James Akenson
Yes. Indeed! You shoulda,coulda…let’s add woulda to be complete…been there for the 2023 International Country Music Conference (ICMC ). The 2023 edition of ICMC took place Thursday 1 June through Saturday 3 June in The Board Room of The Massey Business Center at Belmont University overlooking Music Row and downtown Nashville.
Even if you couldn’t be at ICMC 2023 in person you coulda, woulda, shoulda have attended VIRTUALLY and ZOOMed to Twang Town (Nashville) from the convenience of your laptop. In any event, you coulda, woulda, shoulda been part of a community of Country Music lovers and could have shared in the gemutlichkeit…thanks to my High School German Teacher Nicholas Lindheim…meaning all the warm and fuzzy vibes sent and received during ICMC 2023.
It’s always a good idea to start off with some socializing. Wednesday evening 31 May provided a pre-conference time to socialize in The Parthenon Room of the Holiday Inn Vanderbilt. No, it’s not being a bit grandiose to call it The Parthenon Room. Across the street is an exact replica of THE Parthenon in Nashville’s Centennial Park, built for the Tennessee State Centennial in 1897. Plus…the Parthenon has a 46 foot replica statue of the Greek Goddess Athena.
So…did the social hour work well? I’d say so. ICMC attendees ate, socialized,and sampled Calfkiller Beer.Where does Calfkiller Beer come from? The urbane and witty Don Sergio came with Calfkiller Beer from Sparta, Tennessee…home and final resting place of Bluegrass pioneer Lester Flatt. Yes, there was lemonade and ice water available for non-drinkers.
The picking lead by Holly Riley and Mark Dillon provided ‘icing-on-the-cake’. There were also some short Book Launch talks by several authors. I got to channel my inner Tasmanian Andrew Smith and discussed Smith’s recently published book on Australian Country Music pioneer Tex Morton. Think it odd, do you, that the University of Tennessee Press would be interested in an Aussie Country Music artist? Well, Tex Morton was influenced by Jimmie Rodgers “The Father of Country Music” and traveled extensively in the U.S. The other short Book Launch talks dealt with books about women in country music, cultural heritage, and even funeral practices. Throw in some informal picking and it was one fine bit of warm and fuzzy, gemutlichkeit, and social networking.
ICMC 2023 was wall-to-wall, back-to-back…and you know what…presentations from the Thursday noon luncheon through the final session Saturday afternoon. ICMC CoChair Don Cusic gave the Thursday luncheon talk about the relationship between Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. Mary Ann Conway gave the final talk Saturday afternoon on The Man of Steel. No, Mary Ann Conway didn’t talk about Clark Kent and Superman. She talked about influential steel guitar player Weldon Myrick. In between Don Cusic and Mary Ann Conway, the special panels and keynote were stellar.
From the Thursday evening Keynote to the Friday night panel discussion, the African American presence in Country Music received plenty of attention. After a social hour filled with fabulous, filling finger foods…say it five times as fast as you can… Francesca Royster discussed “Black Country Music Futures”. Royster’s recent book Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions has received lots…and lots…of attention.
The Friday night panel discussion featured a discussion moderated by Jada Watson, Celebrating Two Years of Black Opry. Forget that the social hour prior to the panel had great food such as asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. The discussion of The Black Opry deeply touched the audience. My Life Partner Mickie got teary eyed as did others in the audience. There’s always been a Black presence in Country Music. Since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2021 there has been an explosion of interest in the stories of Black artists and their desire to be accepted and not the exception.
I felt particularly touched by Aaron Vance’s singing “Ask Hank” and “Real Talk.” Vance is from Amory, Mississippi. My Life Partner Mickie is from Vicksburg, Mississippi. Take a listen to Aaron Vance.
In between Don Cusic and Mary Ann Conway, you could, woulda, coulda, shoulda been captured by the Friday Charles K. Wolfe Memorial Panel discussion. It’s been thirty years since the publication of Find Her Voice: The Saga of Women in Country Music by Mary Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann. A first class panel discussed the impact of Finding Her Voice. Bufwack and Oermann told fascinating aspects of the long process in researching and writing Finding Her Voice.
They drove all over the U.S. before information was easy to find on the internet and even used…gasp!….note cards. Now that is old fashioned scholarship. I think some German philosopher talked about sitzfleisch.You gotta stick with it to accomplish something great. Sitzfleisch is for certain what Bufwack and Oermann did to write Finding Her Voice.
