John Rich: How Wokeness Killed Country Music | Stories of Us

there's no Johnny cashes or Wayan Jennings or or those kind of people or Loretta ly well there's a good reason for that cuz none of those people would have been allowed to exist today my name is John Rich this is my [Music] story so I grew up in a town called amarella Texas so if you look at the State of Texas go to the very top where it squares off like this that's called the panhandle of Texas were it not for Interstate 40 rolling through amarilla there would probably be no town there just be more cows and more more wheat Fields a lot of tough people out there uh Cowboys Oil Workers a lot of Agriculture I'm the oldest of four kids so I have two younger sisters and then and then a baby brother my dad was doing everything from he was a night Watchman at emland National Bank he was slopping hogs for the Neighbors hog farm next door giving guitar lessons selling used cars mowing people's grass detailing people's cars literally anything he could think of to make sure we didn't go without and we didn't go without my dad is a uh preacher my dad started preaching when he was about 19 years old and he never preached in the big churches so there was never any salary really attached to anything he was doing my dad's more of a prison preacher I never remember my dad without a guitar hanging around his neck so he preached in little churches or he'd preach in prisons or he would preach in the streets wherever he was at and one of his one of his big assets was he could he could pull a guitar out and start singing cuz they might not want to hear him preach but they wouldn't mind listening to him sing for minute and he knew that so man he would sing and wear it out one of his extra jobs was to give guitar lessons there in emera Texas and I was about five or six my dad goes you want to go with me to guitar lessons I'm like sure Dad I mean what kid doesn't want to tag along I sure Dad so I go down there and he's got this semicircle of probably 20 adults sitting there with their guitars I sit down next to my dad kind of behind him he hands me this little tiny guitar he goes just try to follow along and he starts teaching well I sat behind him and I'm just doing what he's teaching them to do and within about 2 or 3 months I was out playing all of his students my dad goes you're picking that up pretty quick he goes let let's work on a little bit more next thing you know I'm playing pretty much everything my dad can play Never dawned on me people make money playing music Emeral Texas come on you better be able to herd cows run a combine something uh to have your career not not music so being around that early on it was a it was a real binder between me and my dad something we could do together play music together watch watch him do it in church watch my dad write a song spend a whole week and hear him in his back bedroom working on this song and writing lyrics down then he would sing it to people on Sunday morning and I I said I saw him write that and then watch people respond to the song I was like that's like magic how did he do that he just took blank paper and now people are singing the words back it was very inspiring I look at where I'm at today as a songwriter and I think back a power I was struck by that that my dad was able to write something perform form it create something out of nothing and and see impact happen my dad my whole family his parents all all the grandparents and uncles it was instilled in us at a really early age that hey you live in America and some of the old men said yeah and we were in World War II or he was in you know he was here and he was there and you learned those stories they go it doesn't matter where you start off son you can wind up no telling where you just got to think big and work hard you got to outwork everybody and you know that hustle will beat Talent you know there's a misconception in the world that the most talented people are the ones that always win that is not true if the most talented singers were the ones on country radio that's the only ones that ever made it you'd have a completely different group of people singing on the radio the people on the radio that you that have become big stars and that you hear are the ones that have talent of course but they are the ones that that were willing to stick with it figure it out figure out the business side of the music so they could have these long careers it wasn't just cuz they could hit a high note and that that goes across the spectrum of all business all entrepreneurial efforts period and so I was taught that early on hey buddy if you want to go get something go get it when I was in high school I started singing a lot I would enter you know singing competitions and this and that I got noticed by a couple universities and uh and actually had a couple of full rides to some really good schools while this is going on I auditioned for this big theme park that used to be in Nashville called Opry land oppr Land USA they had all these live music shows in the park I went down to audition thinking I'd never get it cuz I'm not a dancer and I said you got to be able to dance but thought well there are a bunch of good-looking girls down there so it's probably worth the trip so I go down audition what do you know I get the job this is my senior year in high school that summer after I graduated I go to work at Opry land and I meet these guys from Texas who are all 10 and 15 years older than me and they're all working at opan too they said you're from Texas right I go yeah they we're putting a little band together and uh would you want to be in the band you play a little bass I said I barely but yeah I play a little bit of bass they said well let's meet this weekend we'll have a rehearsal and if it goes well maybe we'll play a couple of shows I said sounds good we did a little showcase and next thing you know we've got 200 dates on the books and I said how much money am I going to make if I do all these dates he goes man you'll probably make like $400 a week I went what couldn't believe it like that's so much money so I said you know what I'm going to push College off for a year go travel with these guys my mother said uh well you'll never amount to a hill of beans if you don't go to college and I said well a hill of beans is not what I intend on amount to what a smart alic answer right but that was my attitude like I'm going for it I'm going for it uh these guys made me an offer I love playing music more than anything how do I get on the grandle operate this is probably a better route and sure enough that band went on to become the band Lone Star which we sold 6 million records while I was in that band that's where I wrote my first number one songs and and really cut my teeth on country music being in Lone Star at 18 19 20 it was up to about 24 years old was when I was in that band this is when you learn that country music is not a hobby if you want to have a career in that buddy you better get ready three guys in a hotel room and not a nice hotel room crammed into a Jeep Cherokee pulling a U-Haul trailer from Orlando to Reno Nevada I mean stuff like that playing anywhere they'd give you a mic you're going to go play so you learn what it means to really go out and grind for something and there's no guarantee you're ever going to get it you know how does all this work the business of music on a small level but still the business of music that's where I learned all that stuff and then being a songwriter the only reason I would write a song prior to Lone Star would be to try to impress some girl but you get into the Lone Star you got a record deal now and they're like guys you're going to cut a record uh you should probably write some songs and that's where I started getting a lot better at writing songs my first number one was called come crying to me which uh came out we sold 2 or 3 