Deep Down in the South

 

 10 years+ previous: Memories Of James Brown By (Brock Townsend)

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The late 1970s represented the heyday of popular Southern music. Southern rock and “outlaw country” dominated the airwaves. It was chic to say “ya’ll,” even in Boston, and with the election of Jimmy Carter, it really seemed the “South was gonna’ do it again.”

It wouldn’t last. During an interview at Capricorn Studios in Macon, GA one afternoon, Charlie Daniels spit into his cup and said it wouldn’t mean anything in a few years. He was right. In less than a decade, the South had once again become the punching bag for everything that ailed the United States, the backwards other in American politics. Her people were taken for granted by the political class. They could be counted on to vote, but promises were easily broken. By the 1990s, the onslaught against her symbols began in earnest. Southerners had much to defend, but they had lost their voice.

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