Country Music 101
Would you like to take the History of Country Music taught by a Grammy Nominated songwriter in Nashville, the “mecca” of Country Music, for a liberal arts requirement?
How could I say no to such a question? I did the natural, human thing and immediately enrolled in the class. Within minutes of open registration, the 200 class spots were filled and the wait list was growing.
On the first day of class, the Professor, Peter Cooper, named one of Nashville’s 10 most interesting people, posed the elusive question, “What is country music?”. He continued, “Willie Nelson once said ‘Country music is three chords and the truth’…well… country music is often more than three chords and often filled with lies…but this semester we are going to explore its roots.”
Even the syllabus is peppered with his dry humor, but squished between the ‘punny’ references to baseball and regulations about class absences is the purpose of the class: to study this cultural force that is located within walking distance of our campus, looking at its evolution through the lens of the songs, artists, and sub-genres that have molded it into what it is today. In the wise words of my fellow blogger, I think it will be fun to discover that ‘country music is not all just sappy ballads about dead dogs and alcoholics’. Armed with my Walgreen’s Taylor Swift spiral for notes and Country Music Textbook the size of a small bible, I look forward to learning!