Cold War Country: How Nashville's Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism

by Joseph M. Thompson

Country music maintains a special, decades-long relationship to American military life, but these ties didn't just happen. This readable history reveals how country music's Nashville-based business leaders on Music Row created partnerships with the Pentagon to sell their audiences on military service while selling the music to servicemembers. Beginning in the 1950s, the military flooded armed forces airwaves with the music, hosted tour dates at bases around the world, and drew on artists from Johnny Cash to Lee Greenwood to support recruitment programs. Over the last half of the twentieth century, the close connections between the Defense Department and Music Row gave an economic boost to the white-dominated sounds of country while marginalizing Black artists and fueling divisions over the meaning of patriotism.

This story is filled with familiar stars like Roy Acuff, Elvis Presley, and George Strait, as well as lesser-known industry executives who worked the halls of Congress, country artists who dissented from the stereotypically patriotic trappings of the genre, and more. Joseph M. Thompson argues convincingly that the relationship between Music Row and the Pentagon helped shape not only the evolution of popular music but also race relations, partisanship, and images of the United States abroad.

Genres: American History, Music, Nonfiction

344 pages, Paperback

Published April 2, 2024

Reviews

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Cold War Country to be an interesting, thorough exploration of the connections between the country music industry and the Cold War US military. The book covers the very beginnings of the mutually constructed, mutually beneficial relationship with Connie B. Gay’s radio shows and artist tours of bases and the front lines, and continues through the post-Cold-War and War on Terror era. The book lays out the ways that the relationship began, how it was maintained, and the incentives and benefits that both sides received from it very solidly, providing a lot of information while remaining quite readable. I found the discussion of how the military courted the country music audience for its demographics (generally white, southern, and working class) interesting.

My thanks to the University of North Carolina Press and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy.

[C. Ian Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish this was an audiobook. I read at night, but this was one that I would either go on a researching tangent about an artist (Gay's WARL from my home town) or thing (atomic guns), or fall asleep. I want the audio accompanying to have snippets of these artists. Admittedly, I came to country after watching Country Music by Ken Burns, and the 'Cocaine and Rhinestones' podcast is one of my favorites.

Thompson really packs in the information in the chapters. I'm putting it down about 40% through.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher University of North Carolina Press for an advance copy of this book about the strange relationship between country music, the industry that grew from it and the American military.

As a person who has loved music of all kinds country music is the one genre I never really got into. Well country music after 1982 the mainstream country. I love Willie and Waylon, Dolly and Patsy and Loretta too. Bill Monroe, bluegrass, banjo and washboard music I really like. Steve Earle and Mojo Nixon and other alt-country music have always been on my rotation. It's the mainstream stuff, the stuff played at farm stands and carnivals that I never got into. It seemed like late Billy Joel without the soul. As such as I noticed that a lot of country musicians would sing about the flag, and America coming at our enemies, I never noticed how the military machine was using country music in its own way. Nor the money that was being made in this kind of relationship. Cold War Country:How Nashville's Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism by Joseph M. Thompson is a look at the history of country and how the industry and the military worked together for patriotism, propaganda, and of course good old profit.

Military service has had an effect on musicians of all genres. Jazz players meet each other and learned their skills in military bands. A bored serviceman might pick up a guitar and find they had a skill they didn't know they had. Being posted overseas people were exposed to music they might never have heard. For the untalented servicemen and women, those who couldn't play guitar, or sing, they still wanted to be entertained. And that is where country music and certain players in the industry came in. Country acts players USO tours and army bases, which in turn caused military stores to carry a lot of and sell a lot of country music. Racism had much to do with this, even as the military was being desegregated, white southerners would continue to play and listen to the music they liked, and ignored what they didn't. As county music made money, artists would help with recruitment, especially after the draft was ended, singing songs of flags, and America, especially in the days following 9/11.

A fascinating look at a genre of music that I don't think I have seen before. And I am sure one that many people will not enjoy reading. I found this book very interesting and as I am writing this just days after Beyoncé has come out with a country album, and seems to have stirred up a hornet's nest quite topical. The book has quite a lot to say about the racism inside both the military and the music industry. Joseph Thompson is a very good writer, able to talk knowledgeably about history, music, the music industry, and the culture of the times. The book is very well-written and well-researched and in places hard to put down. I have read a lot of music history books but this one kept surprising me with facts and even more the tying in many things in music and history that I had never noticed.

Recommended for music fans, and people who enjoy reading books on history that look at the world through a different view. A book that surprised and taught me quite a bit, and one I enjoyed a lot.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cold War Country is an interesting look at how the Pentagon used country music to boost their image and recruitment. While dry at times, I did learn a lot about how their relationship started, how it was maintained, and the benefits both sides received. As someone who was always interested in why post-9/11 country music felt like a cash grab, this book was an eye opener.