,
0:24:00 > 0:24:08he got to drinking, and people let him go, he went back to Louisiana.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12And that's... Right after that, he didn't last long.
0:24:15 > 0:24:20On New Year's Day 1953, Hank Williams died in the back of a car.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24Drink and prescription drugs had killed him at just 29.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29Country music had lost an icon, but discovered the power of stars.
0:24:30 > 0:24:36Country music's lament for the lost paradise of the old southern way of life
0:24:36 > 0:24:39had been turned into the lovesick blues of Hank Williams.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41By singing about the life he was living,
0:24:41 > 0:24:45he redefined what country music could be.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48This wasn't hillbilly any more - this was the future.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54The legacy of Hank Williams was the true grit of authenticity
0:24:54 > 0:24:57which country music would now have to live up to.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02Honky Tonk music hit the peak of its popularity
0:25:02 > 0:25:05as the songs became the battleground of the sexes,
0:25:05 > 0:25:08with accusations flying around like empty beer bottles.
0:25:08 > 0:25:13# As I sit here tonight
0:25:13 > 0:25:17# The jukebox playing... #
0:25:17 > 0:25:22Kitty Wells was the first woman to have her say about relationships in the honky tonks
0:25:22 > 0:25:27when she recorded It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.
0:25:27 > 0:25:31# It wasn't God who made
0:25:31 > 0:25:36# Honky Tonk angels... #
0:25:36 > 0:25:39Her protest at the portrayal of women in the songs of the era
0:25:39 > 0:25:43was a statement of intent that struck a chord with women everywhere.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47From now on, things were going to be very different.
0:25:49 > 0:25:51I think in the late '40s, early '50s,
0:25:51 > 0:25:58country music was representing some social changes that were happening in the country post-war,
0:25:58 > 0:26:03a big jump in the divorce rate, more broken homes than previously,
0:26:03 > 0:26:07and a sort of attitude amongst couples
0:26:07 > 0:26:11that if it didn't work out, you could always start over again.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13And also a rise in this culture
0:26:13 > 0:26:19of country music being played in bars and establishments where they had dancing,
0:26:19 > 0:26:23and women being a little bit more free in those environments.
0:26:32 > 0:26:37The commercial success of Honky Tonk turned country music into an industry.
0:26:37 > 0:26:41Suddenly, country boys like Webb Pierce had money to dress up and show off.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46# I'm walkin' the dog
0:26:46 > 0:26:49# And I'm never blue
0:26:49 > 0:26:52# I'm walkin' the dog
0:26:52 > 0:26:55# I ain't thinkin' 'bout you... #
0:26:56 > 0:27:00Webb drove around Nashville in a white Pontiac convertible
0:27:00 > 0:27:05with silver pistols for handles and steer horns on the grille.
0:27:05 > 0:27:10He also had the first guitar-shaped swimming pool in Nashville,
0:27:10 > 0:27:13and he wore clothes that made your eyes water.
0:27:14 > 0:27:19Well, it's strange, when you think about it, because that music's all about being humble and poor
0:27:19 > 0:27:25and being from nowhere. But it's a bit like rappers and bling, I think.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29Those guys went out there, and they wanted to sparkle.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32And they were stars.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35And they looked like stars, because they shone.
0:27:42 > 0:27:47The clothes and the cars were the work of the legendary rodeo tailor,
0:27:47 > 0:27:49who went by the name of Nudie.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Nudie Cohn was known by one name, and that was Nudie.
0:27:54 > 0:28:00His original name was Nuta Kotlyarenko, and he came from Kiev, Russia, as a young boy,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04to New York, in the early part of the 20th century,
0:28:04 > 0:28:08and he would go on to pretty much invent the Rhinestone Cowboy.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11And Lefty Frizzell was one of his clients who wanted something
0:28:11 > 0:28:15a little different, and Nudie gave it to him, with some rhinestones,
0:28:15 > 0:28:20with a big L, and a big F, and rhinestones on his shirt.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23And people just went nuts over it.
0:28:24 > 0:28:31And the first singer to wear a rhinestone Nudie suit at the Grand Ole Opry was Little Jimmy Dickens.
0:28:31 > 0:28:36Well, I am a different guy when I get on stage! My wife said
0:28:36 > 0:28:39she married to a man she loved at home,
0:28:39 > 0:28:43then when I got the rhinestones on, I became a different person!
0:28:43 > 0:28:45HE CHUCKLES
0:28:45 > 0:28:50That's what a star is supposed to look like. It's bigger than life.
0:28:50 > 0:28:54They sparkle. They don't look like you and me.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56They look like glittering stars.
0:29:02 > 0:29:06Just at the point when country music was the undisputed king of the jukebox,
0:29:06 > 0:29:09a singer from within its own ranks got up on stage
0:29:09 > 0:29:12and completely changed the game.
0:29:12 > 0:29:14# Well that's all right mama
0:29:14 > 0:29:16# That's all right for you
0:29:16 > 0:29:19# That's all right mama
0:29:19 > 0:29:22# Just any way you do... #
0:29:22 > 0:29:25The next thing that happened in Nashville
0:29:25 > 0:29:30and country music's history was the onslaught of rock'n'roll in the mid-'50s
0:29:30 > 0:29:32kicked the stuffing out of country music.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35Elvis Presley thought he was a country singer.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38He appeared on the Grand Ole Opry,
0:29:38 > 0:29:42they called him the Hillbilly Cat and the B-side of his first record
0:29:42 > 0:29:46was Bill Monroe's Blue Moon Of Kentucky.
