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November 11, 2005 Alexander Cockburn November 10, 2005 Peterside,
Ogon, Watts and Zalik Pat Williams Steve Higgs Jimmy Massey Lucson Pierre-Charles Anthony Newkirk Lawrence R.
Velvel Website of the Day November 9, 2005 Gary Leupp Tariq Ali Chris Floyd Elaine Cassel Joshua Frank Alison Weir Diana Johnstone
Paul Craig
Roberts Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Jim McGrath David Bloom Stan Goff
November 7, 2005 Dick Reavis Jason Leopold Dave Lindorff Eli Stephens David Swanson M. Junaid Alam Matt Reichel Naima Bouteldja Jeff Halper Website of the Day
November 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Lawrence R.
Velvel Diana Johnstone Roosa / Nevins Niranjan Ramakrishnan John Ross Mike Whitney Mark Engler Juliano Mer-Khamis Ron Jacobs Jill S. Farrell Missy Comley
Beattie Mitchel Cohen Evelyn J. Pringle Reza Fiyouzat Charles Sullivan Zachary Richard Ben Tripp St. Clair / Vest
November 4, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Dave Lindorff Phillip Cryan Christopher Brauchli William S.
Lind Daryl G. Kimball George Beres Peter Montague
November 3, 2005 James Petras Saul Landau Rep. Cynthia McKinney Michael Dickinson Joshua Frank Remi Kanazi Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
November 2, 2005 Cockburn /
St. Clair Robert Oscar Lopez John Walsh Brian J. Foley Ramzy Baroud M. Junaid Alam Todd Chretien Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
November 1, 2005 Ron Jacobs Gary Leupp John Ross Bill Quigley Joseph Nevins Dave Lindorff Linda S. Heard Heather Gray Michael Dickinson Jeffrey St. Clair
October 31, 2005 Elaine Cassel Mark Weisbrot Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Farooq Sulehria Nicole Colson Madis Senner Paul Craig
Roberts
Cockburn /
St. Clair Peter Linebaugh Tim Wise John Chuckman Steven Higgs Brian Cloughley M. Shahid Alam Nikki Robinson Ralph Nader Joe DeRaymond Joshua Frank Laura Santina Fred Gardner Michael Dickinson Ron Jacobs Dr. Susan Block Vanessa S. Jones Jeffrey St.
Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
October 28, 2005 Jared Bernstein Virginia Tilley Phil Gasper Jennifer Matsui Manual Garcia,
Jr. Monica Benderman Jason Leopold Dave Lindorff
Saul Landau Stuart Hodkinson Ingmar Lee Lila Rajiva Ilan Pappe Niranjan Ramakrishnan Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Cockburn / St. Clair
October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly Gary Leupp Mike Marqusee Eric Ruder Patrick Cockburn Joshua Frank J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Website of
the Day
October 25, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Conn Hallinan Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Jackie Corr Robert Day John Sugg
October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Bill and Kathleen
Christison
October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Billy Sothern Saul Landau Ralph Nader Behrooz Ghamari Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Fred Gardner Lee Sustar Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen James Petras Joshua Frank Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Michelle Bollinger Missy Comley
Beattie Kona Lowell Ben Tripp Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff Winslow T. Wheeler Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Madis Senner Michael Donnelly
Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Jeremy Brecher
/ Patrick Cockburn Kevin Zeese Ross Eisenbrey Randy Shields Justine Davidson After Lucas
Cranach Joe Allen
October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Stephen Soldz Chet Richards Patrick Cockburn Scott Richard
Lyons Ralph Nader Website of
the Day
October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Ron Jacobs Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor Dave Lindorff Virginia Rodino Thomas Healy Ralph Nader Stephen Lendman Patrick Cockburn
October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Norman Solomon Cockburn /
Sengupta Mike Whitney Uri Avnery Harold Pinter Website of
the Day
October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Neve Gordon Moshe Adler Christopher Brauchli Diane Farsetta Sam Husseini Monica Benderman Mickey Z. Douglas C.
