Country music distances itself from pro-guns

(New York) After the massacre of schoolchildren in Uvalde, country artists, a musical genre traditionally associated with the conservative and white political movement of the southern United States, distanced themselves from the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful gun lobby meeting in Texas.

Several country stars – historical fellow travelers of the organization – have indeed decided not to perform at the annual NRA convention which opened on Friday in Houston, the megalopolis of Texas, a huge conservative state in the south. from the country.

The singer Don McLean, famous for his title American Pie, judged that it would be “hurtful” and “disrespectful” to play there. He said in a statement “sure that people who plan to attend this event are just as shocked and that it makes them sick”.

“After all, we are all Americans,” he wrote, “sharing with the rest of the nation the sadness for the terrible and cruel disappearances” of 19 children and two teachers who were massacred on Tuesday by an 18-year-old in Uvalde Primary School, located 130 km west of San Antonio.

“Abominable event”

The famous musician Lee Greenwood, curator, and whose success God Bless the USA pace the meetings of former Republican President Donald Trump – who must attend the NRA convention – also canceled his concert: “As a father, I join the rest of America, my heart completely broken by this abominable event.

Same line for country singers T. Graham Brown and Larry Gatlin who, in press releases, announced the cancellation of their concerts on Saturday to “in good conscience” respect the “pain of the bereaved families”.

But if they give up on Houston, all these artists are careful not to criticize the NRA and the sacrosanct constitutional right in the United States to own firearms.

Restless Heart frontman Larry Stewart may have said no to Houston this year, but he championed the infamous Second Amendment to the US Constitution and “the NRA, a great organization that teaches how to use guns safely through law-abiding citizens”.

Country, Conservatives, Weapons

According to music historians in the United States, the banjo, one of the original instruments of country, bluegrass, or folk music, has its roots in the Caribbean in the 17^e century, then played by black slaves deported from Africa to the Americas. Brought to the current territory of the eastern United States, the banjo was taken up by white populations of the Appalachians, in the 18^e and 19^e centuries.

For Mark Brewer, who works on the relationship between American music and politics for the University of Maine, there are “long-standing connections between country music, conservative politics and also gun culture.”

Even if, specifies the expert to AFP, this link “predates the emergence of the NRA as a center of conservative power”.

The distancing of country musicians from the NRA can be explained, according to Mr. Brewer, by “the arrival of young artists, more progressive than the previous generation on the issue of guns or LGBTQ people”.

Swift, Rodrigo for gun control

Breaking four months of silence on Twitter, Taylor Swift, the 32-year-old folk and committed superstar – who started out in Nashville, the country capital of the world – expressed her “rage” and “pain” on Tuesday after the latest killings in the States -United.

She said she was “broken by the murders in Uvalde, Buffalo, Laguna Woods”, California, and denounced the fact that “as a nation, we are conditioned by these unfathomable, unbearable and immense sorrows” .

After a carnage at a high school in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018, Taylor Swift joined a national mobilization at the time to reform gun laws.

Outside of country, pop star Olivia Rodrigo, 19, “revelation of the year” at the last Grammy awards, clearly called on Wednesday at a concert in Los Angeles for “stricter laws on the gun control in America.

The awareness of country artists dates back to October 2017 when a killer in his 60s shot a crowd gathered at a country music festival in Las Vegas (58 dead, hundreds injured).

After this tragedy, musicians like Eric Church, Jason Isbell, Maren Morris or Kacey Musgraves had demanded more draconian laws on the access, sale and carrying of weapons in the United States, recalls the review Rolling Stone.