0:29:46 > 0:29:47But this wasn't country.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50This was rock'n'roll.
0:29:50 > 0:29:55All the radio stations wanted to programme for this new group of consumers called teenagers,
0:29:55 > 0:30:00so they all stampeded in the wake of Elvis to this new format - rock'n'roll.
0:30:00 > 0:30:05At that time, a lot of kids were listening to country music
0:30:05 > 0:30:08and Elvis came along and they just left the building.
0:30:08 > 0:30:13There were nights when the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, was only a third full.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17Rock 'n' roll was music for teenagers, with a teenage take on life.
0:30:17 > 0:30:20It was fast, sexy and urban.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24Country music, with its cowboy hats and shiny suits,
0:30:24 > 0:30:27suddenly looked very square, indeed.
0:30:27 > 0:30:32Nashville fought back by developing something called the Nashville Sound
0:30:32 > 0:30:34and that sweetened country music.
0:30:34 > 0:30:37It made it more palatable to pop listeners.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41They put background vocalists on, like the Anita Kerr Singers and the Jordanaires.
0:30:41 > 0:30:45They downplayed the banjo and downplayed the steel guitar and brought in strings.
0:30:45 > 0:30:50They kept the heart in the country song and the heart in the country singer,
0:30:50 > 0:30:52but they put them on a little cushion of sound
0:30:52 > 0:30:57and the great beneficiaries of that were Skeeter Davis and Patsy Cline.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00# Crazy
0:31:00 > 0:31:02# I'm crazy
0:31:02 > 0:31:07# For feeling so lonely
0:31:09 > 0:31:11# I'm crazy
0:31:13 > 0:31:18# Crazy for feeling so blue... #
0:31:21 > 0:31:26The Nashville sound of Patsy Cline's records was lush and dramatic.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29The beginnings of countrypolitan - the cross-over pop
0:31:29 > 0:31:34where country's high lonesome got the metropolitan treatment.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37# And then some day
0:31:37 > 0:31:42# You'd leave me for somebody new... #
0:31:42 > 0:31:46That's the beauty of those songs. She picked those songs because they moved her.
0:31:46 > 0:31:50And, er, yeah, she could cry.
0:31:50 > 0:31:55And she had a tempestuous personal life with a husband and it all hit her right there,
0:31:55 > 0:31:57and you can hear it in the music.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01# I'm crazy for trying
0:32:01 > 0:32:04# And crazy for crying
0:32:04 > 0:32:09# And I'm crazy for loving you... #
0:32:09 > 0:32:14Patsy Cline had shifted the focus on from Kitty Wells and her honky-tonk nightlife
0:32:14 > 0:32:17and into the suburban home.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22Women had found their voice and the era of the female country-music icon had begun.
0:32:22 > 0:32:26# I'm crazy for trying
0:32:26 > 0:32:29# And crazy for crying
0:32:29 > 0:32:35# And I'm crazy for loving
0:32:35 > 0:32:40# You. #
0:32:40 > 0:32:44- MAN:- Oh, yes! - APPLAUSE
0:32:44 > 0:32:48As the 1960s unfolded, prosperity, urbanisation
0:32:48 > 0:32:53and even the pill gave women more independence than ever before.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57Into this changing world came Loretta Lynn, the coalminer's daughter,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00with the songs that made sense of the times.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10# You thought that I'd be waiting up
0:33:10 > 0:33:12# When you came home last night
0:33:12 > 0:33:15# You'd been out with all the boys
0:33:15 > 0:33:17# And you ended up half tight
0:33:17 > 0:33:20# Liquor and love They just don't mix
0:33:20 > 0:33:22# Leave the bottle or me behind
0:33:22 > 0:33:28# And don't come home a-drinking with lovin' on your mind. #
0:33:30 > 0:33:37Loretta Lynn had married at 13 and had four children by the time she was 18.
0:33:37 > 0:33:42Like her audience, she had made the journey from the backwoods to the town
0:33:42 > 0:33:45looking to change her life. She became a country-music legend.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53She wrote about who she was and about who her women in her audience were.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55She was telling it like the women lived it.
0:33:55 > 0:34:00# I don't want to play house... #
0:34:02 > 0:34:04The rise in the divorce rate at the end of the '60s
0:34:04 > 0:34:09was the clearest sign that the old rural notions of morality were changing.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12Women were on the move, making their own decisions.
0:34:14 > 0:34:19Tammy Wynette, like so many others, came in from the cotton fields to taste this new freedom,
0:34:19 > 0:34:21only to find a different kind of trouble.
0:34:23 > 0:34:27# I've watched mommy and daddy
0:34:27 > 0:34:31# And if that's the way it's done
0:34:31 > 0:34:34# I don't want to play house... #
0:34:34 > 0:34:38Tammy Wynette's life and music was so close, it was hard to tell them apart.
0:34:38 > 0:34:42Her songs were confessional, drawn from real experience,
0:34:42 > 0:34:44which echoed the lives of millions of other women.
