James Akenson
A few years back I wrote a piece for Country Underground Australia about a mate, a friend Andrew Smith of Tasmania who I had never met. We had corresponded over almost thirty years by old antiquated ‘snail mail’ and then through email and social media. Finally, in 2018 at the International Country Music Conference at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee we met in person. Come to think of it, Andrew Smith got on the elevator at the Holiday Inn Vanderbilt as Life Partner Mickie and I were going up to our room after having checked in.
The rest is history. End of article. No. Our meeting deserves to be shared. After all, didn’t Southern novelist William Faulkner say The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past. It particularly needs to be shared with all the times Andrew and I have worked together in a variety of ways. Above all, the recent Spring 2023 publication of Andrew’s biography of Australian Country Music pioneer Tex Morton deserves discussion. After all, the Tex Morton biography is a step toward confirming Morton as a cultural icon.
Australian Country Music, particularly of an early pioneer, might not sound like a topic a publisher like the University of Tennessee Press would find interesting. The Charles K. Wolfe series named in memory of the late Country Music scholar from Middle Tennessee State University might only be interested in Country Music and related roots music topics particularly from the southern United States. Quoting Waylon Jennings from a great Country Music song….WRONG!
And…I got to be part of the Tex Morton process. Yes. It’s been a process for Andrew. Tex Morton didn’t just spring up one day as an ideal topic for a book. It usually doesn’t work that way. Wine lovers with be pleased to know that metaphorically you have to labor in the vineyards for quite some time to have the vintage come in. Penfolds, anyone!? Andrew hasn’t exactly been working on Tex Morton for 175 years as has Penfolds, but his Tex Morton biography didn’t happen overnight.
I’m not good at math, but the 2002 Country Music Annual featured an Andrew Smith Article titled Tex Morton and His Influence on Country Music in Australia During the 1930s and 1940s. That’s a good twenty years ago. A mere seven years ago Andrew published Tex Morton: Australia’s Country Music Pioneer in the International Country Music Journal. If you don’t like the laboring-in-the vineyards metaphor try this…Andrew Smith has been laboring on Tex Morton as a mason putting brick-by-brick in place to create a solid foundation.
Come to think of it, Andrew Smith also added to his Tex Morton vineyard foundation at the 2018 International Country Music Conference (ICMC). Smith participated in the 2018 ICMC Key Note session with Dr Toby Martin and Ms Colleen Trenwith.
I dug a little further into my relationship with Andrew Smith. We began our connection in 1990. Take a look at the Aerogramme. We actually didn’t have email or FaceBook Direct Messaging. Can you believe such primitive means of communication? In Smith’s 8 December 1990 letter he mentioned “I’m currently researching the early days of Australian Country Music, and one thing is very clear: Jimmie Rodgers was the major influence on our early artists, like Tex Morton and Buddy Williams.”
In a letter to me on 17 August 1991 Andrew Smith apologized for not responding quickly to my most recent letter. Andrew stated: “Recently, quite a bit of my spare time has been taken up with writing liner notes for a forthcoming, small-scale Tex Morton cassette reissue series, including some never-before-reissued radio shows.” Just think, some readers might be too young to even know what about cassette tapes.
All of this means that Andrew Smith has worked on Tex Morton for at least thirty-three years. It makes the 2002 Country Music Annual article seem positively young.
Somehow, I got the chance to be a reviewer of the Tex Morton biography for the University of Tennessee Press. In July of 2021 some things I praised about the Tex Morton manuscript dealt with Andrew Smith’s great scholarship.
“1,365….1,365….1,365 footnotes provide an excellent insight into the exacting scholarship as well as the depth and breadth of knowledge brought to this biography of Tex Morton. Clearly, the author has worked in the Tex Morton vineyard for many vintages and the biography reflects the length, depth, and intensity of labor. The 1,365 footnotes should not obscure the remarkable discography that will further satisfy expert readers.
Most significantly, this Tex Morton biography continually links Australian Country Music to Country Music in the United States. The continuous linkage of U.S. and Australian Country Music throughout the Tex Morton biography is particularly significant at two levels.
First, Australian Country Music cannot be understood without realizing the continuous influence from Jimmie Rodgers, Carson Robison, and others into the 21st Century. Witness the styles, and chart action. Check out the 2013 resignation of Country Music Association of Australia president John Williamson protesting too strong an American presence in Australian Country Music.
