Subjects: Popular Culture
Good Ol’ Girls (Review)
by Shannon Ravenel
Essay
Rednecks, White Socks, and Piña Coladas?
Country Music Ain’t What It Used to Be . . . And It Really Never Was
by James C. CobbJust the other day, I read a lengthy piece suggesting that the Grand Ole Opry is about to fade away. Fans of “contemporary” country apparently don’t find Little Jimmy Dickens or Porter Waggoner terribly relevant, and the current chartbusters among the younger generation of artists are loathe to forgo the big bucks from lucrative road gigs for the paltry $500 or so that the Opry pays. Such news is certain to set off a new season of wailing and hand-wringing from those who fear the imminent demise of so-called “traditional” country music. »
“I’m Just a Louisiana Girl”
The Southern World of Britney Spears
by Gavin James Campbell
Whatever Happened to the Search for Eric Rudolph?
by Cynthia Lewis
The Dixie Chicks: Fly (Music Review)
by Gavin James CampbellSony/Monument, 1999 For those who wondered whether the Dixie Chicks were a flash in the pan, wonder no more. Fly surpasses Wide Open Spaces. Melding pop’s lush instrumentals with country’s emotional intensity, the Dixie Chicks craft a sound that should appeal to a wide cross-section of listeners. From honky-tonk tear-jerkers like “Hello, Mr. Heartache,” to »
The Rise of Southern Redneck and White Trash Writers
by Erik BledsoeLinda Tate has noted, with a touch of hyperbole, that “[t]raditionally, southern literature has been understood to be that written by white men and, on rare occasions, by white women—and, in almost all cases, by and about white southerners of the upper middle class.” As recently as 1988, another critic claimed, albeit incorrectly, that Harry »
“The Outer Limits of Probability”
A Janis Joplin Retrospective
by Gavin James Campbell“Man, I’d rather have ten years of superhypermost than live to be seventy by sitting in some goddamn chair watching TV,” Janis Joplin said in 1969. A little more than a year later on October 4, 1970, her superhypermost life came to a heroin- and alcohol-induced end in a Lost Angeles hotel room. She was »
Is It True What They Sing About Dixie?
by Stephen J. Whitfield“‘Won’t-cha come with me to Alabammy, Back to the arms of my dear ol’ Mammy, Her cookin’s lousy and her hands are clammy, But what the hell, it’s home.’” To succeed in the New World, Jewish songwriters adopted a southern strategy. Immigrants or the sons of immigrants, these men found their vocation in the era »
The Dead Mule Rides Again
by Jerry Leath MillsAmong many interesting things in Rick Bragg’s All Over but the Shoutin’ (1998) is the revelation that Bragg’s Uncle Jimbo “once won a twenty-dollar bet by eating a bologna sandwich while sitting on a dead mule” (xviii). I believe I understand—at least in a literary sort of way—how Uncle Jimbo must have felt. My affiliation »
Letters to the Editor: Is Britney Beloved in ‘Bama?
by Kelly M. Bruce“‘I just didn’t know that the slutty Catholic schoolgirl has been a staple of pornography for lo these many years! If only I had realized . . .’” Congratulations on another fine issue of Southern Cultures [Winter 2001]. I did not know what to expect from a publication featuring on its cover Britney Spears, bare midriff and »
Fixin’ To Git: One Fan’s Love Affair with NASCAR’s Winston Cup (Review)
by Daniel S. PierceDuke University Press, 2002. Sociologist Jim Wright has taken on a two-fold task in Fixin’ To Git: to make a sociological study of NASCAR’s Winston Cup Series and to reflect on his firsthand experiences in attending six races during the 1999 season—what Wright refers to as his “Fixin’ To Git Road Tour.” As such, it contains »