0:34:44 > 0:34:50# My daddy said goodbye. #
0:34:50 > 0:34:51I think she was
0:34:51 > 0:34:55not scared or afraid to sing about anything
0:34:55 > 0:34:56that was important to her,
0:34:56 > 0:34:57which meant as a single mom,
0:34:57 > 0:35:01or as getting remarried, all those things happening in her life,
0:35:01 > 0:35:08that, maybe back in the '60s and '70s, weren't always the thing to talk about, or to sing about.
0:35:09 > 0:35:14# Our little boy is four years old
0:35:14 > 0:35:17# And quite a little man
0:35:17 > 0:35:23# So we spell out the words we don't
0:35:23 > 0:35:26# Want him to understand
0:35:26 > 0:35:29# Like T-O-Y
0:35:29 > 0:35:35# Or maybe S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E... #
0:35:35 > 0:35:37The audience for country music
0:35:37 > 0:35:42were no longer living in fear of crop failures, floods and hurricanes.
0:35:42 > 0:35:44Many of them had moved to the suburbs.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47There were still disasters, but of a different kind.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50# Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E
0:35:50 > 0:35:53# Becomes final today. #
0:35:53 > 0:35:58She had an ability to convey emotion so greatly within her songs.
0:35:58 > 0:36:01You really believed she was the mother of the little boy
0:36:01 > 0:36:04and she's spelling out the songs to shield them
0:36:04 > 0:36:07from the knowledge that the parents are getting divorced.
0:36:07 > 0:36:13This was not a put-on or a character, this could be her real experience.
0:36:13 > 0:36:16She was the first person in our family who had been divorced.
0:36:16 > 0:36:20Singing the song D-I-V-O-R-C-E was an expression of,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23"Look, this is a painful thing.
0:36:23 > 0:36:29"There's children involved, a man and a woman who love each other but it's not working out."
0:36:29 > 0:36:33There's people all over the world who go through this every day
0:36:33 > 0:36:37and they relate to the same pain that she felt.
0:36:37 > 0:36:41# Oh, I wish that we could stop this
0:36:41 > 0:36:48# D-I-V-O-R-C-E. #
0:36:48 > 0:36:50APPLAUSE
0:36:50 > 0:36:55The thin line between Tammy's art and her life was apparent
0:36:55 > 0:36:59when she married the country singer George Jones in 1969.
0:36:59 > 0:37:04# In a pawn shop in Chicago on a sunny summer day
0:37:04 > 0:37:10# A couple gazes at the wedding rings there on display
0:37:10 > 0:37:15# She smiles and nods at him as he says, "Honey that's for you"
0:37:15 > 0:37:20# "It's not much, but it's the best that I can do". #
0:37:20 > 0:37:26Their duet albums appeared to track the real-life ups and downs of their marriage, at a time
0:37:26 > 0:37:31when the whole idea of family life and suburbia was under fire.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34Tammy had come to represent the typical long-suffering, married woman
0:37:34 > 0:37:39and now it was George Jones' turn to represent the men.
0:37:39 > 0:37:44Their music was the soap opera which told the story of their audience,
0:37:44 > 0:37:47as they also struggled to hold on.
0:37:47 > 0:37:52George and Tammy lived out their entire relationship in their duets.
0:37:52 > 0:37:55They had The Ceremony, which was about getting married,
0:37:55 > 0:37:58The Golden Ring was about getting divorced.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02Everything in those duets was playing out in real time while they were married.
0:38:02 > 0:38:05That added an extra vibrancy to them, too.
0:38:05 > 0:38:10They are the number one husband and wife team in country music.
0:38:10 > 0:38:13George Jones and Tammy Wynette.
0:38:13 > 0:38:15APPLAUSE
0:38:17 > 0:38:23# Oh, we're gonna ho-o-o-o-ld on
0:38:24 > 0:38:30# We're gonna ho-o-o-o-ld on... #
0:38:30 > 0:38:33They had real strife with one another and real feeling and love.
0:38:33 > 0:38:37But beyond that, they were artists and they were making show again
0:38:37 > 0:38:41of their feelings and using their abilities
0:38:41 > 0:38:44to stand in for the broken-hearted man and the broken-hearted woman,
0:38:44 > 0:38:50the woman wronged and the man who wronged her and are able to put that in a song, on a record.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52It's a really amazing feat.
0:38:52 > 0:38:57# We're gonna hold, hold Ho-o-o-o-ld on
0:38:57 > 0:39:02# To each other
0:39:02 > 0:39:08# We're gonna ho-o-o-o-ld on... #
0:39:08 > 0:39:11Sadly, they couldn't hold on.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15George and Tammy got a D-I-V-O-R-C-E in 1975,
0:39:15 > 0:39:20sending George back to his honky tonking lifestyle of alcohol and cocaine.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25# The bars are all closed
0:39:25 > 0:39:28# It's four in the morning
0:39:28 > 0:39:36# I must have shut 'em all down by the shape that I'm in
0:39:37 > 0:39:40# I lay my head on the wheel
0:39:40 > 0:39:43# That old horn begins honking.
