A Rap Fan's Guide to Country Music

Country music and rap music, so alike and yet so different. Different: banjos (Bubba Sparxxx excepted), general twanginess, pick-up trucks. Alike: occasionally racist, lots of guns, started (to some extent) by black people, yet fawned over by bearded white twenty-something transplanted Brooklynites. So, kissing cousins basically.

On Sunday the Academy of Country Music Awards popped off and, full disclosure and all: we didn't watch. Contemporary country music is real popular, and that dress with the tassels Kacey Musgrave wore at the Grammys was pretty cool, but today's country music is a watered down, formulaic derivative of classic country. Put it this way: music fans who try to argue rap music is better today than it was 20 years ago should be gently patted on the head and tucked in at nap time. Music fans who try to argue that country music is better today than it was 50 years ago should be shot. (Hey, told you they like guns. Also: totes and absolutes kidding. Need it be said? Please don't shoot anyone.)

But enough about shooting people! Country music has a rich and varied history, and it has rewards for open-minded listeners. It's half past noon somewhere, time to draw the blinds, pour a shot and a beer, and hear that lonesome whistle blow. Here's a Rap Fan's Guide to Country Music.

Country music from its beginnings has often been uncompromising and confrontational. It began in the early 20th Century as a hybrid of Black Talking Blues and White Rural Folk. At the time there was Black Entertainment and White Entertainment with no crossover. Then came Jimmie Rodgers, country music's first superstar. The so-called Father of Country, Rodgers' hits include “In the Jailhouse Now,” “My Rough and Rowdy Ways,” “A Drunkard’s Child,” “Pistol Packin’ Papa,” “Those Gambler’s Blues,” and “I’m Free from the Chain Gang Now.” Where Kool Herc was the first to realize (or the first to get credit for realizing) that you could isolate just the hottest breaks to give MCs a foundation to rap over, Rodgers was the first to combine blues and folk on a large scale. Of course he died at age 35 from tuberculosis. No one said this life was easy.

The original OG and undisputed King of Country Music was not Johnny Cash but Hank Williams (Sr., not to be confused with his slicker, Bocephus and "Are You Ready for Some Football?" singing son Hank Jr.). Sure Johnny wore black, did time, and wrote songs about prison, dope and guns, but in country circles Hank is more than a King, he's a legend. Like Tupac and Big he died young in a car with conspiracy theories swirling (Hank passed at 29 of a morphine and alcohol-induced heart attack in the backseat of a Cadillac convertible on the way to a show). His music hinted at a death wish, he was reckless and he played by his own rules despite himself, living on a steady diet of alcohol, morphine and amphetamines. His hits included "Honky Tonkin," "Ramblin' Man," "The Devil's Train," "Too Many Parties, Too Many Pals," "Wild Side of Life," and "Wealth Won't Save Your Soul."

The Bakersfield Sound was a rejection of the slick Nashville Sound and a return to country's grittier roots, led by Buck Owens' "Streets of Bakersfield" and "Swingin' Doors." But it was Merle Haggard, a small-time hood, who brought it to mainstream audiences. Haggard did real time for armed robbery, and landed in San Quentin after trying to escape from a county Jail. During a Johnny Cash appearance at the Prison, he was inspired to turn his life around and record the hits "Lonesome Fugitive," "Branded," "Life in Prison," "My Rough and Rowdy Ways" (a Jimmie Rodgers), "Drank Up and Be Somebody," "Fighting Side of Me," "I Made the Prison Band," and "I Got No Reason to Quit."

Honky tonk was rock before there was rock. Honky tonk thumbed its nose at the traditional country scene which was about mountains and church going; Honky Tonk was about going to the bar, getting drunk, dancing and scoring women and if sometimes that led to a fight so be it. An offshoot of honky tonk was rockabilly, which cranked up the beat.

Johnny Cash's street cred or status as a giant not only in country music but music as a whole cannot be denied. The Man in Black as he's known started out as the original Outlaw, he drugged, he drank, womanized, robbed, and stole, and like Hank he had a rap sheet, arrested several times as a result of his alcohol and drug addictions. His songbook reflects it: "Long Black Veil," "Folsom Prison Blues," and "I Got Stripes." Johnny also went back to his roots giving live performances at Folsom Prison and San Quentin. Later in life he solidified his legacy with his American Recordings produced by Rick Rubin.

By the mid '60s a formula was set and stagnation ruled the country airwaves. The Nashville Sound with its slick production ruled the airwaves. It was either conform to the formula or become an Outlaw. A group of pissed off musicians snorted some coke ($1500 a day in the case of Waylon Jennings), said "Fuck All Y'all," and started playing, producing, and recording their own music, and the Outlaw Scene was born.

Merle Haggard took it to another level. Of all the Country Bad Boys, Merle did real time with a stint in San Quentin on his resume. "Mama Tried" "Life in Prison" Merle again bucked the establishment during the 1970's when he joined Jennings' "Outlaw" Movement.

Most know that Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg share a love of reefer, but they also have a history of arrests and guns. During the '50s Texas honky tonks were rough and rowdy places where knife fights and flying beer bottles were commonplace. Most bands that played these bars carried firearms for protection. It was here that Willie Nelson made his name. Willie hired a local gangster, who eventually became his full time drummer, to be his strong arm and to collect debts. His entire entourage carried pistols. For Willie, "Outlaw" wasn't just a movement it was his way of life.

Nelson earned the nickname "Shotgun Willie" when he got into a multiple shootouts in the '60s and '70s with his son-in-law after he beat Willie's daughter Lana. Shots fired, police called, no arrests. In the late '70s, Willie was involved in another shootout at the Birmingham Coliseum. When police arrived Willie, approached them with two Colt .45 pistols tucked into his shorts (barrels poking out the bottom). Once again shots fired, no arrests.

Now, of course, Willie, like Snoop, is an universally acknowledged upstanding citizen.

For a genre that's pretty misogynistic ("Hey rap! We see y'all!"), country music has an incredibly rich tradition of female performers. With respect to Kitty Wells, who was dubbed the Queen of Country Music, Patsy Cline was the real Queen of the sound, with the tragic backstory to go with it: she died in 1963 at the age of 30 in a plane crash en route to a gig.

Wanda Jackson was a leading rockabilly singer in the '50s, with a sound and attitude that informed rock 'n' roll and punk rock:

On the opposite end of the spectrum was Loretta Lynn, who found great success in the conventional Nashville Sound of the '60s and '70s before starring in Coal Miner's Daughter in 1980. In 2004 she teamed with Jack White for an inter-generational mashup that produced some of the most interesting contemporary country music:

Your dog died, your lady left you, your mom ran off with your pick-up. If those aren't reasons to drink, we don't know what are. Country songs about drinking tend to focus on the negative aspects of the party more than rap songs do. But, they're often funny, even intentionally so. Here, in no particular order, a random and severely abridged collection of country songs about drinking: