Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music

"Country music of what Jennings accurately calls the 'golden age of twang' isn't about Dixie, though there's plenty of Dixie in it. It's about country: 'Country music made between about 1950 and 1970 is a secret history of rural, working class Americans in the twentieth century—a secret history in plain sight . . . Country music knows that the dark heart of the American Century beat in oil-field roadhouses in Texas and in dim-lit Detroit bars where country boys in exile gathered after another shift at Ford or GM. Bobby Bare might've pleaded in 'Detroit City' that he wanted to go home. But we all knew he wouldn't, that he couldn't. Country profoundly understands what it's like to be trapped in a culture of alienation: by poverty, by a [lousy] job, by lust, by booze . . . If you truly want to understand the whole United States of America in the twentieth century, you need to understand country music and the working people who lived their lives by it.' That's absolutely true, and Sing Me Back Home makes a powerful argument for it . . . His inquiry into the great underlying themes of country music is astute and deeply informed. He takes country music seriously but never gets pompous or pretentious about it; he appreciates its humor and raunchiness as much as he values its commentary on the life of 'the permanent poor white underclass—both those who had stayed in the country and those who had strayed to the city' . . . Run your eyes over just about any list of Haggard's songs, and you'll see the entire country canon in miniature: 'Misery & Gin,' 'Workin' Man Blues,' 'The Bottle Let Me Down,' 'Ramblin' Fever,' 'Mama Tried,' 'The Roots of My Raising,' 'Sing Me Back Home,' 'Always Wanting You.' It's all there: love, hunger, work, the road, booze, family, faith, infidelity, prison, loneliness, nostalgia. Chapter by chapter, Jennings explores every one of these themes, always with specific songs as points of reference. A very good book and a useful addition to the rather sparse literature of country music."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

"This book is one of the best things written about American music in the past two decades. Not since Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music in 1986 has a writer so deftly interwoven music history with the fabric of the daily lives of those who listen to—and live—the songs. Dana Jennings could probably write a straight-ahead history of the great country and western artists of the 20th century, but why would he want to? In Sing Me Back Home, he stitches patches of biography (Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash) alongside material from his own life. The book is populated with the drunk and ne'er-do-well aunts, uncles, mamas and daddies that helped him survive his impoverished childhood. Funny thing is, Jennings, an editor at the New York Times, does not fit the geographic profile of a country music fan. He's from New Hampshire. But his childhood sounds like something right out of ‘Hickory Hollow, and the comedies and tragedies of his youth inform the truth in the greatest of country songs. And that's the best part of Sing Me Back Home: Jennings brings together Hank Williams, Webb Pierce, Faron Young and other early country singers and helps us appreciate their contributions to music. The tortured poetry of Cash and Haggard, for example, deftly chronicled the lives of those behind bars. America's love-hate relationship with the bottle and salacious sagas of cheating freckle the recording resumes of Patsy and Loretta and Old Hank. The history part of the book is as well-researched as a doctoral dissertation. An extensive discography helps readers go deeper into the music. Jennings tips his hat to a couple of modern country artists, but the implied jab is that no matter how many millions they make, they'll never write a song the way Merle Haggard can. And few people will ever write a book on music this good."—William McKeen, St. Petersburg Times

"Pity the poor pundit who mistakenly calls The New York Times editor and New England–native Dana Jennings a member of the cultural elite. While Jennings may have a hard time defending his publication as the voice of the working class, hes got 200 pages of whoop ass for anyone who thinks a New Hampshire upbringing equals lattes and prep school . . . By using the magnificent music of the classic Opry-era as a framework and a style guide, Jennings tells his familys story with the same sort of sublime grace that allows Porter Wagoner to be melodramatic without being dishonest, or Merle Haggard to be defensive without being an asshole. Like the great country songwriters of yore, Jennings loves storytelling and language. Even read as merely a music-history book, Sing triumphantly describes Patsy Clines phrasing, Johnny Cashs boldness and Dolly Partons desire for assimilation. Country music has never shied away from writing its own histrionic history. But unlike George Jones, with his concerns about 'Whos Gonna Fill Their Shoes,' Jennings is fine with dismissing contemporary country; hes concerned with whos gonna buy the CD box sets. And, of course, he wants to remind us that Dick Curless not only sang about the deathly dangers of truck driving in the Northeast, he was also a New England native. So there!"—Jake Austen, Time Out Chicago

"Jennings plows deep into the loamy earth of working America, where country music was both literature and religion. He describes early country music as the 'secret history of rural, working-class Americans in the twentieth century,' the history of the Other America, his America. This is country music as archival record of the poor and downtrodden. . . This is the rough side of country music that mirrors the community Dana Jennings grew up in. Make no mistake Jennings is proud of his rough heritage and wears his blue-collar pride like a monogram on his white, starched cuffs as he looks back at his birthright from his job as an editor with The New York Times . . . Jennings writes with deep passion and knowledge about the music that defines him and explains his people. For Jennings, country music is 'the curse and redemption, the journey and the home place . . . prayer and litany epiphany and salvation.' Amen."—Rodney Barfield, The Roanoke Times