0:39:43 > 0:39:51# The whole neighbourhood knows Jones is home drunk again... #
0:39:51 > 0:39:54His generation had aspired to be freewheeling cowboys,
0:39:54 > 0:39:59but the truth was they were riding lawnmowers instead of horses
0:39:59 > 0:40:01and the Honky Tonk Angel was now the ex-wife.
0:40:05 > 0:40:09# He stopped loving her today... #
0:40:09 > 0:40:13Bobby Braddock wrote the song which confirmed the George Jones image
0:40:13 > 0:40:18as the country singer crying in his beer, taking self pity
0:40:18 > 0:40:20and turning it into tragic high art.
0:40:24 > 0:40:26# He stopped loving her today... #
0:40:26 > 0:40:29I think at the time I wasn't in that good a shape
0:40:29 > 0:40:33to record yet. And I was still trying to
0:40:33 > 0:40:36get my life straightened out.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39So when I started getting my life straightened out,
0:40:39 > 0:40:43that's when I went in and...
0:40:43 > 0:40:46But it stayed on my mind every day.
0:40:46 > 0:40:48Every day I was trying to sing the song.
0:40:48 > 0:40:51And I said, well, that's got to be something to it.
0:40:51 > 0:40:55I thought it was just a song, until I heard George's version of it.
0:40:55 > 0:40:57I didn't realise how good it was.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01# He stopped loving her today
0:41:03 > 0:41:07# They placed a wreath upon his door
0:41:09 > 0:41:13# Soon they'll carry him away
0:41:15 > 0:41:19# But he stopped loving her today... #
0:41:21 > 0:41:25It's the full experience of life. Life is always bittersweet.
0:41:25 > 0:41:30So when you get a pop song that's just about happiness and fun, it's a lie.
0:41:30 > 0:41:34Because nobody's ever 100% happy. We're all ticking timebombs. None of us get out alive.
0:41:34 > 0:41:38That doesn't mean life isn't beautiful and full of moments of incredible joy.
0:41:38 > 0:41:41So George Jones, he could sing about it that way.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46He could make you feel like life is huge and full of great, joyful moments but it's always tragic.
0:41:46 > 0:41:51# And soon they'll carry him away
0:41:54 > 0:41:59# He stopped loving her today. #
0:42:10 > 0:42:13Country music had survived the earthquake that was rock'n'roll
0:42:13 > 0:42:15by relocating from country to town.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18And that town was Nashville.
0:42:20 > 0:42:26A huge industry had been built on songs which addressed the adult themes of life's disappointments.
0:42:26 > 0:42:29But many thought the music was losing touch with its roots.
0:42:29 > 0:42:33Enter The Man In Black, Johnny Cash.
0:42:33 > 0:42:38# Hey, get rhythm When you get the blues
0:42:38 > 0:42:42# Come on, get rhythm When you get the blues. #
0:42:42 > 0:42:46If anyone in country music still believed in the self-sufficient cowboy
0:42:46 > 0:42:50as the ultimate American hero, it was Johnny Cash.
0:42:50 > 0:42:55He was a preacher with a message of hope and redemption,
0:42:55 > 0:42:58and he wrapped himself in Bible black.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02Pretty early on, he realised he really looked good in a black suit.
0:43:02 > 0:43:09He started saying that he was going to wear his black as kind of a symbol of protest
0:43:09 > 0:43:11against the wrongs in the world.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15Again, another person who was very, very influenced, as a child,
0:43:15 > 0:43:18from the Western movies, and another huge Gene Autry fan.
0:43:18 > 0:43:23And even though he loved that, kind of, fancy look that Gene Autry wore,
0:43:23 > 0:43:28he knew, for himself - a great big tall guy, big broad-shouldered man -
0:43:28 > 0:43:30that the black was a better look for him.
0:43:32 > 0:43:34Johnny Cash had found the right costume.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37And to make his message clear,
0:43:37 > 0:43:41he also stripped his music of any unnecessary adornment.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45There was no steel guitar, no fiddle and no banjo -
0:43:45 > 0:43:47just three chords and the truth.
0:43:49 > 0:43:52Cash used Luther Perkins on guitar
0:43:52 > 0:43:56and he was a guy of limited technical ability,
0:43:56 > 0:43:59to the point that it would frustrate Cash sometimes,
0:43:59 > 0:44:03but Cash's producer at Sun Records, Sam Phillips, loved it.
0:44:03 > 0:44:08He would take Luther's guitar away after a recording session,
0:44:08 > 0:44:10so that he could NOT practise. He wanted him to be able to go,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13da-da-daw-daw-baw.
0:44:13 > 0:44:15# Because you're mine
0:44:15 > 0:44:18# I walk the line. #
0:44:18 > 0:44:20It's got that raw, lean rhythm.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23It's a guitar and an acoustic and an upright bass
0:44:23 > 0:44:26and a snare drum. There's nothing on the record
0:44:26 > 0:44:28and that's what makes it intense.
0:44:28 > 0:44:31If any of the guards are still speaking to me, could I have a glass of water?
0:44:31 > 0:44:33LAUGHTER
0:44:33 > 0:44:37The live albums recorded at Folsom Prison in 1968 and San Quentin
0:44:37 > 0:44:42State Prison in 1969 came to symbolise everything he stood for.
0:44:42 > 0:44:46Cash took country music back where he thought it belonged -
0:44:46 > 0:44:48to the common man who had fallen from grace.
