The Beverly Hillbillies: An American Icon

           “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” as performed by Flatt and Scruggs reached Number Two on the Country Billboard Chart for the year 1963.  The song was released on September 24, 1962, the same month and year the accompanying television show debuted on CBS.  The successful series ran for nine years and continues today in syndication, proving its timelessness as an American icon.  The Beverly Hillbillies portrayed a stereotypical backwoods family that, by sheer luck, struck it rich finding oil on their otherwise worthless land.  On the surface, the show was silly, albeit comedic genius, poking fun at the American hillbilly and his backwoods ways.  But, looking beyond the surface comedy shtick, the show not only adhered to the “Western myth” that was popular in the post-World War II era, but also demonstrated that the “Western myth” mirrored American values in the eyes of both the show’s creator and its viewers.  In fact,  The Beverly Hillbillies’ creator, Paul Henning, was responsible for both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, shows with similar themes regarding the value of the American frontier and the de-value of consumerism.  The simple life, not a propensity to gain and flaunt one’s own wealth, was the most important aspect of American life.  The Beverly Hillbillies attested to this, martyring Jed as the intelligent patriarch with his simple yet intuitive perceptions and ridiculing banker Milton Drysdale, who is only concerned with keeping the Clampbett’s money in his bank for his own benefit.  Drysdale, who thinks he is better than the Ozark family he is trying to cajole, is often made the fool.  The television series confirms that regardless of Jed Clampett’s sudden wealth, he remains true to his Ozark mountain upbringing.  As Paul Cullum explains in his article on the Museum of Broadcast Communications site:

Despite his mystification at the newfangled trappings of luxury, and the craven depths to which almost everyone around him sinks, Jed remains a bastion of homespun wisdom--very much the Lincolnesque backroads scholar.

It is no wonder the show, and the show’s theme song, were hits with a public trying to sustain the idea of American values amidst the growing consumerism, especially within the scope of the Cold War and the growing concerns with communism in Southeast Asia.  Television shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies and songs like “The Ballad of Jed Clampbett,” subtly reminded viewers and listeners that the American way needed to be protected from the red scare of communism spreading throughout Asia, including in Vietnam, which, by 1963, was becoming a growing concern in American foreign policy.

Billy Bayou and the American Frontier

          The song “Billy Bayou," released in late 1958, tells the story of a nineteenth century red-haired boy born and raised in Louisiana.  During his lifetime, Billy Bayou fights the Indians at Little Big Horn (when he was merely thirteen), and tangles with Geronimo, nearly losing his life, but coming through the incident unscathed, until in 1878 he marries “a pretty girl who walks through his front gate.”  The song was written by Roger Miller and released by Jim Reeves in October 1958 and being dubbed the Number One song on Country’s Billboard Charts for 1959.  It is interesting to see the utilization of an idealized “cowboy culture” in a country song that apparently resonated with a vast majority of the listening audience.  The song had mass appeal, displaying the model of the “American Frontier,” symbolizing freedom, defeating threatening enemies, and, of course, the standard way of life.  Billy Bayou was a model citizen, defending his country and then marrying a pretty girl and, we can guess, having a family of his own, furthering the cycle of American life.  In fact, Jim Reeves dedicated his September 9, 1958 television performance of “Billy Bayou” to the Boy Scouts of America, describing the Boy Scouts as the epitome of American values:

 My guests join me in saluting the Boys Scouts of America. More than five million Boy Scouts for over fifty years of service have written splendid pages in American history and have climbed the scouting trail to dedicated adult service. The character building and citizenship training program of the Boys Scouts has been a profound influence on our American way of life, and the home, and the church, and the nation.  Character counts. Their very own slogan “Be Prepared” is indicative of their contribution to character building and citizenship training.  Join with us in this salute to the Boy Scouts by helping the scouting program in your own hometown.  Better boys make a better America.  Scouts honor.  To the Boy Scouts everywhere.  Now a favorite of mine for my favorite boys  - the Boy Scouts:  “Billy Bayou.”

          This song, and the dedication by Jim Reeves who performed the popular 1958 version, reveal how the Cold War provided for a push for pride in America and democracy as opposed to the rivalry of Communism in China and the Soviet Union.  It comes as no surprise that the cowboy culture with its model of the American Frontier was a popular method of asserting Americanism on a public primed to engulf everything “American.”

