'Beyoncé is fantastic'
Forget the pale, male and stale image of old, the future of country music is bright and female, says Bob Harris
BBC
- Graeme Thomson
The Country Show with Bob Harris is on Thursday at 9.00pm on Radio 2. Add it to your collection now
Ad
Country music is having a moment. It’s not just the fact that Beyoncé tapped the genre for inspiration on her latest Grammy-winning album Cowboy Carter. Lana Del Rey is planning a country record, Dua Lipa and Sabrina Carpenter have made clear their appreciation, and its influence is explicit in hits by everyone from Post Malone to Shaboozey.
For Bob Harris, the story of country music meeting the mainstream is a tale as old as rock and roll itself. “The records I was buying as a teenager in the late 1950s were by the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis,” says the veteran DJ and broadcaster. “They were all Southern boys who had both feet in country music.
Bob Harris champions singer Beyoncé. Getty
“In the 1960s, Blonde on Blonde, one of my favourite Bob Dylan albums, was recorded in Nashville. Then there were the Byrds, Gram Parsons, the Eagles, Harvest by Neil Young. Although I didn’t necessarily realise it at the time, I was listening to country music all along. Country has always had this extraordinary ability to absorb influences from music going on around it, without those influences distorting what country actually is.”
Harris first visited Nashville in 1999, the same year he began hosting his country music show on Radio 2. He also fronts the station’s coverage of C2C: Country to Country, the annual festival in which a selection of contemporary country stalwarts play arena shows in London, Glasgow and Belfast. This year’s C2C begins on Friday 14 March.
I don't want to sit with my feet up watching TV
While some traditionalists have decried Beyoncé staking a claim in country music, Harris isn’t a fan of gatekeeping. “Beyoncé loves country music. She was brought up in Texas, where that music was always on the radio. Now she has brought her take on it. I think that’s fantastic. Country is the fastest-growing music genre in the UK, and Beyoncé is really helpful in terms of that process. I acknowledge that there’s a faction within country music that feels she doesn’t belong there, but I think that faction represents what was happening in the past, not what’s happening in the future.”
Country music has traditionally been regarded as the language of the disenfranchised, white working-class American. Despite its surge in popularity, for many it still has an image problem: pick-up trucks and prejudice; Confederate flags and good ol’ boys and girls. The recent sight of Carrie Underwood singing at President Trump’s inauguration and Billy Ray Cyrus performing at the Liberty Ball do little to challenge such stereotypes.
Harris agrees that there is a perception that country music “is locked into a right-of-centre profile”, but regards the idea as simplistic. “Certainly, some of the artists that make country music would vote for Trump, but many supported Kamala Harris. It’s no different from any other type of music, it just depends how you want to spin it. There have always been liberals within country music – Willie Nelson, Steve Earle – as well as conservatives. I don’t think today is any different, particularly.”
For newcomers keen to explore country music, Harris recommends beginning with Hank Williams. “He demonstrated everything country is about: three chords and the truth, the simplicity of the construction, the story within the song.”
Though modern country music is often a more sleekly commercial proposition, he maintains that 2025 C2C headliners such as Lainey Wilson and Dierks Bentley retain clear links to the spirit of Williams. “There is a very strong connection with the roots of country via the line-up at C2C this year,” he says. Harris is a huge fan of the festival. “Not only has it become a landmark in my country music life, it has established itself as one of the biggest diary dates in country music.”
Ad
Harris turns 79 next month. Although he has weathered some health scares, including an aortic dissection in 2019, retirement is the last thing on his mind. “I’ve got no intention of stopping,” he smiles. “I’m very fortunate that I do something I love so much. I don’t want to sit with my feet up watching daytime television with a beer in my hand. Today, I’ve just done a podcast and I’m about to drive to Broadcasting House to do my show tonight. I’ll be in Bristol tomorrow, seeing Carly Pearce. That’s my life. I love it.”
Authors
Graeme Thomson
Ad
Ad
Get the Christmas double issue
Too much to watch at Christmas? Let Radio Times do the choosing to find something the whole family will enjoy.
Loading...
Ad
Loading...