0:44:48 > 0:44:51The Man in Black, with his stripped-back sound,
0:44:51 > 0:44:54within the bare walls of a prison
0:44:54 > 0:44:57was a stark reminder of country's dirt poor roots.
0:44:59 > 0:45:04# San Quentin You've been living hell to me... #
0:45:04 > 0:45:05CHEERING
0:45:05 > 0:45:10# You've blistered me since 1963. #
0:45:10 > 0:45:14We've always loved the underdog, the outsider, the bad boy.
0:45:14 > 0:45:19That's who we all want to identify with. Nobody wants to be part of...
0:45:19 > 0:45:21Nobody wants to identify with the prison guard, the warden.
0:45:21 > 0:45:25Those are the people that are oppressors, so the everyman
0:45:25 > 0:45:27is the guy behind the bars.
0:45:29 > 0:45:32# San Quentin I hate every inch of you. #
0:45:32 > 0:45:36CHEERING
0:45:36 > 0:45:39He had a connection with those prisoners.
0:45:39 > 0:45:42A lot of people assume that Cash himself had been to prison.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45He never had. He'd been to jail, but not to prison.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49There are points, particularly during the San Quentin concert,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52when, if he had just gone,
0:45:52 > 0:45:54"OK, break!", it could have started a riot,
0:45:54 > 0:45:59with that gravitas and that trembling voice of his.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04Merle Haggard was a prisoner in San Quentin
0:46:04 > 0:46:06the day Johnny Cash came to perform.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09It gave him the idea that singing for the common man
0:46:09 > 0:46:10could be a career.
0:46:10 > 0:46:12There was a guard,
0:46:12 > 0:46:15a prison guard, that was standing over at the side of the stage,
0:46:15 > 0:46:16chewing gum,
0:46:16 > 0:46:20and Cash looked over at this guard and started...
0:46:22 > 0:46:24..mocking that guard.
0:46:25 > 0:46:30And immediately, this put the whole prison in the palm of his hand,
0:46:30 > 0:46:33when he done that. Every convict there loved him,
0:46:33 > 0:46:38because he was...he was able to smart off to a guard
0:46:38 > 0:46:41and get away with it. And I thought, "Man, this guy
0:46:41 > 0:46:45"has got more stage presence than anybody I've ever seen".
0:46:45 > 0:46:49Cash could only imagine life in a Californian prison,
0:46:49 > 0:46:52but Merle Haggard was the real deal.
0:46:52 > 0:46:57# The warden led a prisoner
0:46:57 > 0:47:01# Down the hallway to his doom
0:47:01 > 0:47:06# I stood up to say goodbye like all the rest
0:47:09 > 0:47:14# And I heard him tell the warden
0:47:14 > 0:47:18# Just before he reached my cell
0:47:18 > 0:47:25# "Let my guitar-playing friend do my request". #
0:47:25 > 0:47:29This experience gave credibility to his songs.
0:47:29 > 0:47:31Merle Haggard had the authenticity
0:47:31 > 0:47:34that sometimes Nashville only pretended to have.
0:47:34 > 0:47:39# It's a big job just getting by with nine kids and a wife
0:47:42 > 0:47:46# Yeah, but I been a working man dang near all my life
0:47:46 > 0:47:48# And I'll keep on working. #
0:47:48 > 0:47:52It's certainly something that, in many cases, has given voice
0:47:52 > 0:47:57to the commoner, you know, to the common man.
0:47:57 > 0:48:02People have called Merle Haggard "a poet of the common man"
0:48:02 > 0:48:07and, certainly, he is...an incredible country singer-songwriter.
0:48:07 > 0:48:12# We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee
0:48:14 > 0:48:19# We don't take our trips on LSD. #
0:48:21 > 0:48:23In the 1960s, as Merle rose to fame,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26America was being torn apart by the Vietnam War.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33# We like livin' right and being free. #
0:48:33 > 0:48:38It had become anti-war long hairs versus the patriotic silent majority.
0:48:38 > 0:48:40The voice of the common man,
0:48:40 > 0:48:41the core audience of country music,
0:48:41 > 0:48:43wasn't being heard at all,
0:48:43 > 0:48:48until Merle Haggard sang Okie From Muskogee.
0:48:48 > 0:48:53He has told different stories about his relation to that song
0:48:53 > 0:48:55at different parts of his life.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58The original version, which the country audience wanted to buy into,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02is that it was absolutely serious. This is a song for all the people
0:49:02 > 0:49:07in Muskogee, USA, who hate hippies and people protesting the war.
0:49:08 > 0:49:13# We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy, nasty, filthy
0:49:13 > 0:49:19# Like the hippies out in San Francisco do. #
0:49:19 > 0:49:21Okie From Muskogee teased the liberals
0:49:21 > 0:49:23about their long hair and LSD.
0:49:23 > 0:49:27It was a song of the moment which viewed the radical hippies of San Francisco
0:49:27 > 0:49:30through the disapproving eyes of small-town America.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33# ..even squares can have a ball. #
0:49:34 > 0:49:39It may have cost me a lot of fans, actually. I know it is something
0:49:39 > 0:49:45that represented a lot of people - the downtrodden, the underdog,
0:49:45 > 0:49:50the guy that don't bitch about everything,
0:49:50 > 0:49:56the guy that is still proud and didn't need to be cool.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58I think that is what it said -
0:49:58 > 0:50:00you don't have to be cool to be great, you know.