In between Don Cusic and Mary Ann Conway, you coulda, woulda, shoulda loved the Friday luncheon. Forget the food which was first rate, ausgezeichnet…I can’t stop using German words. Besides the gemutlishkeit, the warm and fuzzy atmosphere of the luncheon socialization, the awards presented captured everyone’s attention. The Belmont Country Music Book of the Year Award honored two great books.
The committee couldn’t decide which book was best. Marissa Moss and David Cantwell shared the honor. Moss’s book Her Country:How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be shows the continued interest in issues related to women in Country Music. Cantwell’s book, The Running Kind: Listening to Merle Haggard, shows that great songwriting and singing never dulls with the passage of time. Pure and simple, The Hag lives on in our Country Music lives.
The award at the Friday luncheon, The Rolling Stone Chet Flippo Award for Excellence in Country Music Journalism, touched lots of hearts. Alanna Nash received the Chet Flippo award for a special issue of the American Association of Retired People(AARP) on Country Music. I’m old so I had read Alanna Nash’s AARP special issue before I read it as a member of The Flippo Award evaluation committee.
Flippo committee member Beverly Keel, the Dean of the College of Media and Entertainmentat Middle Tennessee State University, brought Alanna Nash to a teary-eyed state with her praise for the AARP Special Issue as well as Nash’s long career as first rate journalist.Keel also has a deep personal connection to Chet Flippo. She inherited Chet Flippo’s dog when he died.
In between Don Cusic and Mary Ann Conway, you coulda, woulda, shoulda heard a presentation about Lawrence Welk by Brian Peterson. Yes I know. It’s light and frothy Champagne Music, midwestern, super wholesome, and your great-grand parents music. But guess what, Peterson coulda, woulda, shoulda fascinated you with his analysis of the Country Music aspect of Lawrence Welk and the role of the Aldridge Sisters. A New Wave of Champagne: The Aldridge Sisters, Lawrence Welk, and Country Music Television, 1977-1983 showed that here’s always more to Country Music than meets the eye.
In between Don Cusic and Mary Ann Conway, there were lots of other presentations that struck a chord with ICMC attendees. If you think there is some kind of connection between Mother Nature….it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature…and Country Music, You woulda, coulda, shouda loved Adam Iddings of The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Iddings discussed “Plucking the Earth: Mountains, Music, and the Carter Family.”
Max Slyuan, almost done with his PhD dissertation at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania also took a Mother Nature approach. He focused on The Mountains Provoked Sense of Placelessness and Place in American Country Music. One virtual ICMC attendee mentioned that these two Mother Earth talks were his top rated and helped him in thinking about his own research. The woulda, coulda, shoulda beat goes on and on.
Tim Dodge provided ICMC 2023 with The Korean War in Country Music. Kyle Kessler discussed 152 Nassau Street –A Durable History of the South’s First Recording Studio. LaDawn Fuhr analyzed Six Degrees of Chips Moman: The Country Roots of the Do Right Man. Preservationists got a chance to hear Charlie Dahan talk about saving the King Records building in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s Rene’ Rodgers and Toni Doman talked about an exhibit about Women in Old-Time Music.If you don’t like history just remember that Southern novelist Wililam Faulkner said “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”
Bugs Bunny cartoons ended with “That’s all folks.”
But…there were more first-rate presentations to ICMC 2023 that can’t be given they’re just due. Great Bluegrass presentations were part of ICMC 2023. Likewise, storyteller Tom. T. Hall, songwriting techniques, research designs, waltz songs, sustaining Country Music heritage, and Tammy Wynette all received attention. And let’s not forget the importance of Country Music postcards, Irish Country Music, and a visit to Lima, Ohio by steel guitarist Jerry Byrdand some others, no less.
Check the program. https://www.internationalcountrymusic.org/schedule-1. You’ll probably get the idea. In between Don Cusic and Mary Ann Conway, you woulda, coulda, shoulda have socialized, eaten great food, and been fascinated by all sorts of varied Country Music discussions. From the past…which isn’t past …to the Country Music of today, and to issues about Country Music, ICMC 2023 had it all.On the way out of Twang Town LP Mickie and I couldn’t resist going down Broadway to say one last good bye to Country Music culture.
Remember what goes round comes round. Ready, set, go! ICMC 2024 will be here before we know it.