million records on that one and man that's when I said you know what I like this songw writing thing that's the most powerful things in the world to me is blank paper and a pencil nobody can tell you what you can put on it the Declaration of Independence started out as blank paper and somebody had to put a pen to it the pages of the Bible we can go on and on and on pretty much all the great things that ever impacted the world in general started out with somebody with a thought or a feeling a writing instrument and something to write on so song writing to me is kind of like that it's a blast but it's also very powerful and it has pulled me out of a lot of ditches throughout my career part of the equation of succeeding at something is you're going to fail a lot getting up to the point where you're an expert at it or you're a pro at it and so the question is how do you deal with failure CU you're going to get it if you're not failing then you're not trying we all know that old phrase it's very true for me when uh Lone Star fires me they go off and put the biggest song out in the decade I lose my solo deal I'm damaged goods I thought what is the only thing I can still control and I tell people this all the time when everything seems out of your control and things are just blowing up left and right you got to think what's the what's the one thing I still control it could be something as simple as what I'm going to eat what how I'm going to exercise you know something simple and control it very well and you will start to build back out from that slowly but surely back into the Realms of things that you'd actually like to be doing for me it was songwriting so you can take away my record deal you can take away my concerts you can take away the awards and all that but I still got a pencil and I still got a notebook and I still got this old Gibson guitar sitting here and nobody can tell me what I can write on this page I've been asked to write songs for all different kinds of reasons I've sat down with my buddy Big Kenny have a couple of cocktails what's the craziest thing we could come up with Kenny Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy oh that sounds good okay here you go let's write that one I've had artists come to me there was one guy in particular came up and he said hey man um I Heard a couple of your songs and I wish I had some songs like that and I'm I'm just trying to get a record deal so could I use a few of your songs in my showcase I said yeah I guess and I'm like who are you again he goes my name's Jason Aline I went never heard of you what songs do you want and he starts listing off some of these titles I said wow dude those are my favorite songs she goes yeah I I pray when even get it deal I just want to you know just want to see if I could use them I said yeah you can use them man no problem and Alan of course gets his record deal and I wind up having five number one songs on Jason Aline and all those songs were written back when everything was exploding all around me and I focused on the one thing that I could still control which was that pencil on that paper so people got to remember that the game is not over unless you give up Faith Hill came to me one time and she Saidi wish you'd write a song for me that it would only make sense if I sang it I went that's an interesting parameter okay only makes sense if you sing it I said oh I'll work on it and so I'm out on the road with Tim McGraw with with Big and Rich and I'm noticing that Faith backstage flipflops ball cap cut off shorts hanging out with their kids parking lot like anybody else but then when the show starts she comes walking off the bus in an evening gown she steps out with Tim singing It's Your Love to 30,000 people she gets through she walks back off 5 minutes later ball cap tank top back to normal I went that's what the fans don't know about faith that's what they need to know about faith they don't get to come backstage and see that so I wrote this song called Mississippi girl with the first line in the song completed the task of she's the only one that could sing it and Mak sense cuz it says it's a long way from Star Mississippi well that's her hometown nobody else in country music from that little town so when I played it for her out in the parking lot a few days later big old tier rolled out of her eyes she goes I'm recording that I'm going to put that out she goes thank you for writing that it went number one for two weeks the wave of wokeism that that's hit this country and especially the entertainment business that made its way to Nashville so these artists are sitting there and they're being told by their publicists their managers the heads of their record labels hey we know that you think these things about America that that you're against kind of all this woke stuff that we do they don't call themselves woke of course but we know you're not really for that but hey don't even think about putting out a post that pushes against that don't you say XYZ on your microphone on your stage no you cannot record that song because it says this and they just completely control these artists and the artist only has two choices at that point do they want to go have a career it's been their dream do they play the game go forward and just don't step on these landmines or do they go out and hit the trip wires and light the place up and lose their record deal and not get invited to the awards show and radio won't play them and so for forth but basically erased their career that's what they're faced with is there freedom in art in Nashville like total freedom absolutely not absolutely not it's sad to make authentic art whatever that is where it's music films whatever the artist needs to have free reign over whatever it is they've got in their mind the whole point of art is I can see it in my mind I can hear it in my mind I'm gonna I'm going to make it a physical reality and that's the art so when you start building walls and and parameters and barriers and protocols around artists then the Art's dying at that point look at our poor comedians having to pick and choose what jokes they want to say I mean I've got some comedian friends that are hardcore socialist who I'm friends with that have come to me and said man I can't vote for this anymore I go why not they go I'm having to pick and choose what jokes I'm going to say that's not comedy we're like the last line of of defense for the truth we get to say it right out in the open there's nothing you can do to us about it and they're canceling comedians CU they don't like their jokes I go what do you think he's going to get I I was like brother you only get to vote for Socialism or communism one time you only get to vote for it once once it gets in that's it if you're wondering why it seems like people are pulling back and not giving you the full meal deal they're not there's no Johnny cashes or Wayan Jennings or or those kind of people or Loretta Lind well there's a good reason for that cuz none of those people would have been allowed to exist today I think there's a juncture that happens uh just speaking for myself being a dad and weighing out your career choices if I say these things it's going to cost me okay guess what if it's this bad right now what's it going to be like when my two boys are in their 20s and 30s and they're walking out into the world what are they going to be looking at the only example they're going to have of how to handle that correctly is the old man America has had such an impact in the world because it gave its people not the right to be happy the right to pursue happiness the right to exhaust your potential the thing I love the most about this country is I wake up every day I go as long as I'm still breathing the game ain't over hey folks I hope you really enjoyed watching this video to keep prageru videos free consider making a tax deductible donation God bless