Jon Weisberger wrote re:
>
>... underlying class
> issues. Nashville's upper crust, for instance, prided itself on living in
> The Athens Of The South (hence the Parthenon), and by and large disdained
> the Opry and the country music bidness into the 1960s, but I don't think
> that attitude permeated all sectors of the city's population.
That's what I suspected. One would think that New Orleans
whose identification with and economic drawing power
depend so much on its image as a swingin' town would
revere its musicians, but most of the year they're as
marginalized there as anywhere else. Some of that's racial
as much as a class issue. It's certainly not related to any
disdain for whooping it up in public, for the uppercrust has
bought into that for at least 150 years. A funny side thing is
that I've played at swank parties in NO and NY at which
exceedingly wealthy fiftysomething male New Orleanians
have gotten into SERIOUS performances as Elvis
impersonators. It's impossible to avoid the irony of these
captains of society impersonating someone who, in his
lifetime, was both far poorer and far wealthier than they
could ever imagine. Imagine the distance from the Memphis
projects to the Garden District ... bizarre.
Tom Smith
(ps - Jon, thanks for the tip on Malone's "Singing Cowboys"
book awhile back. Looks like good vacation reading for an
upcoming trip west of the Pecos)
