An American Music Treasure Gone: Porter Wagoner, 1927-2007

Country music is often described as "people's music," telling stories about regular folks. Certainly the stereotype of songs about lost loves, favorite dogs and trucks abides, but there is really truth in the thought that it isn't "high-minded" music, but an art form rooted in the triumphs, tragedies, and pathos that occur in everyday lives.

We just lost one of the master practitioners of this unique American art form:

Porter Wagoner, the blond pompadoured, rhinestone-encrusted personification of Nashville tradition, host of the longest-running country-music variety show in TV history and mentor to Dolly Parton, died Sunday night of lung cancer. He was 80.

Wagoner died at a hospice in Nashville, according to an announcement on the Grand Ole Opry's website.

Country has always spoken deeply to me. It embraces emotions and stories, it accepts yet doesn't idolize technical skills, and it can be as elemental as Doc Watson or as ambitious as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, as pure as The Louvin Brothers and as cosmopolitan as The Mavericks.

Wagoner came of age during the wholesale embrace of country by the country at large:

Over a period of nearly 40 years, Wagoner placed 81 songs on the country-music chart, 19 of those duets with Parton, who joined his show in 1967 as a replacement for his first female co-star, Norman Jean. Wagoner and Parton were named country group and country duo of the year in 1970 and 1971 by the Country Music Assn.

Wagoner's music often told dark tales of desperate people in stark terms that placed him in the gothic tradition of country music. This was best exemplified in his 1971 recording "The Rubber Room," a song about a man wrestling with the dark side of his psyche. "The Cold Hard Facts of Life," a 1967 hit, recounted the tale of a husband returning home early from a business trip to find his wife in the arms of another man. Without directly describing the outcome, the song ends with the husband sitting in his cell on death row, asking himself, "Who taught who the cold hard facts of life?"

His image, presented by a lesser talent, might have seemed parody. He embraced the glitz and flash of the late '50s-early '60s, a style not too far from early Elvis's nod to Little Richard. But he strode the stage sure and confident, delivered his songs in a calm smoky baritone, and people believed what he sang:

"I don't try to show off a so-called beautiful voice, because I don't feel my voice is beautiful," Wagoner once said. "I believe there is a different kind of beauty, the beauty of being honest, of being yourself, of singing like you feel it."

Here's Porter doing some bluegrass Gospel:

Here he is doing one of his biggest hits, "Satisfied Mind":

And here he is early on with Dolly:

And lastly, here's Porter earlier this year:

His web site: http://www.porterwagoner.net/

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Comments

[VivaZapata]

It certainly is true that country music has been polluted, rather than augmented, by other influences. It has gone the route of pop formula to the extent that it has lost it's center,but jhNY's contention that country music is gone forever is not so. Though rare, every now and then the music made popular by the guys from Porter Waggoner's time sneaks in. A few examples would be "Brokenheartsville" by Joe Nichols and "As Good As I Once Was" by Toby Keith (I know I can't stand his politics either, but look how politically sophisticated Merle Haggard became in his later years). Also, some of the old guys, Merle is one, are still working and are as good as ever. Randy Travis, Iris Dement, George Strait, and David Ball are younger but also in the tradition of.... As Yogi said, "It ain't over till it's over.

[jhNY]

The country music of today, some examples gratefully excepted, compares to the country music pre-1980 as 'lightning bug' compares to 'lightning', to paraphrase Mark Twain. Merle Haggard was never in his wildest ur-patriotism as calculatedly jingoistic as Mr Keith, who despite his politics, really isn't all that good a singer or a writer, and mangages to appeal to the worst in his listeners without seeming to make any special effort at all.

Ernest Tubb was a life-long New Deal Democrat. That's my kind of country...

[jhNY]

The country music Wagoner made is gone forever and most of the audience he sang to is dead. The present bunch of mallbillies disgracing the stage at Opryland wouldn't even be there at all if their earler rock careers had taken off as planned.

Wagoner arrived at the tail end of an era, and made what he could out of his chances. He probably provided more bathos to the genre than anybody but Kitty Wells, a kind of Nudie-suited soap opera singer with a big bass voice, haunted eyes and a dazzling toothy smile. Certainly had an eye for talent (see Dolly Parton), and he loved his work. He wasn't one of the greats, but he was one of the last big stars of classic country around, and he will be missed, if not so much for his music than for what he represented in a Nashville he could not have even dreamed of when he arrived.
posted 10/30/2007 at 12:22:33

[jhNY]

The country music Wagoner made is gone forever and most of the audience he sang to is dead. The present bunch of mallbillies disgracing the stage at Opryland wouldn't even be there at all if their earler rock careers had taken off as planned.

Wagoner arrived at the tail end of an era, and made what he could out of his chances. He probably provided more bathos to the genre than anybody but Kitty Wells, a kind of Nudie-suited soap opera singer with a big bass voice, haunted eyes and a dazzling toothy smile. Certainly had an eye for talent (see Dolly Parton), and he loved his work. He wasn't one of the greats, but he was one of the last big stars of classic country around, and he will be missed, if not so much for his music than for what he represented in a Nashville he could not have even dreamed of when he arrived.

[thesimulacra]

Great article. Anybody interested in the "the beauty of being honest, of being yourself, of singing like you feel it", should pick up Nicholas Dawidoff's "In The Country of Country", as somebody who grew up listening to punk and metal, it changed my attitudes and preconceptions about country music completely. Particularly interesting are the interviews with Harlan Howard about the early days of Nashville. Pick it up!

[steamboat]

He also wrote," The Green, Green Grass of Home", which Tom Jones sung and made into a huge hit.

A big loss for the music industry.

[Rand]

It was a hit LONG before anyone heard of Tom Jones!