Second, from a University of Tennessee Press marketing perspective, the strong linkages of the Tex Morton biography to United States Country Music make the biography all the more appealing to a casual, informed, or highly informed, expert, scholarly reader.”
You might go out-on-a-limb and say that I gave the Tex Morton manuscript a positive review. There were more points to my review, but you get the idea.
Discussion groups have tended to go the way of the Dodo Bird with the advent of social media. Like dude, who needs an email based group when there is FaceBook and all sorts of other options? The Classic Country 1940s to 1970s discussion group continues to function. The members most likely resemble a Shar Pei kennel. But, they engage in some truly literate, in-depth discussions about major artists, some totally obscure artists, as well as record labels great and obscure.
After the release of the Tex Morton biography, one member posted
Amazon now has it for sale, it’s in the US, quick shipping. He’s been working on it since he joined the group…like delivering a baby, it’s finally out there: Published by the Univ of Tennessee, part of the Charles Wolfe Country Music History series.
Andrew Smith and I and having emailed, ZOOMed, and Direct Messaged often about the labor involved in writing and editing Tex Morton. The giving birth comparison is not out-line. After all, nobody said elevating Tex Morton to an iconic status would be easy.
The 40s-70s posting also quoted some of the official endorsement praise on the back cover of the Tex Morton book.
Born in 1916 at the northern end of New Zealand’s South Island, the teenaged Robert William Lane became obsessed with the singing and expressive yodeling of country music’s Jimmie Rodgers. By the 1940s, his obsession and subsequent focus on his own guitar playing, singing, and yodeling led him to achieve musical stardom as Tex Morton, master showman and influential progenitor of Australian country music. Tex Morton: From Australian Yodeler to International Showman offers the first full-length biography of this country music phenomenon from down under.
With descriptive words such as progenitor you know it’s a book to be taken seriously, worthy of a U.S. academic press, and elevates Tex Morton to iconic status in the history of Australian Country Music almost next to Slim Dusty.
I could cite lots of specific content that confirms Andrew Smith’s meticulous research. Let’s just do one in the interest of space. In one paragraph Smith details his duet on Rock My Cradle (Once Again) and linked it to Johnny Bond and to Hank Williams. The song was about a U.S. soldier killed by a sniper in World War 2 at Guadalcanal. Bet you didn’t know a thing about Rock My Cradle (Once Again). I certainly didn’t.
All of these positive notions for Tex Morton getting the kind of attention he deserves means Morton’s status is being elevated. He probably isn’t quite on a par with Slim Dusty or Jimmie Rodgers. But Tex Morton is certainly approaching iconic status.
This also means that my friend, my mate, Andrew Smith is finally getting the kind of recognition he deserves for being a detailed, first-rate scholar with incredible depth of knowledge. And, it’s not just Country Music in Australia, the U.S., and throughout the world that Andrew Smith excels.
As a statistics guru from his work with Tasmania and Australian educational Value Added school testing…let’s not try to describe it in this piece…Andrew applies statistical analysis to his Australian County Music data. He also helped with data analysis in Dr. Randy Williams Tennessee Tech PhD dissertation on The Sacred and Profane in Early Country Music 1921-1957. What does Sacred and Profane mean? Try Heaven and Hell, Save and Unsaved, Saturday Sinner and Sunday Saint.
Not only that, but Andrew Smith is responding to cutting edge Social Network Analysis research…don’t ask what it mean as I’m confused more than a touch as well…and helping guide Country Music Data Base construction with a Tennessee Tech PhD candidate and myself.
You no doubt are getting the picture. Andrew Smith is himself building a track record, a volume of work, that elevates him as a Country Music scholar. He’s an icon in my eyes! I much prefer icon to rock star! Andrew Smith will become an icon to lots of other scholars and knowledgeable Country Music fans the more Tex Morton is read world-wide. Just wait for his second Country Music book…already underway…is published along with articles he’s working on with me and Randy Williams.
So…hats off to Andrew Smith. Thanks Andrew, for helping elevate Tex Morton to iconic status where Morton belongs. And…hats off to Andrew Smith for building a first-rate body of work that takes him to the next level, to iconic status, in Country Music scholarship.