0:50:02 > 0:50:08# In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. #
0:50:09 > 0:50:12The blue collar world view of country music
0:50:12 > 0:50:17makes it an easy target for those at the cutting edge of new political thinking,
0:50:17 > 0:50:19but sometimes, by following its heart,
0:50:19 > 0:50:22it comes out ahead of the game.
0:50:22 > 0:50:26# For years to wait. #
0:50:26 > 0:50:29# You've got to kiss an angel good morning
0:50:29 > 0:50:31# Let her know you think about her when you go
0:50:31 > 0:50:33# Kiss an angel good morning
0:50:33 > 0:50:35# And love her like the devil when you get back home. #
0:50:35 > 0:50:36What's wrong with that?
0:50:38 > 0:50:43As the civil rights movement began to change attitudes in the southern states,
0:50:43 > 0:50:48an African-American called Charley Pride took to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry
0:50:48 > 0:50:53to sing what had always been called "white man's blues".
0:50:53 > 0:50:59# Sweetheart, I'll give you all my love in every way I can
0:51:00 > 0:51:07# But make sure that's what you want while you're still free. #
0:51:08 > 0:51:12The most obvious thing about Charley Pride - and it's not always the thing
0:51:12 > 0:51:15that Charley would want to have talked about first,
0:51:15 > 0:51:20but you can't help but notice that he is the most successful African-American country singer
0:51:20 > 0:51:22in the history of the genre.
0:51:22 > 0:51:27It was, in some ways, a new thing to happen. There were country songs sung by black people,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30there was various sorts of black music that worked their way into country,
0:51:30 > 0:51:34but somebody who was singing outright honky tonk music
0:51:34 > 0:51:37with the same kind of back-up as every other country singer,
0:51:37 > 0:51:44whose vocal mannerisms were born of the Grand Ole Opry and Hank Williams and not of Memphis -
0:51:44 > 0:51:48"But I like country songs" - was a new thing to succeed.
0:51:48 > 0:51:53It wasn't easy, but he made it work. When people heard him sing it worked,
0:51:53 > 0:51:55because he sounds like a classic country singer.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00# Is anybody going to San Antone?
0:52:00 > 0:52:03# Or Phoenix, Arizona?
0:52:03 > 0:52:07# Any place is all right as long as I
0:52:07 > 0:52:11# Can forget I've ever known her. #
0:52:11 > 0:52:15My oldest sister used to say, "Why are you singing THEIR songs?"
0:52:15 > 0:52:20My oldest sister - same mother. "Why are you singing THEIR songs?"
0:52:20 > 0:52:23I said, "Well, no, it's MY songs, too."
0:52:23 > 0:52:27If I want to sing them, I would sing what I heard on the Grand Ole Opry,
0:52:27 > 0:52:32like Ernest Tubb and Eddy Arnold, all those guys,
0:52:32 > 0:52:35and so I emulated them.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39# Is anybody going to San Antone?
0:52:39 > 0:52:43# or Phoenix, Arizona?
0:52:43 > 0:52:46# Any place is all right as long as I
0:52:46 > 0:52:51# Can forget I've ever known her. #
0:52:51 > 0:52:53The fact that he wanted to sing Hank Williams songs
0:52:53 > 0:52:57and the songs about crystal chandeliers.
0:52:57 > 0:52:59He sang songs about class, in a, kind of, you know,
0:52:59 > 0:53:03"You're going to go off to your rich friend with the crystal chandeliers."
0:53:03 > 0:53:06He transcended race because it was really great country music.
0:53:06 > 0:53:09# Forget I've ever known her. #
0:53:12 > 0:53:15Despite the breakthrough of Charley Pride,
0:53:15 > 0:53:18country music couldn't shake off its redneck reputation.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21By the '70s, long hair and drugs were everywhere -
0:53:21 > 0:53:23except the Grand Ole Opry.
0:53:23 > 0:53:27Merle Haggard's Okie From Muskogee had suggested there was no place
0:53:27 > 0:53:30for hippies in country music, but soon,
0:53:30 > 0:53:33the barbarians would be at the gates of Nashville itself.
0:53:36 > 0:53:41# Whisky river don't run dry
0:53:41 > 0:53:44# You're all I've got Take care of me. #
0:53:45 > 0:53:49Under the influence of the times, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
0:53:49 > 0:53:52started playing a different sort of country music.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55'Every generation probably wants to say'
0:53:55 > 0:54:00their music is the real one. I think, in a way, that outlaw music
0:54:00 > 0:54:03was just a representation of what was going on in the world,
0:54:03 > 0:54:06that people were now, instead of drinking whisky, smoking pot.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09So they needed country music that went along with that.
0:54:12 > 0:54:17It appealed to everybody. It appealed to the rednecks, to hippies,
0:54:17 > 0:54:18rock and rollers - everybody.
