Talking with Bill Malone, his soft-spoken grace and modesty make it easy to forget what an incredible treasure he is. Dr. Malone, a retired Tulane professor whose journey has now brought him to Madison, is a brilliant and passionate scholar of country and bluegrass music, and it is not a stretch to suggest that he is the nation’s foremost expert on this rich strain of American roots music.
Madison radio listeners may be familiar with his WORT show, “Back To The Country,” which airs every Wednesday morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. It’s one of local radio’s most consistently great shows. On it, his lilting voice and sage commentary introduce some of the best examples of the music to which Malone has dedicated his career and about which he has authored several outstanding books. One of these books, the epic “Country Music U.S.A.,” is easily the cornerstone of any library of country writing.
Recently, Dr. Malone has added another book to his impressive canon. This book, “Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class,” is easily his best, combining his intellectual curiosity with his deep love for the music that, at its best, is one of the best and truest cultural comments on the American experience.
Malone himself, while exuding calm in a way that often seems nearly supernatural, is not short on opinions of country’s modern commercial face. “The Top 40 stuff is technically very good,” he explained in a recent interview. “But I just can’t listen to it; it sounds like bad ’80s rock. That’s why I think the country spirit is in bluegrass or alt-country. When even somebody like Merle Haggard, one of the true legends of country music, can be considered the alternative, something’s got to be wrong.”
Although he does find value in some mainstream country, particularly the music of Alan Jackson and Patty Loveless (he has nothing but good things to say about Mountain Soul, her 2001 bluegrass album), his anger at what he considers to be country’s betrayal of its cultural roots is evident.
“I had several reasons for calling the book ‘Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’,’ but one of the major ones was as an admonition, reminding so-called ‘country musicians’ to remember that country’s always been best when it remains connected to the Southern working class,” he explained.
The book, which uses a thematic approach to delve into nearly every socio- cultural/economic aspect imaginable, reads both as a highly sophisticated piece of ethnomusicology as well as something of a subtle manifesto, in which a true expert (and no one with any sanity could deny Dr. Malone’s credibility) forces country music (and, in an indirect way, America itself) to confront its past, present and future with an honest and analytical eye.
This is by no means a depressing read; any fan of country music, such as this reviewer, will likely be entranced by the book’s rich, beautiful prose, as well as the mentions of literally hundreds of great (and some not-so-great) songs and artists.
As one of the true treasures of Madison’s academic and musical scenes, we must cherish Dr. Bill Malone’s print and radio work, not to mention the charming and all-too-infrequent performances he occasionally gives with his wife, the equally radiant and good-hearted Bobbie Malone.
“Don’t Get Above Your Raisin'” is a truly superior work, and Malone’s scholarly analysis is only matched by his passion for his subject. In a town full of cheap talk, patter and jive, Bill Malone is the real deal, and we should thank every lucky star imaginable that his life’s path has brought him here with us.
