Chance = Change

A friend told me that the country music star Conway Twitty chose his first name from this town Peter and I are currently sleeping in here in Arkansas...and his last name from a cartoon character....and you can't get near Memphis without being deluged by post cards and bill boards in homage to the King of Rock n' Roll: Elvis Presley!  So...this leads me to ask:

Is there something in the soil of this part of the world that grows music men?  Music men of that certain sensibility called rock-a billy?  Something in the way the world moves around here seems to result in that slurring, sexy slide into the peculiarly American music form that seems to have come from the American South and only the American South....one of this nation's unique contributions to the rest of the world.

This music is so much a part of the fabric of American sound....so threaded through the lives and times of this region...it's taken for granted. But the thing that gets me is this: such a major part of American music has come from around here (some would say all the truly unique and important contributions), so much from this part of the American heart...why do people still make fun of the South? Why are "mountain people" still comically referred to as hill billies? Red necks? Looked down on and made less of? Why does there seem to be a lingering, odd combination of pride and feelings of inferiority even in the fine citizens of the region i speak of?  A stubborn pride in the things that make it wonderful and special...yet a pride born of stubborn hurt, as if fun has been made of it one too many times? A defensive pride....a pride that takes the very things people make fun of and uses them, instead as badges of wonder, beauty and uniqueness.   "To HELL with you! I'm proud to be a red-neck!" sort of thing....A sheer and beautiful pride , like fine washed linen on a farmhouse clothesline, flapping fresh in the morning breeze and saying, "Here I am, clean, pure, simple and ready to serve you"...a pride that takes pride in its very nature.

Of course, Northerners are the targets of many jokes, and people stereotype "the Northern intellectual", "the hard-boiled city slicker", etc....Westerners, mainly Californians, are made such fun of, that the blonde, dumb, bimbo beach bunny seems to hail from Santa Monica and no where else!  As if there weren't plenty of all types of dumb people everywhere!  And the New Englander? Forget it! That poor Vermont farmer, with his daughter, his tight-lipped speech and his frugality, are about as low as stereotyping can slink!

But none of those American regions produce the sort of music that defines it.

The American South does ...and for that alone, there should be such a strong, glorious and stout-hearted
sense of regional Self, that others should sit up and take notice of, and love...as much as I have come to.
For the music alone - given to us, created by and recorded in the memories and hearts of these Southern folks - for the music alone, this region has it above all others, and like its mountains, the people soar on glorious , strong wings.  Nothing to be ashamed of...nothing at all.

Labels: Cross-Country Journey