0:54:20 > 0:54:24# Where does it go? Lord only knows
0:54:24 > 0:54:27# Seems like it was just the other day. #
0:54:27 > 0:54:30The movement became known as The Outlaws,
0:54:30 > 0:54:35after the 1976 album that sold a million copies.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38It looked like a wanted poster from the Wild West
0:54:38 > 0:54:42and established the straggly beard as the must-have accessory
0:54:42 > 0:54:44of modern country music.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47# All them lovable losers
0:54:47 > 0:54:49# And no account boozers
0:54:49 > 0:54:53# And honky tonk heroes like me. #
0:54:53 > 0:54:56In the end, it all comes back to the singing cowboy films,
0:54:56 > 0:55:01but Waylon and Willie didn't want to be on the side of law and order.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04Their heroes were the outsiders, not the sheriff.
0:55:05 > 0:55:10Sometimes, the bad guys were the most interesting ones in the movies.
0:55:10 > 0:55:15So it is fun, I think, to look at the rock and roll guys and also
0:55:15 > 0:55:17people like Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings,
0:55:17 > 0:55:21who migrated towards the black hat, the black clothes and, you know,
0:55:21 > 0:55:24people like Keith Richards and Ringo Starr have talked about
0:55:24 > 0:55:28how they were really influenced by the cowboys and the westerns.
0:55:28 > 0:55:31But they definitely went for that outlaw look.
0:55:31 > 0:55:35All the outlaws were just doing it their way and then the business
0:55:35 > 0:55:42or the system caught on, "Oh, wow! This is... They look a little rough, but, wow,
0:55:42 > 0:55:45"they are actually drawing in country people and hippies
0:55:45 > 0:55:52"and bikers and business people, all in the same roof."
0:55:52 > 0:55:58So, it opened up a lot of doors, that's for sure.
0:56:00 > 0:56:01# Oh, all them lovable losers
0:56:01 > 0:56:03# And no account boozers
0:56:03 > 0:56:06# And honky tonk heroes like me. #
0:56:14 > 0:56:15Have a good time!
0:56:15 > 0:56:18CHEERING
0:56:22 > 0:56:25The Outlaws broadened the audience for country music
0:56:25 > 0:56:28and helped it lose its uptight image,
0:56:28 > 0:56:31but that was nothing compared to the impact
0:56:31 > 0:56:34of a woman from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee,
0:56:34 > 0:56:38who set her sights on global domination.
0:56:40 > 0:56:41Dolly Parton struck gold,
0:56:41 > 0:56:44with a formula that still endures to this day.
0:56:44 > 0:56:46She was more hillbilly than ever,
0:56:46 > 0:56:49but she wrapped it up in bright new packaging.
0:56:51 > 0:56:53She brought joy back to the music,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56disarming the critics with her dumb blonde exterior,
0:56:56 > 0:56:58and became a superstar.
0:56:58 > 0:57:00# Do-do-dooo!
0:57:00 > 0:57:02# You look at me that way
0:57:02 > 0:57:04# I know what your eyes say
0:57:04 > 0:57:08# Your eyes reflect love and desire
0:57:08 > 0:57:11# I see that you need me I need you to please me
0:57:11 > 0:57:15# You touch me and set me on fire. #
0:57:17 > 0:57:19Dolly was keenly aware of showbusiness.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23She was performing from a young age and I think even in her early days,
0:57:23 > 0:57:28she knew how to handle the spotlight and how to maximise it for herself.
0:57:28 > 0:57:32But it was her way of creating a character that was very memorable
0:57:32 > 0:57:36and again, going back to being showbiz, to becoming an icon.
0:57:37 > 0:57:42# Back through the years I go wandering once again
0:57:42 > 0:57:45# Back to the seasons of my youth. #
0:57:45 > 0:57:49She had the necessary tough childhood, to give her authenticity,
0:57:49 > 0:57:52but it was far from tragic.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55She brought a showbiz glamour to her hillbilly roots
0:57:55 > 0:57:58and took country music into a whole new era.
0:57:58 > 0:58:00# Rags of many colours
0:58:00 > 0:58:04# But every piece was small and I didn't have a coat
0:58:04 > 0:58:07# And it was way down... #
0:58:07 > 0:58:11We lived so hard. I mean, every day was a struggle.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14If you've got a house full of kids, like we did, Mom and Daddy had 12,
0:58:14 > 0:58:19and we lived in these old, cold houses. We had no electricity
0:58:19 > 0:58:23and we didn't have enough firewood to keep the whole house warm.
0:58:23 > 0:58:26We had to get dressed up to go to bed.
0:58:26 > 0:58:29We had to bundle up in clothes to get in the bed, where the snow
0:58:29 > 0:58:32would come through cracks in the walls.
0:58:32 > 0:58:37Well, why wouldn't you feel...? You know, you lived that, you feel it.
0:58:39 > 0:58:44# Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
0:58:44 > 0:58:48# I'm begging of you Please don't take my man. #
0:58:48 > 0:58:52Before Dolly, women in country songs were forever trapped
0:58:52 > 0:58:54in destructive relationships with men.
0:58:54 > 0:58:57Dolly was too independent for that.
0:58:57 > 0:59:01Even Jolene is actually a dialogue between women.
0:59:01 > 0:59:03# Your beauty is beyond compare
0:59:03 > 0:59:05# With flaming locks of auburn hair
0:59:05 > 0:59:09# With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green. #
0:59:09 > 0:59:15Above all things that I do, I consider myself a songwriter.
