A rare and remarkable confluence of bluegrass and presidential politics occurred this week when, in the midst of the pre-Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton “bittergate” brouhaha, an advance recording by Del McCoury and his sons came my way. Without endorsing any candidate or party, the album called Moneyland speaks to the same issues Obama was explaining. It’s a more artful expression of those ideas than Obama’s, who was speaking off the cuff and not with his usual precision. But McCoury, one of my musical heroes, is stepping forward boldly with a message that sounds exactly like what Obama (whom I continue to support incidentally) was trying to say.
To recap...
About a week ago, Clinton attacked Obama for remarks he made in San Francisco to a small group of donors in which he said that after 25 years of job losses and economic stagnation in small towns in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, “it's not surprising then (rural Americans) get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Since then, Clinton has accused Obama of “elitism” and being “out of touch” with working class, small town folks.
Like most remarks in political campaigns, these were taken out of context,as David Coleman, who was there, described in this recent article. For me, this was just the latest case of manufactured umbrage coming out of Clinton, who seems more interested in destroying her fellow Democrat than putting the best person in office, but that’s not my point, and certainly not Del McCoury’s.
What Del is saying with Moneyland is made bracingly clear in his liner notes to the CD, which is due for a July release. McCoury, who is 68 years old and a genuine small-town Pennsylvanian from York County, writes that years ago “anyone in York could get a good job, because there were factories everywhere. In the last few years, I’ve had to watch friends and family lose their jobs as factories closed, and many [including his wife] lose (their) pensions. . . .working folks all across America are in a tough spot.” Elsewhere, the album notes say “the only goal of this album is to send this message to Washington politicians: ‘you have turned Rural America into a scene of devastation which can now best be described as Forgotten America. Not only do we believe it Un-American for Washington to be blind to the problems of small towns and rural areas, we believe it to be immoral.”
The album is a mix of hand-picked classic recordings and new Del McCoury Band material. It starts with an archival recording of Franklin Roosevelt from a Depression-era fireside chat and Slim Smith’s "Breadline Blues 1932". Del’s recording of John Harrell’s “Moneyland” eviscerates corporate greed with lines like “murder and robbery/caused by the snobbery/doesn’t mean a thing/it just falls on deaf ears.” And between brilliant new Del tracks like “Forty Acres And A Fool,” you’ll hear populist classics like Marty Stuart and Merle Haggard’s “Farmer’s Blues” and Patty Loveless singing Darrell Scott’s coal-mining anthem “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive.” I think when this album hits for real, it’s going to shock lefties and righties alike with its candor and its understated moral outrage.
Now it’s hard to imagine Del McCoury, one of the loveliest men who ever sang a song, as “bitter,” and I admit that wasn’t the right word. But alienated from public life? Disillusioned by politicians? Angry about decades of decline that rarely makes the media? Let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if Moneyland is on Obama’s iPod by this summer’s Democratic convention.
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