I did not live through those times. I know them only from books. But apparently, under both the Nazis and the Communists, jazz music was considered inherently subversive. Simply by playing certain notes in a particular musical style, a musician became an opponent of the regime. The only way around this was for the musician to make a public and ostentatious display of loyalty to the regime—which was not something everyone was prepared to do. Later, I am told, much the same thing happened with rock and roll.
Today, the same thing is happening with Southern rock, a distinctive blend of rock, blues, and country. Loud music, roaring guitars, and biker culture—ostentatiously free-spirited and masculine. Music that originally grew out of the rough, unsophisticated working-class culture of agricultural laborers in the American South, and that the Czechs adapted to suit their own tastes. It flourished in the 1990s, but as the years of freedom draw to a close, it is once again being pushed to the margins.
In an age of political correctness, the sound alone is enough to make a musician suspect: of racism, sexism, political incorrectness, disrespect for Greta Thunberg, hostility toward the climate, insufficient concern for Tibetan independence, and so on. If you play Southern rock, you will not be invited to a major festival, nor will you gain access to any major media outlet. Unless, of course, you begin making ostentatious declarations of loyalty to the Million Moments for Democracy movement. And that is hardly something one can expect from these musicians. It is not that none of them vote for the Greens, for example. But that kind of political posturing is simply not in their nature.
These people have managed to create a little world of their own, but the restrictions are real. As the Czech Constitutional Court observed a few years ago, you have the right to say whatever you want, but you do not have the right to spread your message in such a way that anyone can actually hear it. That applies to music as well.