Last night, I read a preview in New York magazine of the Great High Mountain Tour. This is a tour of old-time music, put together by T-Bone Burnett (who did the music for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain) and featuring such luminaries as Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss & Union Station, the Cox Family, the Whites, Sierra & Cody Hull, Jerry Douglas, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band.

Sounds like an awesome tour, and I'm seriously thinking about going. (It hits the Beacon Theater in New York on Thursday.) But what I found odd (and rant-worthy, thus this post) was the last graf of the review:

For almost everywhere you listen in this show, you will find the Savior, walking up Calvary, bleeding and dying for you or sitting with the Father, or offering succor to the poor wayfaring stranger or conferring stars in heavenly crowns or being revealed by John the Revelator or dipping his pen of love in your heart. This omnipresence is both stirring and troubling. Stirring, because even for doubters, the Christian faith it generally celebrates is either jubilant and hopeful or offers some comfort to men “of constant sorrow”—a perfect folk-lyric description of clinical depressives—and to proverbial “poor wayfaring strangers” and the whole world of trouble here below. Unsettling, because the kind of intolerant certitude it sometimes represents puts one uncomfortably in mind of the havoc fundamentalism seems to be wreaking everywhere. But this isn’t a reason not to see it—it’s a reason to see it, because it turns what would otherwise be simply a good, old-time-music performance by talented young proselytizers and road-seasoned pros into something sweeter: a hymn with a paradoxical and sad new-timeliness.

Well, duh. Anyone who is at least passingly familiar with this music knows what a central role religion plays in it. The Christian faith is a large part of these peoples' lives, and it only makes sense that it should be a big part of the music as well. (Not to mention that much of this music either explicitly or implicitly came from church music.)

What I find odd about this graf is the sentence where it says that the omnipresence of Christian imagery in the music is "unsettling, because the kind of intolerant certitude it sometimes represents puts one uncomfortably in mind of the havoc fundamentalism seems to be wreaking everywhere." Well, yes, Christians can sometimes be full of intolerant certitude. But so can lots of people, from Muslims to Jews to Naderites to the Bush Administration. And while the particular strain of religion associated with this music tends to be one of fundamentalist (and evangelical) Christianity, that doesn't mean that the people who practice it are jerks, bigots, corrupt, or any of the other myriad popular stereotypes of rural Christians. Y'know, I'm not a fundamentalist, but I know some, am related to some, and have some as good friends. It's even possible to have a pleasant, respectful conversation about religious differences with them.

I guess I'm disappointed that Daniel Menaker, the writer of the review under discussion, seems to think that the views of the radical fringe can't easily be separated from those more moderate views held by just about everyone else. Hypothetically, if a concert of songs based on Rumi's Sufi poetry were to be held in New York, would Menaker start complaining about Iraqi insurgents or Palestinian suicide bombers, just because they're examples of extreme Islamic fundamentalism? Somehow I don't think so. Why was this even worthy of comment?

If you're interested in the music enough to pay New York prices for a concert ticket, it's a reasonable assumption that you know something about it, or at least have some clue about the central place of Christianity in it. If you're going to a gospel and bluegrass show, you're going to hear about God and Jesus...it's a given. Why was it necessary for Menaker to make arch remarks about "talented young proselytizers?" Because I'll bet that most of the audience won't be there for the evangelism...they'll be there for the music.

Comments

[jonmc]

Why was it necessary for Menaker to make arch remarks about "talented young proselytizers?"

To demonstrate who far above such things he is, of course. Welcome to the ugly side of educated sophisticates, my man. You reacted well. You're crochetying up nicely.

[tizzie]

Jon is right, although I'd tend to say "big city" sophisticates instead of "educated" sophisticates. If anything, rural people are one marginalized group that it's ok to hold stereotypes about. And the writer probably feels he's got an obligation to warn his city readers about the ignorant superstitions of country folk. Gah.

[Jeff]

Menaker's only god is the sound of his own (literary) voice. He's been writing the same piece for years (yawn!), with very minor variations, as the self-appointed "expert" on all music in the "O Brother" vein. As though he knows anything about it at all... He's a geezer music wannabe chasing the alt-country babes..Good luck!

[Daniel Menaker]

I know I'm opening myself up to further rants, but I just want to remind the readers at this site that in the piece I say "the kind of intolerant certitude [it] *sometimes* represents...." The statement isn't by any means global about Christianity, Christian fundamentalism, or any other kind of fundamentalism. As to my ignorance or knowledge of country, bluegrass, and American roots music, I've been playing it and singing it and listening to it for sixty-three years. It's true, I still may know far, far less than I ought to, but I know a fair amount. Finally, as to my writing the same piece over and over again, well you may have me there.