While I know little about the performer Beyoncé, I am rather certain that some future historians will find her recently-released crossover album into country music a valuable “cultural barometer” of our times. Cultural barometers are important for historians who want to grasp the popular mood of a particular era as opposed to the experiences and views of the political and cultural elites who typically dominate conventional historical accounts.
Beyoncé’s most recent album, for example, appears to bridge two forms of popular music that have competed for audiences since one of the most misunderstood decades in United States history. The 1920s are often referred to as the “Jazz Age.” With its eclectic array of instruments and distinctive emphasis on improvisation, jazz symbolized that era’s rebellious side. With deep roots in the African-American experience, jazz was at once a source of Black pride even as it also appealed to mainstream audiences — particularly young rebellious whites. The latter represented an ascendent “new America” whose irreverence for traditions typically associated with their parents and the rural, small-town culture of a descending “old America” fueled and reflected a host of “culture wars” that continue today.
Indeed, “old America” had its own form of popular music. What eventually became known as county music also had a following in the 20s. By 1925 the Grand Ole Opry reached nation-wide audiences via Nashville’s WSM radio. With origins in the British Isles and rural Appalachia, country music’s lilting tunes and nostalgic messages appealed to 1920s Americans who felt threatened by modernity.
Unleashed by the industrial explosion of the late-19th century, modernity’s aftershocks transformed nearly every facet of American life. The 1920 census that reported that the US population for the first time was evenly divided between rural and urban people affirmed the anxieties of those who found reassurance in country music.
This was a 1920s America that few non-historians recognize even today. Witness the “culture wars” that raged throughout the tumultuous decade: the clash between religion and science typified by the Scopes Trial in nearby Dayton, the well-intended but ultimately futile prohibition crusade, and the lure of conspiracies that blamed modernity’s ills on such vulnerable scapegoats as Blacks, immigrants, and non-Christian communities.
The rise and widespread embrace of a second Ku Klux Klan and passage of immigration legislation that clearly gave preference to Caucasian, Christian immigrants were other hallmarks of the era with persistent legacies that ebb and flow throughout our history. That they are at high tide in our own historical moment should merit our attention.
Still, we should be leery of overly simplified conclusions drawn from cultural barometers or the two forms of popular music that Beyoncé appears to be bridging. Revealingly fans of both genres turned to new technologies, Victrolas and radios, to hear the music of their choice. Moreover, neither the melting pot nor “appropriation” (the presumably shameless borrowing and mimicking of another group’s traditions) capture adequately the complicated dynamics of cultural interaction. Consider, for example, that two “traditional” country music instruments, the banjo and guitar, came to rural white America from Africa and Spanish Mexico. If you would like to learn more about this topic, check out Ken Burns’ superb documentaries on both jazz and country music.
The same give and take can be seen in the music that defined the youthful years of we aging baby boomers. Black groups like the Platters and Supremes, offered gentle tunes that explored universally adolescent themes (particularly raging hormones!) that appealed to white teenagers. Other performers, like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, and later Sam Cooke and a host of Soul musicians offered more strident styles and messages.
When white musicians, like Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, embraced traits pioneered by Black musicians, white teenagers flocked to “Rock n Roll.” Meanwhile Black musicians like Charlie Pride and Linda Merrel more cautiously made their way into the world of country music. In capitalist USA, financial rewards lent further credibility to the new, ever-evolving genres of popular music. Collectively all of this affirmed for many of us who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s new understandings of “we the people” that emerged from the transformative civil rights movement.
Back to Beyoncé. Future observers will no doubt learn much about our times from her distinctive routine and messages. Along with Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift, Beyoncé will reveal to future generations the dramatic changes in the lives of women that have occurred in our times and that are still unfolding. If they also offer glimpses that we are beginning to narrow longstanding cultural divides, future historians will proclaim them truly significant.
Mark Banker is a retired teacher and active historian. He can be reached at mtbanker1951@gmail.com.
