Country music reflects America’s struggles

Country music has enjoyed a long tradition of reflecting the everyday concerns of working men and women, good times and bad times. With 14 million Americans currently out of work, a crippling national debt, and a record number of people living below the poverty line, country music may be going through a sea change. Call it an indicator of economic times but in the time it took pickup trucks to go from stripped down working class boxes of mud and steel to plush seated luxury vehicles, country music went from the folksy tinny common man voice of Woody Guthrie to the likes of Tim McGraw singing about the perils of being rich.