#25 The History of Country & Soul Music w/ Charles Hughes
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2016
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr. Charles Hughes of Rhodes College joins Ben and Bob to talk about his recent book Country Soul, which examines the history of music in the "Country Soul Triangle" studio towns of Memphis, Nashville, and Muscle Shoals. Charles explains how the working relationships between these three towns, and the musicians who performed in the studios, created the sound of Country Music and Soul Music in the second half of the 20th Century. The conversation also covers a variety of other topics, including the Civil Rights Movement, the history of professional wrestling, Elvis Presley, and the trends that led us from the "outlaw country" of the 1970s to the country music of today.
We're also happy to announce that our friend Ian Skotte has joined The Road to Now team as our producer. Ian joins us at the beginning to introduce himself to our listeners and talk about a few things we have in the works for the podcast in the upcoming months.
Dr. Charles Hughes is a historian and director of the Memphis Center at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. His most recent book, Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South was named one of Rolling Stones' "10 Best Music Books of 2015." His current project looks at the history of Professional Wrestling and race in the United States.
Recorded October 6th, 2016 on the campus of Rhodes College in Memphis, TN.
More on The Road to Now and links to info on our guests can be found at our website: www.theroadtonow.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Coming up on the road to now. |
| 0:03.0 | Memphis really symbolizes some very, very big trends and tensions in American history. |
| 0:11.0 | Memphis became a center for African Americans throughout the South to come to for new opportunities. |
| 0:17.0 | So what happened here, particularly because of that influx of migrants from around the region, |
| 0:21.1 | is that you ended up with an incredibly vibrant and rich cultural community, centered around African-American, |
| 0:28.5 | centered around Beale Street, but also a very, very powerful African-American political community. |
| 0:34.0 | I mean, Memphis was one of the only places in the South during segregation where |
| 0:37.8 | African Americans tended to be able to vote. Interracial, integrated soul music that was coming out |
| 0:43.8 | of places like Memphis. When we think about these musicians not seeing color or it not mattering, |
| 0:49.6 | I think that misrepresents what they did. They were thinking about race all the time. |
| 0:55.1 | I believe that music ultimately can be a metaphor for American democracy, so therefore, the more the better, right? And the |
| 0:59.9 | more voices, the better. I'm Bob Crawford. And I'm Ben Sawyer, and this is The Road to Now. |
| 1:07.4 | Well, we've finally hired a producer here at The road to now this right we have uh he's sitting |
| 1:12.9 | right next to me in nashville he is a a friend of mine and uh a fellow tottenham hotspur supporter |
| 1:18.8 | uh ladies and gentlemen like to introduce uh ian's scotta hey how's going |
| 1:24.2 | doing good man Ian we are we're about to load you down with so much work that we hope you don't have a real |
| 1:32.3 | job. |
| 1:33.3 | I do have a real job, but I'm managing it pretty well, I think. |
| 1:37.3 | Yeah, there are lots of us who have other jobs aside from this podcast. |
| 1:41.3 | I think a requirement for working for the road to now is you must have at least two other full-time jobs. |
| 1:49.2 | Exactly. |
| 1:51.1 | Yeah, although Ian doesn't have a kid yet. |
... |
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