The music America invented is booming, but now it’s trapped in a culture war. Louise Callaghan reports from a festival in deepest Kentucky.
The sun is high in the sky over a field outside Ashland, Kentucky, when Gavin Adcock takes to the stage at Rock the Country, billed as a “festival for the people”. In the crowd women in spangled cowboy boots eat corn dogs ($20, mustard included) and men toke on their pastel-coloured vapes.
They cheer for Adcock, a 25-year-old country artist who grew up on a farm in Watkinsville, Georgia. “I want to say something: f*** Joe Biden,” he yells, to whoops and applause. “There’s going to be a new president in November.”
About 26,000 people are expected to attend Rock the Country: within a few hours I’ve met people who have driven from as far as Key West, Florida (18 hours south), and Michigan to the north. Some are here for the music; the line-up includes Kid Rock and Nelly, the St Louis rapper big in the Noughties, who fell from grace after a fallout about tax and sexual assault allegations, which he settled. More than anything they have come to find a sense of belonging and pride in rural living that they believe has been slighted, overlooked and culturally dismissed by big-city types and politicians.
“We the people,” the slogan reads on one man’s cap, referring to the opening line of the American constitution, “are pissed off.” Another wears a T-shirt that says “Biden sucks, Kamala swallows”.
Country music has always danced across the political spectrum: think of the red, white and blue American ass-kicking conservatism of Charlie Daniels and Toby Keith, the libertarianism of Hank Williams Jr’s outlaw country, or the liberal progressivism of Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Loretta Lynn singing about taking the pill. The Dixie Chicks being ostracised after speaking out against the Iraq war and having to change their name to the Chicks. Even the bland, non-partisan politics of Dolly Parton skew towards acceptance and kindness, as well as flag-waving patriotism — although Taylor Swift went to great lengths to be apolitical in her early country music era.
But as America’s political polarisation has deepened along with the rise of Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again movement, so has its musical divides. Country has split down left and right; tours segregated by politics, colours nailed to the mast. The music has become entwined with culture wars: for both sides a way of expressing deeply held frustrations and finding kinship. Politicians have jumped on the bandwagon, with Republicans, in particular, trying to claim country for their own: a symbol of how Democrats are nothing more than Washington elites sneering down at ordinary folk.
It has caused a surge in popularity for country music, now the third most listened-to genre in the US, after rock and pop. Country music was streamed more than 20 billion times last year, a 23.7 per cent increase on 2022. Jason Aldean and Kid Rock have 8.8 million and 7.1 million monthly Spotify listeners respectively and Lee Greenwood has had more than 44 million streams for his song God Bless the USA.
The politicisation has put some musicians off; Maren Morris, a star with the mainstream crossover appeal many country artists dream of, left the genre last year because of the divisive politics.
In the Republican primary debate last August the first question the potential presidential candidates were asked was about a song, Rich Men North of Richmond, a folksy anti-elite screed that had gained traction among Republicans. The lyrics include: “I’ve been selling my soul working all day,/ Overtime hours for bullshit pay” (no matter that Oliver Anthony, who sang it, doesn’t seem to be a Trump supporter).
Jason Aldean, a country artist from Macon, Georgia, sparked a nationwide furore last year when he released Try That in a Small Town, a song glorifying vigilante justice. It was a Rorschach test for political affiliation: conservatives thought it was perfectly reasonable, liberals thought it was racist and dangerous.
And this spring Beyoncé presaged a mass outbreak of the vapours among Republicans by putting out an album, Cowboy Carter, that had more than 76 million streams globally in its first day and immediately hit No 1 in the country charts — the first time a black female artist had done so (although she made clear on Instagram: “This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album”). The rapper Post Malone and Lana Del Rey, purveyor of dreamy, nostalgic Americana, have both announced they will be putting out country albums. By any measure this divided climate is also a boom time for country music.
It’s not just a US phenomenon. The bestselling female country artist Shania Twain is taking the legend slot at Glastonbury, while Morgan Wallen, cancelled for using the n-word in 2021 (he has since apologised), is playing in Hyde Park on July 4. And at Oliver Anthony’s Shepherds Bush Empire gig in February the crowd chanted “Joe Biden’s a paedo” with him.
Cue Kid Rock and Aldean, Trump’s musical brothers in arms, holding a summer tour through red states in small-town America: half rally for the former president and his brand of defiant, aggrieved patriotism, half raucous music festival in places where usually things are fairly quiet.
“The crowd here are people who love America and love our military,” says Stephanie from Indiana, who is wearing a cowboy hat. “And that ain’t something you can say just anywhere.”
By far the biggest hit of the weekend, played regularly and repeatedly to reactions that lurch from rousing singing back to sombre patriotic reflection, is Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, the song that Trump comes on stage to at his rallies. When the chorus — “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free” — starts, I see more than one person wipe away a tear.
Free to do what, exactly? I ask guests what it is that they’ve been stopped from saying or doing, and I don’t get a straight answer. “All I know is they want to take our rights away,” Kim, 57, says with an air of finality.
Kris Kristofferson called country “probably the white man’s soul music”. But country music isn’t owned by rural white people. It developed over decades, as the music of the Appalachians was influenced by the blues and gospel of the black south. While most famous country singers are white, black artists have also had hits over the decades: Ray Charles put out a country album that was an enormous success in 1962. RJ Curtis, executive director of Country Radio Broadcasters Inc, has said that the definition of country music is becoming less siloed with artists from outside the genre coming in to give their version of it. “I think we should be open to that.”
Back at the festival I meet Charlie Shell, 38, a contractor, and Missy Leake, 45, a nurse, who have driven four hours up from Knoxville, Tennessee, to be in a crowd where they feel they belong.