Smyth Lee Sustar Fred Gardner Elizabeth Schulte Joshua Frank David Vest Ben Tripp Poets Basement Website of
the Weekend
October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen Ron Jacobs Sasha Kramer Katrina Yeaw Nicole Colson Raúl Zibechi Nikolas Kozloff Website of the Day
Jeremy Scahill Jeff Birkenstein Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Stan Cox Anis Memon Gary Leupp Dave Zirin Matthew Koehler Werther Website of
the Day
Omar Waraich William Cook Phil Gasper Dave Lindorff Matt Vidal John Gautreaux Diana Johnstone Mark Weisbrot Brian J. Foley Website of
the Day
October 11, 2005 Roger Morris
/ Steve Schmidt Lila Rajiva Bill Quigley Paul Craig Roberts Dave Lindorff Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Mitchel Cohen Tariq Ali Website of
the Day
October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig
Corrie Joshua Frank Gideon Levy Alan Wallis Mickey Z. CounterPunch News Service Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ralph Nader Jennifer Van Bergen Saul Landau Jeff Halper Lenni Brenner Nikolas Kozloff Brian Cloughley Alice Slater John Gautreaux Fred Gardner Niranjan Ramakrishnan M.G. Piety Tom Gorman Mike Whitney Aseem Shrivastava Ben Tripp Poets' Basement
October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson Will Youmans Dave Lindorff Judith Scherr Russell D. Hoffman Jared Bernstein Jennifer Van
Bergen Website of
the Day
P. Sainath Scott Parkin Paul Craig
Roberts Andréa Schmidt Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank M. Junaid Alam Matthew Koehler Robert Pollin
October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Robert Jensen Ramzy Baroud Col. Dan Smith Dave Zirin Paul Craig Roberts Alan Maass
October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Mike Roselle Joshua Frank John Chuckman Alan Farago Mickey Z. Christine & Ethan Rose Gary Leupp Website of the Day
October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank Seth Sandronsky Jeffrey St. Clair
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November 11, 2005 The Rebel King of BluegrassJimmy Martin: an AppreciationBy MICHAEL NEUMANN Jimmy Martin died on May 14, 2005. He was ornery, and, if his spirit looked down on the world, he might have bitched about the death notices. They did, inevitably, call him "a bluegrass legend", and a 2003 documentary had called him "king of bluegrass". But every category of popular music teems with legends and kings, and the obituaries were few, short, perfunctory. For my money, Jimmy Martin was indeed the king of bluegrass, the greatest of them all, greater than the great Ralph Stanley, greater even than the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe. I would like to try and give him his due. Search the internet for "Ralph Stanley" and "bluegrass", then for "Jimmy Martin" and "bluegrass". The first search gets over four times as many hits as the second. But try and argue with the music itself. Jimmy Martin had a passion in his voice stronger than any other bluegrass vocalist. His writing was superb. He and his band played with an assurance, an attack, a perfect balance of technical brilliance and restraint that has never been equaled. Next to Jimmy's best numbers, everyone else, for all the beauty and talent of their music, sounds just a bit tame, just a bit thin, or just a bit too eager for public acclaim. None of them wanted that acclaim more than Jimmy did, but none were as unwilling to compromise their music in return for fame or fortune.  The sad irony of bluegrass music today is that what passes for uncompromising integrity is just the opposite, a compromise designed to sell records. True bluegrass, I'm convinced, is and always has been commercial music, commercial country music. Let me try and explain why I believe this. Many of the bluegrass greats did grow up in humble cabins, way up in the mountains or off in the hills. They really did grow up with traditional mountain music. But traditional mountain music never was bluegrass, and bluegrass musicians, at least until sometime in the 1960s, shared two pressingly urgent desires. The first was to develop a new music, so demanding that only seasoned professionals like themselves could play it. The second was to parlay that music into a ticket out of poverty and out of the hills. Bluegrass music never was an expression of Appalachian folkways. It was always highly individualistic and aggressively competitive. Bluegrass musicians did not want to sit around the old homestead playing Child ballads; they wanted respect. And money: this was no betrayal of anything; this was a real need. The original idea was to make money by making it in country music. Bill Monroe was a fixture on the Grand Old Opry, and Jimmy Martin bitterly wanted the same status. Many fine bluegrass musicians--Stringbean, Charlie Moore, Hylo Brown, Lonzo and Oscar, Flatt and Scruggs--originally or persistently worked in the country music field, and prized their country hits. Where else, after all, was the money? A pop music audience would laugh at them, and, until well into the 1960s, the