0:59:15 > 0:59:21And in order to be a true artist, you have to be so open,
0:59:21 > 0:59:24you have to be so vulnerable.
0:59:24 > 0:59:27# There's nothing I can do to keep from crying
0:59:27 > 0:59:31# When he called your name, Jolene. #
0:59:31 > 0:59:34You give that feeling a voice, you give that emotion.
0:59:34 > 0:59:36# ..could easily take my man
0:59:36 > 0:59:39# But you don't know what he means to me, Jolene. #
0:59:39 > 0:59:44And I know how people like us write these God-awful sad songs
0:59:44 > 0:59:46and really mean them, because we feel that.
0:59:46 > 0:59:50And I feel everything, to the depths of my soul.
0:59:52 > 0:59:53By the 1990's,
0:59:53 > 0:59:57it seemed like the best days of country music were over.
0:59:57 > 1:00:01Garth Brooks turned country into arena spectacle
1:00:01 > 1:00:03and sold millions of albums,
1:00:03 > 1:00:07but it didn't resonate across the world.
1:00:07 > 1:00:12More recently, Taylor Swift has made country music for a teen audience,
1:00:12 > 1:00:16but the era of the great country music icons may well be over.
1:00:16 > 1:00:23# And I'm so lonesome I could cry. #
1:00:23 > 1:00:26The extreme hardships of rural life, that produced many
1:00:26 > 1:00:31of the country music legends has, thankfully, gone away,
1:00:31 > 1:00:34but this may have cut the music off from its roots.
1:00:35 > 1:00:38Without the authentic background of community and pain,
1:00:38 > 1:00:41country music may struggle to connect with the hearts
1:00:41 > 1:00:45of a worldwide audience, the way it used to.
1:00:45 > 1:00:50Dolly Parton may be the last country music legend.
1:00:52 > 1:00:55Even with all the glamour and all the other businesses
1:00:55 > 1:00:56and all the stuff I do,
1:00:56 > 1:00:59you'd be shocked to know how little I still am,
1:00:59 > 1:01:05how small and how vulnerable and how country, and how I am still
1:01:05 > 1:01:09so that little girl, cos I hang onto that,
1:01:09 > 1:01:10cos that's who I really am.
1:01:24 > 1:01:28# I hurt myself today
1:01:28 > 1:01:32# To see if I still feel. #
1:01:32 > 1:01:36When Johnny Cash recorded Hurt in 2002,
1:01:36 > 1:01:39it was a rage against the dying of his own light,
1:01:39 > 1:01:42as a man and a country music icon,
1:01:42 > 1:01:46but it could also be seen as a requiem for the lost world
1:01:46 > 1:01:50that originally gave us the joy of country music.
1:01:52 > 1:01:55# My sweetest friend
1:01:57 > 1:02:02# Everyone I know
1:02:02 > 1:02:06# Goes away, in the end
1:02:08 > 1:02:13# And you could have it all
1:02:13 > 1:02:17# My empire of dirt
1:02:18 > 1:02:22# I will let you down
1:02:23 > 1:02:26# I will make you hurt. #
1:02:29 > 1:02:32Everybody can identify with... not feeling too good.
1:02:32 > 1:02:37You can put on your country music and try and get away
1:02:37 > 1:02:39from all your problems.
1:02:41 > 1:02:44# You are someone else. #
1:02:44 > 1:02:48Country music is, kind of, the place that anyone who has lived life
1:02:48 > 1:02:54goes to, if they have a heart. Those songs speak to everybody.
1:02:54 > 1:02:56It's like, it's funny, it's sad,
1:02:56 > 1:02:59but...I love it.
1:02:59 > 1:03:01# My sweetest friend. #
1:03:01 > 1:03:06People like country music because it's real. It's country!
1:03:06 > 1:03:09It makes you tingle, makes you feel so alive.
1:03:09 > 1:03:12It makes your heart beat faster, it makes you sweat.
1:03:12 > 1:03:17# And you could have it all. #
1:03:17 > 1:03:19You don't always cry alone.
1:03:19 > 1:03:21When you laugh, you don't always laugh alone.
1:03:21 > 1:03:26'Even though it is painful, it's a joy for everybody.'
1:03:26 > 1:03:32It's like, "Wow! That really hit home" or, "Jesus!" You have an effect, you have a power.
1:03:32 > 1:03:37# If I could start again
1:03:39 > 1:03:43# A million miles away
1:03:44 > 1:03:47# I would keep myself
1:03:50 > 1:03:55# I would find a way. #
1:03:58 > 1:04:00# Yeah, I caught you honky-tonking with my best friend
1:04:00 > 1:04:03# The thing to do was leave you but I should have left then
1:04:03 > 1:04:06# Now I'm too old to leave you but I still get sore
1:04:06 > 1:04:09# When you come home a-feelin' for the knob on the door
1:04:12 > 1:04:14# Tell me why, baby, why, baby Why, baby, why
1:04:14 > 1:04:18# You make me cry, baby, cry, baby # Cry, baby, cry?
1:04:20 > 1:04:23# I can't help but love you till the day that I die
1:04:23 > 1:04:26# So tell me why, baby, why, baby Why, baby, why? #