"Dana Jennings' Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music is an overdue addition to the country music bookshelf. Bouncing between a memoir of his rural youth and close listening to an oleo of country hits popular between 1950 and 1970, Jennings lays out what country meant to its fans in an earlier generation, and how the music was used by his parents, grandparents and assorted other kin . . . Jennings writes like a dream . . . Throughout Sing Me Back Home, Jennings displays a gift for the taut observation—'Old age was a middle-class luxury,' he writes of poverty's toll—and also shows off an enviable knack for the memorable comparison. Webb Pierce's 'tenor is tight as a noose.' The guitar on 'Coat of Many Colors' is 'Jesus gentle.' The whole book reads just like that, and it's great that Jennings has gotten down these family stories, a history filled with hard work and early deaths, with cheating lovers and alcoholism, with folks who are in and out of trouble with the law, who disparage education and beat their kids. In 'the kingdom of country . . . it seems as if the sun is eternally blood red and going down,' Jennings writes, and his 'kin were cloaked in country darkness.; Sing Me Back Home is like many country songs: beautiful, but very, very sad."—David Cantwell, No Depression magazine

"I admit it. When it comes to real country music, and those whom I believe truly appreciate it as the art form that it is, I am prejudiced. Never in a million years would I believe that some guy from New Hampshire, a writer and editor for the New York Times, of all the newspapers in the world, for crying out loud, would know much about the real thing; no way would someone with that background actually understand the music and those who created it. Well, that was before I read Sing Me Back Home, by Dana Jennings, who is exactly the guy I just described. I want to apologize, Mr. Jennings, and I salute you, sir. Sing Me Back Home is not a straight forward history of country music. Books like those serve their purpose, certainly, and there are many worthy ones out there already that take that approach. Jennings, on the other hand, turns the history of country music into something very personal: a way to share his own family story . . . What makes Sing Me Back Home so memorable is the way that Dana Jennings readily fits a member of his own family to every kind of classic country song there is. He lived it—and he remembers it because it made him the man that he is today despite the fact that he sits behind a desk at the New York Times. Song by song, the reader meets members of Jennings family who could easily have been the inspirations for those same songs because, not only did these folks love and surround themselves with country music, they lived the lifestyle at its heart. For those of us of a certain age, and of a certain upbringing, this book is like preaching to the choir. We already knew this deep down in our souls. But having someone as frank, and just as importantly, as articulate, as Dana Jennings come along to tell the real story of country musics golden age and how its listeners related to those songs, is a real bonus. Sing Me Back Home fits longtime country music fans like an old glove. But the book is also a perfect primer for those newer fans who wonder about the country music legends that are barely more than names to them today. In fact, the discography at the end of the book is worth its whole $24 dollar cover price. Those willing to spend the money and time required to surround themselves with the albums and box sets listed by Jennings in that discography will learn more about the history of Americas working class than they could ever learn from any textbook. Despite what David Allan Coe says to the contrary, I do not believe in the perfect country music song. But there just might be a perfect country music book. If so, this is it."—Sam Houston, Real Country Radio

"This is an energetically idiosyncratic book about country music with the blood, sweat and other bodily fluids left in—and the class warfare, too. Dont tell Jennings that country music came from the South either; it came from a social class, he insists. Consider, for instance, Jennings' prefacing liner notes to his childhood: 'When my parents, all of a scared and trembling 17, tumbled into marriage in the fall of 1957 (my old man owed Ma eighteen bucks, which she never let him forget), the first thing they bought of any consequence was a gray and white Sylvania record player at Custeaus Supermarket in Hampstead, N. H. Besides a squat glistening stack of 45 rpm records, they owned two long-players, Rock and Rollin' with Fats Domino and Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar. I was born just eight days after my parents got married and those two record albums (I am convinced) became my nursery rhymes, comforted me as much as the soothing bass of my mothers girlish heart.' Here then is the result—a wildly personal, flamboyantly written book about 'country music made between 1950 and 1970' which 'is a secret history of rural working class Americans in the 20th century—a secret history in plain sight.'"—Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News

"The perfect country song, according to the late songwriter Steve Goodman, always had references to mama, being drunk, cheating, going to prison and hell-bent driving. Taking a page from Goodman's songbook, Jennings, a New York Times editor, brilliantly captures the essence of country music in this hard-driving tale that is part memoir and part music history. With the wild-eyed, hard-edged energy of Hank Williams and Jerry Reed, Jennings tells of his upbringing in the hardscrabble hollers of New Hampshire. He recalls characters from his family to illustrate the themes of what he believes is the golden age of country music: 1950–1970. Grammy Jennings, 'like Patsy Cline, knows what it is to go walkin' after midnight searching for her man, to fall to pieces, to be crazy-you don't go chasing your oldest son with a butcher knife if you ain't crazy.' With the lonesome strains of the steel guitar and tales of hunger and poverty, reckless driving, cheating and drinking, country singers Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and Merle Haggard—no longer heard on the radio—sang not only to Jennings and his family but the millions of folks just like them struggling to face 'The Cold Hard Facts of Life' (Porter Wagoner) in a postwar world."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)