The Peace Songs - The Cold War Connection

The Vietnam War soundtrack featured an abundance of anti-war songs, including Edwin Star’s “War” (1970) and Country Joe’s “Fixin’ to Die Rag” (1968).  These songs fit squarely into the box dubbed “Vietnam War Protest Songs.”  But it is not so well-known that many of the peace songs that became popular in the later 1960s were actually written in response to the Cold War and fear of nuclear annihilation rather than as a reaction to America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. For example, Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” (1962), “Masters of War,” (1963), and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (1963) were all written as peace songs well before America entered the hot war in Vietnam and well after America’s exit from Korea.  In fact, Dylan himself stated before playing “Blowin’ in the Wind” at a Greenwich Village nightclub “This here ain’t no protest song or anything like that cause I don’t write no protest songs.”  Of the three, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” is the most obvious of the nuclear testing warnings.  Just by the title alone it is easy to see how the song is related to the realization that the nuclear fall-out from testing was being washed out of the sky through the rain and was literally poisoning the environment.  If anything, this song can actually be considered an early pro-environmental song.  The Vietnam War was barely on the horizon and not on the minds of songwriters like Dylan who were considered the writers of “Protest Songs” at this particular time.

 It is true that the Vietnam War hurried along the popularity of such songs, especially as they found a place in anti-war protests.  But the fact that these songs were written as Cold War offerings actually puts many of these songs in a different category than “Anti-War Songs.”  Indiana University Emeritus Professor of History Ronald D. Cohen concedes “potential devastation from atomic weapons, rather than the looming Vietnam War, mostly occupied the minds of songwriters” in the early to mid-1960s. Promoting peace in light of the Cold War and protesting American involvement in a hot war in Southeast Asia are two very different entities with very different undertones.  The “Peace Movement” did shift to an anti-war stance as things heated up in Vietnam. And there were many songs that were written in this light.  Phil Ochs penned “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore,” “The Men Behind the Guns,” and “Draft Dodger Rag,” specifically to protest America’s involvement in Vietnam.  But it was not until “Eve of Destruction” was released by Barry McGuire in late August of 1965 that the union between song and anti-war protest was really cemented, but this was purely an accident, and not the intention of the songwriter.

 The P.F. Sloan-penned “Eve of Destruction” as recorded by Barry McGuire reached Number 1 on the pop charts.  This was the first time that a protest song had reached a wider audience, indicating that the general public was dissatisfied with America’s foreign policies.  However, P.F. Sloan admitted that the song was not an anti-Vietnam War song.  Sloan writes:

The song 'Eve of Destruction' was written in the early morning hours between midnight and dawn in mid-1964. The most outstanding experience I had in writing this song was hearing an inner voice inside of myself for only the second time. It seemed to have information no one else could've had. For example, I was writing down this line in pencil 'think of all the hate there is in Red Russia.' This inner voice said 'No, no it's Red China!' I began to argue and wrestle with that until near exhaustion. I thought Red Russia was the most outstanding enemy to freedom in the world, but this inner voice said the Soviet Union will fall before the end of the century and Red China will endure in crimes against humanity well into the new century! This inner voice that is inside of each and every one of us but is drowned out by the roar of our minds! The song contained a number of issues that were unbearable for me at the time. I wrote it as a prayer to God for an answer.

I have felt it was a love song and written as a prayer because, to cure an ill you need to know what is sick. In my youthful zeal I hadn't realized that this would be taken as an attack on The System! Examples: The media headlined the song as everything that is wrong with the youth culture. First, show the song is just a hack song to make money and therefore no reason to deal with its questions. Prove the 19-year old writer is a communist dupe. Attack the singer as a parrot for the writers word. The media claimed that the song would frighten little children. I had hoped thru this song to open a dialogue with Congress and the people. The media banned me from all national television shows. Oddly enough they didn't ban Barry. The United States felt under threat. So any positive press on me or Barry was considered un-patriotic. A great deal of madness, as I remember it! I told the press it was a love song. A love song to and for humanity, that's all. It ruined Barry's career as an artist and in a year I would be driven out of the music business too.

