1969 - okie dokie

 Maybe 1968 was peak relevance for mainstream country music.  It was such a banger of a year, exciting artists coming into their own and releasing Hall of Fame-worthy material, 1969 had a tough act to follow.  And it seemed like the chart mellowed out at least a little, like everyone needed to catch a breather.  No less a barnstormer than Johnny Cash held down #1 for the first six weeks, but it was with the wholesome, sentimental, family-friendly “Daddy Sang Bass.”  It was penned by his longtime buddy and onetime fellow Sun Records hellraiser Carl Perkins; a couple weeks later (after another brief Jack Greene run with “Until My Dreams Come True”) their maybe-even-wilder cohort Jerry Lee Lewis would jumpstart the country-gold phase of his career with “To Make Love Sweeter For You,” a song of mature devotion and fidelity that was nice but kind of off-brand. Speaking of Sun Records, next up was a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Only The Lonely” by Sonny James; not a half-bad version, and there’s some cool organ work in there, but Orbison was such a singular artist as to be nearly cover-proof. Plus his original was less than ten years old at the time.

Buck Owens had established himself as not only a heavyweight hitmaker but also possibly the hippest of his contemporaries, with rock heavyweights like the Beatles and the Byrds avowing his influence, and maybe some of that influence boomeranged back. “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass” was as playful sonically as it was lyrically, with fuzzy, chunky guitars pushing along a cool, off-kilter dynamic. Loretta Lynn broke out the poison pen for some other hussy trying to ply her man with “Woman of the World (Leave My World Alone),” which was sweeter in tone than “Fist City” but still carried the same message, kind of like how “bless your heart” can more or less mean “fuck you” in certain southern ladies’ delivery. Like the former Sun Records guys, Lynn seemed to be dialing it down a bit for 1969.

Hell, the next #1 was also a #1 on the Easy Listening chart. And Glen Campbell’s “Galveston” is easy to listen to, because it’s really good. Warm, even a bit opulent in its orchestration, but grounded in a soldier’s story that was relevant in the Vietnam era without making any sort of larger point about it. Merle Haggard snatched up the mantle a few weeks later with “Hungry Eyes,” which has got to be just about the most morose #1 hit of its time. It’s a thing of weary beauty, specific and lived-in, but damn buddy. Great Depression indeed. Bill Anderson’s “My Life (Throw It Away If I Want To)” was depressing too, mostly just because of how clunky the phrasing and backing track were. Tammy Wynette broke its short reign with “Singing My Song,” another honeyed missive from the POV of an endlessly devoted housewife; also notably in 1969, she’d marry George Jones, which is probably as good a way as any to test one’s capacity for wifely devotion. 

Speaking of decisions that look questionable in retrospect, Sonny James’ cover of the former pop #1 “Running Bear” took over the country #1 for three weeks, and I think “questionable” is a good way to put it. I don’t blame somebody who thinks a white guy singing a song about Native Americans while “hoy-ya-hoy-ya” chants pulsate in the background is pretty insensitive. But you could also say that it’s a Romeo & Juliet riff that just happens to be about natives and borrows a few motifs but there’s nothing inherently disrespectful about their depiction here. I grew up hearing and liking this one and I’m not gonna pretend I retroactively hate it; it’s way better than Johnny Preston’s pop/swing version of it, if nothing else. Jack Greene stepped up his game too with his next #1, “Statue of a Fool.” After a few decent but forgettable tunes that still managed to hit #1, this time he earned the hell out of it with a bravura performance of an imagery-rich ballad.

Conway Twitty kept up his newfound habit of topping the chart with “I Love You More Today,” a slightly clunky tune that’s redeemed by the sincerity and sheer firepower in his vocals; it’s no “Hello Darlin’” but it’s worth rediscovery. Less compelling was Buck Owens next #1, a kind-of-half-assed live cover of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” where they don’t even bother nailing that signature opening guitar lick even though it was likely well within the Buckaroos’ talents. If racial considerations weren’t a thing, the stylings and lyrics of the Berry original probably would have fit just fine on country radio. Or maybe his timing was just wrong, because Charley Pride was up next with the first #1 of a career that was remarkable on several levels.

If you didn’t already know these things: Charley Pride was black, and successful country music artists were overwhelmingly not, and in the country music industry of the day even the most blatant racism was unlikely to be confronted. One can assume that the late Pride’s talent must have been matched by his capacity for patience and quiet courage, not to mention a healthy dose of intelligence and intuition. A single like “All I Have To Offer You (Is Me),” with its humble lyrics and wholesome affection, was a wise way to get a foot in the door, versus some horndog swagger that would’ve scared or pissed off most of the folks who were in a key position to help. Maybe I’m overthinking this more than they did: it’s a solid song, but it also sounds like something you’d release if you were concerned that your very presence might be a threat to some listeners.

Merle Haggard, on the other hand, could get ornery and prideful if the song called for it (and more and more, they would). “Workin’ Man Blues” marked the first time in a while that a song that spelled out the connection between blue-collar values and country music would hit #1, and the trend dug in so hard it’s more or less still in force today. While Hag was undeniably a very hard-working musician, it’s still a little weird to hear a man once sent up the river for petty theft thumbing his nose at welfare. It’d get more complicated soon though.

