Chatter: The Pentagon’s Alliance with the Country Music Industry with Joseph Thompson
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2024
⏱️ 80 minutes
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Summary
For decades, country music has had a close and special relationship to the U.S. military. In his new book, Cold War Country, historian Joseph Thompson shows how the leaders of Nashville’s Music Row found ways to sell their listeners on military service, at the same time they sold country music to people in uniform.
Shane Harris spoke with Thompson about how, as he puts it, Nashville and the Pentagon “created the sound of American patriotism.” Thompson’s story spans decades and is filled with famous singers like Roy Acuff, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, and Lee Greenwood. Collectively, Thompson says, these artists helped to forge the close bonds between their genre and the military, but also helped to transform ideas of race, partisanship, and influenced the idea of what it means to be an American.
Songs, people, TV shows, and books discussed in this episode include:
Thompson’s book Cold War Country: How Nashville's Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism https://uncpress.org/book/9781469678368/cold-war-country/
“Goin’ Steady” by Faron Young https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNqhVyPxPk8
Grandpa Jones https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/grandpa-jones
“Hee Haw” https://www.heehaw.com/
The Black Opry https://www.blackopry.com/
“Okie from Muskogee” by Merle Haggard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68cbjlLFl4U
“Cowboy Carter” by Beyoncé https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/beyonce-cowboy-carter-tops-country-album-chart-number-one-1234998548/
“God Bless the U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KoXt9pZLGM
Learn more about Joseph Thompson and his work:
https://www.josephmthompson.com/
https://www.history.msstate.edu/directory/jmt50
https://twitter.com/jm_thompson?lang=en
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | This is Chatter. I'm Shane Harris. This week, historian Joseph Thompson on the surprising alliance between the Pentagon and the country music industry. |
| 0:46.2 | U.S. soldiers are essentially captive audiences waiting for entertainment, |
| 0:51.0 | and they'll take basically whatever you give them. |
| 0:54.0 | There are personal connections between people in the country music industry and the military, right? |
| 1:02.0 | So either they start out in country music and go to the |
| 1:05.2 | military and come back out or they start in the military and then once they get |
| 1:09.7 | in civilian life find their way into the country music industry in one way or another. |
| 1:14.0 | There's a real sense that they are doing their duty and just providing good entertainment. |
| 1:20.0 | If we think about, well, if we want to break open country music and really make it a more diverse space, |
| 1:28.0 | part of the thing that I think we have to do is understand how it came to be understood as a white space to begin with. |
| 1:34.6 | And I hope that my book is telling part of that story that hasn't been fully explored. Joseph Thompson. Welcome to Chatter. Thanks for coming on the show. |
| 1:47.0 | Thank you so much for having me, Shane. It's a pleasure to be with you. |
| 1:51.0 | Well, this is fitting that we're on a podcast, because so much of what we're going to be with you. Well this is this is fitting that we're on a podcast because so much of what we're going to be talking about is the things that were on the radio and music. You are the author of the new book Cold War Country, |
| 2:03.2 | how Nashville's Music Row and the Pentagon |
| 2:06.0 | created the sound of American patriotism. |
| 2:09.2 | And I have to admit when I saw the title of this book, |
| 2:11.4 | I was excited, not because I'm a particular fan of country music |
| 2:15.6 | although I've grown up around a lot of it as maybe we'll get into in the discussion but the title just |
... |
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