Sloan even asserted that the song’s intention was not to protest the Vietnam War nor the American government and its foreign policy.  Sloan cites the Cold War as well in his inspirations for the song as the enemies to American freedom are the Communist countries of Russia and China.  Although “Eve of Destruction” became a symbol of protest against the American government and its foreign policies specifically in Southeast Asia, this was not the songwriter’s intention.  Therefore, “Eve of Destruction” was just as much a “peace song” written in response to the Cold War as was “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”  In fact, “Eve of Destruction” addresses the threat to American freedoms, much as the country-western songs of the time reminded their listeners of pride in the American way of life.  In this light, "Eve of Destruction" can actually be compared to the rockabilly Chuck Berry's “Back in the U.S.A” as a patriotic song about America's greatness.

Cold War Beginnings: Chuck Berry

Well, I'm so glad I'm living in the U.S.A.
Yes. I'm so glad I'm living in the U.S.A.
Anything you want, we got right here in the U.S.A.

           Chuck Berry, being an African American artist in the late 1950s and early 1960s defied the odds and made a mark on the music, and on the culture, of American life. In that, he truly appreciated life in the U.S. as revealed by his lyrics in "Back in the U.S.A." released in 1959. Chuck Berry was born in St. Louis in the late 1920’s and grew up in a lower middle class African American family. Although he escaped the rural poverty that was prevalent in the blues music of the black artists, he had a true love of this music. Berry wrote “Ida Red”, a “countrified blues song” and attempted to record it at the Chess brothers’ studio in Chicago. After reshaping this song into a “rhythmical rock and roll” style,” Maybelline” became a national hit reaching number five on the charts in 1955. Berry attempted to release a few other bluesy style songs, unsuccessfully, and he, therefore, began to write songs that appealed directly to the white teenage record-buying audience and became a very successful early rock and roller.

            Although Berry’s success in the late 1950’s was short lived due to his prison term, Berry broke ground in the rock and roll world, tearing down racial barriers and appealing to white audiences. Berry was the first African American rock and roller to get white airplay with “Maybelline” due to his carefully enunciated lyrics allowing him to pass for white in a strictly segregated society. Berry knew how to appeal to the white teenage world, and specifically targeted them in his music, making his appeal to a larger unsegregated audience. Berry’s musical style was also new, basically defining rock and roll with his unprecedented compositions of blues beats, country runs, and humorous lyrics. Berry’s influences can be heard in many artists who came after him, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan.

           But our focus here is on the patriotism of the lyrics, of which Berry was an early example leading into the Vietnam conflict, when it seemed that most of the public supported any efforts the U.S. made in combating Communism. Chuck Berry's lyrics in "Back in the U.S.A." ooze with patriotism and pride for the United States. This is not surprising if we place Berry's song within the socio-political context in which it was written - The Cold War. In this context, America was competing with the Soviet Union in all aspects, and in that regard, America was encouraging its citizens to believe that the United States was the best in the world.  America offered be best of everything including the simple things, as Berry shows us, like drive-ins, jukeboxes, and sizzling hamburgers. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame credits Berry with appealing to the masses and appreciating life in the United States:

During this high-spirited decade [of the 1950s], Berry hailed America as a land of fun and opportunity. The mid-Fifties was a period of rising prosperity for the growing middle class, and the social landscape was slowly improving for African-Americans as the civil rights era dawned. In the lyrics for “Back in the U.S.A.,” written after returning from an Australian tour, Berry saluted such everyday pleasures as the drive-ins and corner cafes “where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day/Yeah, and a jukebox jumping with records like in the U.S.A.”

           Berry's lyrics are a perfect example of those that promoted Americanism and set up the United States citizens to fully back its country in all affairs both foreign and domestic, especially when these affairs furthered democratic ideologies by preventing the spread of the feared Communism that appeared to be taking over Asia. But not all songs penned during this time promoted American patriotism, which we shall explore further in our next post.

Soundtrack to the Vietnam War

       There was no time in American history where music played a more important role than during the Vietnam War era.  That era was wrought with social changes - the women's movement, black power, anti-war demonstrations, and youth empowerment in general as embodied by the counterculture.  Music is still associated with the counterculture, even today, but music also shaped the attitudes going into the war, both supportive of American involvement in Southeast Asia and in demonstrating anti-war attitudes.  Less well known is the “frontier myth” and its connection to support of the Vietnam War through country/western music, a genre that was rich with patriotism. This blog will explore music with a focus on the country/western contributions and attitudes in particular, as well as displaying both positive and negative attitudes about the Vietnam War through social shifts, consumerism, and the transition from manic post-World War II attitudes through the Vietnam War, creating a conversation between pro- and anti-war attitudes through music.