big money in folk music was reserved for preternaturally well-scrubbed frat types like The Kingston Trio, The Tarriers and The Limeliters. So bluegrass musicians oriented themselves towards a country music audience, and, of course, they were part of that audience. Like anyone who wanted out of Appalachia, they loved the modern sound of Hank Williams, Don Gibson, Lefty Frizzell and Johnny Cash. Things changed. Elvis hit country music hard, and the opportunities for real success in that area contracted harshly. Country music reacted by moving towards pop and its own ideas of urban sophistication, ideas which left bluegrass out in the cold. Bluegrass musicians saw their dreams fading fast. What happened then is best described by Richard Smith in his life of Bill Monroe: "On Sunday, June 24, 1962, Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys were booked at Sunset Park .... During an intermission, Monroe was approached by a tall, slender young man ... . Monroe recognized him. He was one of a coterie of northerners who had been attending his shows for several years. ...They taped his shows. ...And unlike the southerners, they did not request Monroe's country hits but the old-time mountain numbers--"Pretty Polly," "Little Maggie," "Black Jack Davy." Their interest in what people were calling folk songs mildly surprised Monroe, but he obliged them." These songs--which today figure so prominently in the repertory of Ralph Stanley--were already known to budding ethnomusicologists like Ralph Rinzler, the young man described by Smith, and to folk aficionados who'd heard them from the mainstream folk acts. Here was an audience, a young audience, kids with money, too. Bluegrass musicians had never suspected their existence, much less seen them as a source of income or a road to fame. But now, as Smith says, Monroe started to oblige this crowd, and a crowd it did become. Other musicians quickly followed suit. So here is the irony: the music which so many today, at least in the North, identify as the very soul of bluegrass, the hallmark of uncompromising musical purity, was on the contrary a commercially motivated switch away from what bluegrass really had been. And the commercial stuff, the country numbers the Yankees didn't want to hear--well, that was the soul of bluegrass music. Call it a mere matter of taste if you like but for me, that's where the soul of bluegrass music remains. In that sense, Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley deserted bluegrass--and a more talented, beautiful, magnificent desertion there has never been. But then again, I am never quite convinced when Ralph warbles a mountain tune, as if he'd never dreamt of driving a shiny new Cadillac and getting his hands on some hot blonde in a tight sweater. (Jimmy left little to doubt on this score. Not for him the fair maiden in the humble cabin: "I got a gal Cincinnati, I got a woman in San Antone.") And I certainly wasn't convinced when Bill Monroe put on the same act. For all their brilliance, this does undermine their music just a tiny bit. Jimmy Martin never made the switch. No doubt he would have been happy to sell out in that almost insignificant way, but he just couldn't. And maybe that's why his music sounds both so 'inauthentic' and so real. He does not play the folk musician, ever respectful of tradition; he is always what he always was: the entirely modern, proud, individualistic, consummately professional country musician with a fiery wish to be widely heard and well paid. His signature tune, a crystal-clear blues called "I'm a Freeborn Man", declared that he had made his choices and he'd stick to them:
This intransigence put Jimmy
Martin on the losing end of the irony, because his commercialism
didn't sell. I doubt it was much compensation to him that his
music soared just a bit higher than all the rest.
He loved women all right, and his hopes were high:
But he could laugh at his failures, even when the husband walked in a broke his jaw. His love songs are straightforward and, for the most part, portray an ordinary 20th century guy who wants women, and, once he has them, offers true if unspectacular love. When rejected, he projected hurt pride and fragile confidence:
...and the baseball metaphor
is a reminder that quite a few Southern musicians took to semi-pro
ball as Plan B.
We're a long way from "Pretty Polly". Jimmy Martin took bluegrass where it always wanted to be. Too he never got where he always wanted to be. Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent
University in Ontario, Canada. Professor Neumann's views are
not to be taken as those of his university. His book What's
Left: Radical Politics and the Radical Psyche has just
been republished by Broadview Press. He contributed the essay,
"What is Anti-Semitism", to CounterPunch's book, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. This fall CounterPunch/AK
Press will publish Neumann's new book, The
Case Against Israel. He can be reached at: mneumann@trentu.ca.
The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair                       |
