Blood Harmony Volume 13: Texas
I started working on this post before the news came out of Texas re: their functional abortion ban. If you have the time and energy to attend a march tomorrow, here’s a link to help you find one. But Texas was already on my mind for different reasons.
A few months back (feels like years), one of my best friends visited me. We went to the beach and traded books at the end of our time together. I gave her The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson which she banned me from reading at night during our trip because my giggling shook the bed too much. She gave me Open Book by Jessica Simpson. I was initially skeptical. But it is a GREAT memoir. There’s stories in there about growing up in a conservative Christian family in Texas, Ryan Gosling, the evil John Mayer, alcoholism, childhood sexual abuse, the price of fame, Dolly Parton, body shame and…wait for it…Beyoncé . Back in 2001, Jessica Simpson and Destiny’s Child toured together. In Open Book, Jessica talks about becoming good friends with Beyoncé during the tour and how much they had in common. They were both raised in conservative Texan families, they had difficult relationships with their fathers who were also their managers, their mothers designed their stage looks and started clothing lines and their sisters both began as their backup performers and became artists in their own right.
The Open Book stories made me think of another unexpected Beyoncé/country pairing. In 2016, The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks) started covering “Daddy Lessons” from Beyoncé’s album Lemonade in concert. “Daddy Lessons” is a straight up country banger and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from listening to hours of Cocaine and Rhinestones, country music performers love a cover song. Beyoncé became aware of this cover and when she was invited to the Country Music Awards that year, she asked The Chicks to perform it with her. Here is that performance.
If you didn’t live through the excommunication of The Chicks by the country music establishment in 2003 after their lead singer criticized George Bush for the invasion of Iraq, it’s probably hard to understand what a Big Fucking Deal it was at the time. The Chicks were the bestselling female band of all time at that point. Their music was ubiquitous on pop and country radio, MTV, VHI, wherever music was sold. And then, fairly quickly, they were persona non grata to the country music machine. I highly recommend the documentary Shut Up and Sing on this topic. It’s equal turns heartbreaking and inspiring.
Beyoncé is a masterful performer. She is very deliberate in her choices and she always puts in the work (see Homecoming for more info). Her performance with The Chicks is like the Inception of live music performances. It has a million layers and signals if you’re paying attention.
To start, the look:
We’ve got Beyoncé in a couture gown by Australian designers J’Aton that looks like what would happen if a Bob Mackie Cher creation had a baby with a classic Loretta Lynn gown (see below). It’s a nod to the proceedings and it’s also straight up Beyoncé.
The Chicks, meanwhile, are in contrasting black outfits like Johnny Cash split himself into three beings: 1. A big Stevie Nicks fan, 2. an androgynous businessperson who plans on dancing on a table after closing the big deal and 3. a cool-as-shit fiddle player in leather pants. But that’s not everyone! There are A LOT OF FOLKS on this stage.
They are also all in white except for the percussion section. They make their own rules. There’s also a few denim pieces in there.
Who else is in white? The horn section which includes two dudes from a NYC trio called Too Many Zooz who have some really great busking videos. I love that one looks like a spectator from The Hunger Games and the other one is totally rocking Viv’s sunglasses from Pretty Woman and some truly excellent early 90s hair. The drummer is in with the percussion section in case you’re worried!
So we’ve got Beyoncé looking like a sexy country angel surrounded by a dozen or so amazing musicians in matching white while The Chicks stand front and center like a thrice spliced Johnny Cash. We’ve also got some very quintessential country music instruments like harmonica, washboard (you can see it briefly!) and fiddle mixed in with essentially a second line band and some awesome back-up singers. The whole thing is a study in contrast but also convergence. Because that’s what country music is.