Haggard’s tune only punched the #1 clock one week, and then Johnny Cash and “A Boy Named Sue” made a five-week stay out of it. A genuinely funny story song penned by generational polymath Shel Silverstein, it was the perfect match for Cash’s blend of macho deadpan and incongruous goofiness, a filial grudge match that’s both a bit absurd and strikingly easy to picture. “Tall Dark Stranger” by Buck Owens was similarly cinematic but without the laughs, and it only stood its tallest for a week. He wouldn’t hit #1 at all again until 1972, and after that never again as a solo artist. There was more to it than just his approach going out of style or the field getting too crowded, but we’ll get to it when we get to it.

Longtime chart warhorse Sonny James scored his third #1 of the year with “Since I Met You Baby,” and like the others it was a cover of a non-country tune from about a decade prior. R&B journeyman Ivory Joe Hunter, the song’s originator, would cross over into country a little himself in the ‘70s (perhaps emboldened by Charley Pride?), scoring no major hits but notching a few Grand Ole Opry performances. James’ version was faithful to the original, they’re both sweet little time capsules. Tammy Wynette took on dutiful-woman duty again with “The Ways to Love a Man,” a bit more breathlessly sexy than her other recent hits, and Conway Twitty scored his best #1 since his late-‘50s breakthrough with the near-raging pathos of “To See My Angel Cry.” 

And then Merle Haggard came back in, all hard twang and even harder sneer, with the self-penned country music landmark “Okie From Muskogee.” Much discussion has been made over whether he was dead serious, satirical, or somewhere in between when he wrote and recorded this declaration of Middle America pride, lauding the good ol’ boys pitchin’ woo at their wholesome hometown gals but spending even more time basically telling the hippies, draft dodgers, and other ungrateful malcontents they could stick it. If he meant it, you can hardly call the man out-of-touch: it was a confrontational time, and folks with a sincere belief in American exceptionalism had every right to stand up for themselves verbally. On the off chance he was totally (or just mostly) joking, the joke was largely on him, because the fans singing along sure as hell embraced it at face value. 

Charley Pride wrapped up the year on a more melancholy note with “(I’m So) Afraid of Losing You Again,” which, aside from those extraneous parentheses and a whole industry full of Okies-in-spirit reckoning with their first homegrown black star, was a pretty straightforward country weeper that again foregrounded a sort of low-key humility to help ease audiences into the idea. And while there’s something to be said for playing the long game, maybe it’s too bad they didn’t just have Charley Pride sing “Okie From Muskogee” and somehow manage to piss everyone off at once.

THE TREND?

If you could somehow conclusively prove that Merle Haggard was being satirical instead of sincere on “Okie From Muskogee” (he was coy about it later in life) then maybe you could argue country music was getting a bit progressive in 1969. Breakthrough black artist scoring two #1s, stalwarts Buck Owens and Sonny James covering hits by black artists they admire, Owens toying with psychedelic sounds, aging rock stars welcomed into the fold, a whole song (however iffy) about Native American romance … hell, maybe even “A Boy Named Sue” was sort of an olive branch to folks who don’t conform to traditional gender norms (it probably was not). They didn’t call it “woke” back then and you probably wouldn’t today, even with that term at your disposal. But it wasn’t stodgy, and that’s something.

THE RANKING:

1. Okie From Muskogee (Merle Haggard)
2. A Boy Named Sue (Johnny Cash)
3. Galveston (Glen Campbell)
4. Daddy Sang Bass (Johnny Cash)
5. Statue of a Fool (Jack Greene)
6. Hungry Eyes (Merle Haggard)
7. To See My Angel Cry (Conway Twitty)
8. Running Bear (Sonny James)
9. (I’m So) Afraid of Losing You Again (Charley Pride)
10. Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass (Buck Owens)
11. All I Have to Offer You (Is Me) (Charley Pride)
12. Workin’ Man Blues (Merle Haggard)
13. Singing My Song (Tammy Wynette)
14. To Make Love Sweeter For You (Jerry Lee Lewis)
15. Only the Lonely (Sonny James)
16. Tall Dark Stranger (Buck Owens)
17. Since I Met You Baby (Sonny James)
18. I Love You More Today (Conway Twitty)
19. Woman of the World (Leave My Man Alone) (Loretta Lynn)
20. Until My Dreams Come True (Jack Greene)
21. Johnny B. Goode (Buck Owens) (the original would’ve been #1)       
22. My Life (Throw It Away If I Want To) (Bill Anderson)

DOWN THE ROAD ...

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that sludge-rock legends The Melvins approached Hag's "Okie From Muskogee" at an ironic arm's length, unless some sort of punk contempt for hippies made them unlikely allies. But it's still fun to hear some noisy rockers appropriate a little twang here and there. This wasn't just a live lark, the prolific band included a version on their 2000 album The Crybaby.