Re: What Country is Really All About
Howdy, Cool. I'm through with work for the day (there's still a great big pile of it on the desk, but I've seen all I care to see of it for the day), so here's my timely response to an article posted about a week ago... The Philclip(TM) says of country fashion: Compared to today's styles, the corn-pone, countrified heydays of Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn and Minnie Pearl seem like a century ago. If my memory isn't totally faulty, I once saw Loretta Lynn in a gingham Hee Haw type dress once while guest starring in a Hee Haw skit. I believe that Mr. Houk chose the wrong examples for illustrating his "corn-pone" evidence. As a matter of fact, I can't think of two worse examples than Wynette and Lynn who always seemed to be dressed in formal (or at least semi-formal) gowns whenever I saw them on stage. Actually, beyond comedy acts like Minnie Pearl, I'm having a hard time thinking up the names of women who regularly took the "corn pone" route in stage costuming. Almost every example I come up with usually involves a Hee Haw skit, medicine show, or alt-country band. But that really isn't the part of the article I wanted to quibble about. Mr. Houk's Dixie Chick article yanks my chain when he says: Why the change? Take a look at the country as a whole and see how it has morphed. The Deep South was much more isolated from the rest of the country in 1968 than it is in 1998. Back then, there was a much greater difference between Janis Joplin and Loretta Lynn than there is between Alanis Morissette and Shania Twain. Styles worn by Nashville stars tended to stay in Nashville. Today, with videos and full-time country cable channels, women from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Ore., can identify with music coming out of Tennessee. Umm, I'm sorry was he talking about 1968 or 1768? Thank God for the miracle of color television so the poor ol' South wouldn't be isolated any more. Gee-aww-ly, but that new-fangled electricity sure did introduce us to a whole new world. Oh, and thanks for showing us how to use can openers and teaching us that we didn't have to use flintlocks, too. We can credit the end of those particular examples of Southern isolation on the Food Network and the hunting shows on TNN. Mostly though, I am weary of the "Southern vacuum" theory. It is tiresome and more subversive to the Southern culture than anything the producers of Hee Haw ever dreamed up (Hey, Carl). I won't argue that there weren't pockets of true isolation, but by and large those pockets existed by choice (and in the case of this discussion, their existence in comparison to the whole is negligible). The vast majority of the South had access to the same tools available elsewhere (in this case, read: radio, automobiles, trains, movie theaters, newspapers, and other items which would make true isolation near impossible). Mr. Houk and his ilk usually confuse the difference between "rural" and "isolated" or fail to recognize that ethnic (or regional) cultures extend beyond the "isolated" neighborhoods in the five burroughs. Referring to the change from the author-defined "tacky" look of the 70s and 80s, the author says: To some, a change this radical is just that; an aggressive effort to stay current and relevant. Others see it as an abandonment of country music's roots and soul. And now, I wonder if this isn't one of those articles Jeff Wall has been writing in an apparent audition for The Onion. I cannot read further... Take care, Shane Rhyne Knoxville, TN [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: What Country is Really All About
[Matt Benz] I still say the Dixie Chicks look terrible, hair and outfits wise. Can I get a witness?
RE: What Country is Really All About
[Matt Benz] I still say the Dixie Chicks look terrible, hair and outfits wise. Can I get a witness? Heh, they ain't no Carlene Carter, what can I say g. Should this be on the fluff list??? --junior
RE: What Country is Really All About
Well, I'm not gonna dish on their looks, just the outfits and do's. To get all Blackwell about it, The Dixie Chicks went scratchin in the wrong dirt when they picked these outfits. Look away, look away, Dixie land, indeed! -Original Message- From: BARNARD [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 05, 1999 9:27 AM To: passenger side Subject: RE: What Country is Really All About [Matt Benz] I still say the Dixie Chicks look terrible, hair and outfits wise. Can I get a witness? Heh, they ain't no Carlene Carter, what can I say g. Should this be on the fluff list??? --junior
RE: What Country is Really All About
I could care less how the Dixie Chicks dress, so no witness here, Matt. I do think it's interesting, though, that the writer of that piece seemed to think that Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn wore gingham frocks throughout their careers, which is way, way off-base. The difference is that when they went upscale in their stage dress, it was in an adult-oriented, "high class" direction - gowns gauze, you might say, and this was general true, I think, at least partway through the 80s (I have a great picture I made at the Opry in 1987 or 88 of Patty Loveless in a Lynn-type gown), whereas the Chicks (and Twain, and...) seem to be going for something a tad more, ah, youth-oriented. Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
RE: What Country is Really All About
I agree entirely, Matt. I mean, those girls need to do the makeover show on E! network. We must not be their target audience Their music can be (or was, at one point, as people here have been pointing out) quite respectable, but the look sure isn't hitting home with me... --junior PS. I expect to see the denizens of the goddess abode in Nashville dressing that way any day now g
RE: What Country is Really All About
Actually, now that I think about it, I don't really care for the "look" of many contemporary country artists. My head's always full of old-time stuff and the way the performers dress now in general just doesn't get it for me. Men *and* women, I'm talking about... --junior
RE: What Country is Really All About
-Original Message- From: Jon Weisberger [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 05, 1999 9:34 AM To: passenger side Subject: RE: What Country is Really All About I could care less how the Dixie Chicks dress, so no witness here, Matt. I do think it's interesting, though, that the writer of that piece seemed to think that Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn wore gingham frocks throughout their careers, which is way, way off-base. [Matt Benz] Yeh, I suppose maybe I shouldn't notice such things. H. Now you have me questioning my whole.oh never mind. G Anyway, I agree with ya, and it probably goes without saying that yeh, maybe Lynn and Wynette didn't have any "empowerment" songs since that word "empowerment" wasn't in use-but songs like "The Pill" "Don't COme Home A Drinkin" etc came close. Sure, maybe it wasn't about deflowering a boy, or throwing your man to the floor for a quickie, but then, it was a different era. Those tunes were pretty damn bold.
RE: What Country is Really All About
Agreed, Jr, and I'm no fashion plate myself. For instance, I think the Mavricks look pretty silly with their faux hipster mafia look, and well, any of those other bands like Diamond Rio need to realize that Chess King closed down back in the 80's. Hell, they make BG bands look like the whip. M -Original Message- From: BARNARD [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 05, 1999 9:46 AM To: passenger side Subject: RE: What Country is Really All About Actually, now that I think about it, I don't really care for the "look" of many contemporary country artists. My head's always full of old-time stuff and the way the performers dress now in general just doesn't get it for me. Men *and* women, I'm talking about... --junior