Country music wasn’t called that yet, but it was music of the country. It was a combination of the Irish; the recently freed slaves, bringing the banjo into the world; the Spanish effects of the vaqueros down in Texas; the Germans bringing over the “oom-pah” of polka music, all converging. – John McEuen, Will the Circle Be Unbroken recording session, August 1971
Well, you know, the way I define country music is…It’s the music of America, for sure. And it’s an amalgam. It’s everything. Some people wanted to say that it was “America’s only original pure music.” Well, no, it’s blues. It’s jazz. It’s hillbilly. It’s everything about the immigrant experience brought to America and Americanized. – Ray Benson, Asleep at the Wheel, Briarcliff, Texas, 1979.
And with that, the song:
“Daddy Lessons” is about the roots of infidelity. It is a song about a woman’s difficult relationship with her father. In this case, he’s a sort of John Wayne hipster figure who likes whiskey, motorcycles and classic vinyl and dislikes vulnerability and fidelity. Beyoncé’s father was famously unfaithful to her mom, fathering a child with another woman during their marriage. Beyoncé started dating Jay-Z when she was 18 years old and he was 30. They were both extrememly successful artists but he was already a legend and she was still building hers. It was easy to think she was, in part, looking for a father figure in her romantic life. There were always rumors about his infidelities online and then came Lemonade, an album that laid them bare.
From “Don’t Hurt Yourself”:
I am not broken, I'm not crying, I'm not crying
You ain't trying hard enough
You ain't loving hard enough
You don't love me deep enough
We not reaching peaks enough
Blindly in love, I fucks with you
'Til I realize, I'm just too much for you
In “Daddy Lessons”, Beyoncé finds that the toxic masculinity of her father has also infected her husband. Her father knows what’s in store for her because he’s been the cheater. As she sings:
My daddy warned me about men like you
He said baby girl he's playing you
He's playing you
Cause when trouble comes in town
And men like me come around
Oh, my daddy said shoot
When The Chicks covered “Daddy Lessons”, their lead singer Natalie Gaines was a year away from the start of a very public, protracted and messy divorce from her husband after finding out that he cheated on her (ON HER BOAT). Their recent album, Gaslighter, is also an album about infidelity. The title track, in particular, is basically a companion piece to “Don’t Hurt Yourself”:
Gaslighter, I'm your mirror
Standin' right here until you can see how you broke me
Yeah, I'm broken
You're still sorry, and there's still no apology
Basically, I think these ladies had a lot to talk about during their CMA rehearsals.
Something else that I love about this song is the contrast between Beyoncé’s and Natalie’s voices. I don’t often think of sounds as colors (aka chromesthesia!) but in this case, Beyoncé’s voice is warm like a deep red. Natalie’s voice, one of my favorite voices of all time, is a metallic blue as in the blue notes of jazz or what is called in country music “that high lonesome sound”. It’s the notes between the major notes (the sharps and the flats) and she stays sticks with them throughout the track. Their voices unite the gospel and the twang that are both at the heart of country music.
In the middle of “Daddy Lessons”, the group switched to a piece of a classic Chicks song “Long Time Gone”. They very specifically chose to play the part of the song that critiques modern country music IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CMAs. It’s a bold move made by artists who really have nothing to lose. Beyoncé does not need the CMAs (they need her). The Chicks were forced out of commercial country music a long time ago. So, really, why the fuck not?
One last thing I’ll point out about this performance is that there was also drama in the audience! When you watch, there are a number of people who REFUSE TO CLAP AND/OR DANCE ALONG. Think of the effort that would take! Look at Nicole Kidman and Miranda Lambert (I’m 95% sure that’s her based on a picture from the red carpet) who look like they’re at a funeral while that cool girl in the back right knows she’s seeing something amazing!
Thankfully, Taylor Swift was there and knew all the words (no screen shot because it was too dark) as was Matthew McConaughey and his gorgeous wife Camila Alves.
McConaughey was feeling it! Speaking of Texas, I just finished his memoir, Green Lights, and it is A WILD, WILD RIDE. Recommend! Definitely go with the audio book.
Thank you for going on this journey with me.
If you’re interested in hearing more from Black female country/blues artists, here’s a great playlist.