Both of them wear Trump T-shirts — something they say they don’t feel safe doing elsewhere. “We don’t want to get looked at like: who are these crazy people?” For them, the fact that Aldean’s song was denounced as being racist was incomprehensible: the idea that in small towns they “take care of their own” and mete out justice was just normal.
![Beyoncé in Cowboy Carter mode. “Country is a way of life. [Beyoncé] probably wouldn’t know what a cow was if she saw one.” Photo / @beyonce](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/ZBYXVOWCKBCIZISX3ESZ5DYTOE.jpg?auth=5b511d8b921e6c832b74c8c0013fe9b4adae7464d8c03329df896d5f9b53ddfb&width=16&height=20&quality=70&smart=true)
At about 10pm I make some friends in the crowd, only to lose them by bringing up Beyoncé. “She ain’t no Tammy Wynette,” says Jonathan Cundiff, 60. “Country is a way of life. She probably wouldn’t know what a cow was if she saw one.”
When Beyoncé's first country album went straight to No 1, Cundiff, and others like him, saw it as unfair: a shortcut to the big time by stars who didn’t grow up with country music, pushing aside others who come from those roots who are trying to struggle to the top.
In another political life they might have called it cultural appropriation.
Daniella, from Indiana, is more explicit. “Country is white yokums, whining about shit,” she says. “Beyoncé, I like her, but she ain’t that.”
In two days at the festival I count about a dozen black people. Knequay, 43, from Michigan, is among them.
“I been to these things before, it don’t scare me,” she says. “Country is a mix of everything. As long as everyone is trying something new, that’s good.”
As we speak the announcer on the stage begins to talk about the giant cross in front of the stage. “This country was founded on Jesus Christ,” he shouts. “Everyone give it up to the cross right there.”
By 9pm on Saturday the crowd is boiling for Kid Rock to come on stage. If there’s an argument to be made that Beyoncé isn’t a country artist just because she put out a country album, the idea that Kid Rock’s anti-establishment Detroit rap-rock is country music seems even more far-fetched. As he launches into his set, bouncing across the stage in a white and gold tracksuit, two statues of American eagles start breathing smoke. Screens warn: “Snowflake advisory — real life ahead.” But not everyone is ready for quite so much real life. When the letters LGBT are flashed on to the screens by the stage, a man standing behind me, rolling drunk, can’t read the fine print above each letter: Liberty, Guns, Beer and Titties. “F*** that,” he yells. “We’re leaving.”
His wife talks him down. But the assault on his safe space, at a festival where he thought he could be among like-minded people, has clearly triggered him. At least he isn’t one of those snowflakes, though.
Biden v Trump campaign songs
By Blanca Schofield
All eyes are on the forthcoming American election, when a 77-year-old former TV personality — who last week was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme — could be re-elected as president. But all ears too as we start compiling lists of the songs the two main candidates opt for. Looking at the musical choices made by Trump and Biden in 2020, they won’t be going for indie swerves. No, last time it was very much classic cringefests like Eye of the Tiger and Queen’s We Are the Champions for Trump, and Lady Gaga’s The Edge of Glory (banger, to be fair) for Biden as well as Bill Withers’s Lovely Day and David Bowie’s Heroes. It’s early days yet, but here are the tracks of note so far:
Joe Biden
The diss track
Competing against Biden and Trump for the title of biggest rivalry of the year are the American rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar, whose feud has made headlines and resulted in at least ten diss tracks — on which they attack each other — some of which have topped the charts. Among them is Lamar’s Euphoria, which Biden’s team co-opted last month for an Instagram video attacking Trump, altering the lyrics to: “I hate the way you walk over women’s rights, the way that you talk about immigrants. I hate the way that you dress, I hate the way you sneak diss on Truth Social.” Snappy. Shortly after, the Democrat Brandon Scott used another Lamar diss track, Not Like Us, for his walk-out when he won the Baltimore mayoral election against Sheila Dixon. Never say Biden isn’t a trend-setter.
The Irish one
Ten of the President’s 16 great-great-grandparents were from Ireland, and don’t you forget it. When the BBC approached him in 2020, he turned away while saying, “The BBC? I’m Irish!” So his trip to the Emerald Isle last April was unsurprisingly a big affair, particularly when he made a WWE-style entrance to a speech in Ballina, Co Mayo (home of some of his ancestors) to the rousing tones of I’m Shipping Up to Boston by the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys. Bagpipes and emphatic drums galore.
Donald Trump
The awkward one
The presidential hopeful certainly doesn’t shy away from his legal troubles. One of his favourite campaign tactics is to use them as an example of the “witch-hunt” against him. Nonetheless, could his team really have meant for him to walk on stage at a Republican dinner in Iowa last July to the Brooks & Dunn country song Only in America, which contains the lyrics: “One could end up goin’ to prison, one just might be president”? A bit on the nose.
The classic
Lee Greenwood’s patriotic country call God Bless the USA (also known as Proud to Be an American) isn’t exactly an original choice. Ronald Reagan used it in 1984, as did George Bush Sr. Trump has taken it a step further, however, by teaming up with Greenwood to sell Bibles branded with an American flag, plus the title of the song, for the tidy sum of $59.99 — available on GodBlessTheUSABible.com (this isn’t a joke). And, of course, he blasts the song at his rallies. It’s an easy crowd-pleaser, true, but Trump doesn’t have that many other tunes left in his arsenal given there is an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the artists who have asked him not to use their music — among them are the Rolling Stones, Rihanna, Elton John … the list goes on. Best stick to Greenwood.
Written by: Louise Callaghan
© The Times of London