Latest country music has-been smearing Obama...

[Archae]

Larry Gatlin. :grr:

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005270050

[Dawson Leery]

1. When I think of country music

I see the old patriarchal south of the 19th century.
:puke:

[SoxFan]

2. Nice broad-brush, Picasso

Steve Earle?
Dixie Chicks?
Johnny Cash?
Willy Nelson?
Waylon Jennings?
Kris Kristofferson?

Not exactly the conservative dream team.

[Dawson Leery]

3. Not a fan of any of the above.

I am just stating my first reaction.
Country has shown it's mean conservative side in the past few years.

[Elwood P Dowd]

5. Garth Brooks is a friend of Obama.

Might want to add him to the list.

[iamjoy]

7. Tim McGraw

I think he's progressive too.

But, it's hard not to think of Country Music as being right-wing. After all, when the Dixie Chicks made that comment about President Bush, they were boycotted.

So, I'm waiting for Country Music fans to start rejecting Larry Gatlin.

[SoxFan]

8. Heck, my brother

He's the drive-time DJ for a highly rated country station that overlaps several New England markets. He's a staunch progressive who has volunteered for Barack Obama, Wes Clark, and Carol Shea-Porter.

[ieoeja]

29. The Dixie Chicks were boycotted because they dress funny.

When the Dixie Chicks got their first record contract, the producer was horrified that they were using banjos and steel guitars. Worse yet, there were no cowboy boots!

In an era during which country music where the music sounded disco, i.e. those horrid line-dancing songs, with a country look, the Chicks were producing music that sounded country with a city look.

The fact that they went on to become the second biggest act in Nashville history (after Elvis) just made the producers look even more stupid. Turned out country music fans were a lot more interested in the sound than the look.


The first Dixie Chicks boycott was over the song Goodbye, Earl. The music industry said that a song about a woman laughing as she killed her abusive, stalking ex-boyfriend with poisoned black-eyed peas was "not country". Really? Any honest person would admit it was the very stereotype of country music.

They made the industry look foolish. And the industry isn't forgiving them.

I suspect they're being an all-female band may figure in there some as well.

[Dawson Leery]

32. I see.

Petty indeed.

[Jakes Progress]

9. Tiny list.

I like some country, but was very disappointed that none of those on your list, nor the others mentioned in the thread as liberals, cared to risk anything to support the Chicks when country radio was trashing them. (I believe if Cash had not been so near the end at the time, he would have stood with them publicly.)

[AzDar]

14. +1

:thumbsup:

[jillan]

16. I'll add Marty Stewart to that list.

[SoxFan]

20. Rodney Crowell, Raul Malo, Emmylou Harris, Nanci Griffith

[joe black]

21. Merle Haggard

A Dem all his life or so he claims, smokes pot.

[Dinger]

19. That's Right SoxFan

Thank you:)

[XOKCowboy]

26. Well them country music fans all talk funny so they can't be Liberals.....

When will people realize that there are some people who like Nascar and (real) country music and are part of the liberal movement? I dislike this OP because the poster makes the assumption that since a has-been from 20 yrs ago pens a song against the President to revive his careet that all country music is bad.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

30. and more! good answer Soxfan...

Are you a RED Sox fan? I live in MA.

[The Magistrate]

4. Come Now, Sir, Be Fair....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OreFuVSByE

[provis99]

15. His son, Hank Williams Jr, is a right wing arsehole

I suspect Hank senior was too.

[Eric Condon]

17. Oh, please

Hank Sr. has been dead for 57 years, and was probably too fucked up to care much about politics anyway. Even if he WAS a RWer back then (which I've never seen any evidence of), it's hard to say what that would mean for him today if he were still alive.

[The Magistrate]

18. His Son, Sir, Is a Wretch, No Question

Daddy was one helluva singer, though....

[LakeSamish706]

6. Well it would seem that Larry Gatlin is a Republican supporter. n/t

[spanone]

10. larry is not only a rethug, he's an arsehole

[scheming daemons]

11. Would you be saying Rock and Roll is smearing Obama because of Ted Nugent?

...

[KansasVoter]

12. LOL......wow......are you serious.......

You really think Rock and Roll hates liberals like Country does??

Are you drunk?

A lot of rock and rollers RIPPED Bush and Rolling Stone is a huge liberal publication.

I didn't see any station stop playing Rock and Roll as they ripped Bush.

What happened to the Chicks was awful!

Horrible comparison!!!

[Dawson Leery]

13. And telling as to who is who within country.

The Chicks also had a reputation for going against the grain and irked many within the old hierarchy of Nashville.

[SoxFan]

22. It's a fair question

The punk/alternative side of rock is clearly left of center, along with a fair amount of '60s types, but it isn't as monolithic as you think.

Eric Clapton is a flaming right winger, as are AC/DC.

[BreweryYardRat]

27. Wait, CLAPTON'S a right-winger?

Learn something new every day...even if it's not something good.

Damn, that depresses me. I like a lot of Clapton's stuff.

[leftynyc]

31. Clapton a right winger?

Where do you get that information from?

[Dawson Leery]

33. The rock/pop community is diverse and does not

have it's member artists calling for boycotts of each other over political disagreements.

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. About Clapton:

On 5 August 1976 Clapton provoked an uproar and lingering controversy when he spoke out against increasing immigration during a concert in Birmingham. Visibly intoxicated, Clapton voiced his support of controversial political candidate Enoch Powell and announced on stage that Britain was in danger of becoming a "black colony". Clapton was quoted telling the audience: "I think Enoch's right ... we should send them all back. Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!"<65> The latter phrase was at the time a British National Front slogan.<66> Clapton continued:

"I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking (indecipherable) don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don’t want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck's sake? We need to vote for Enoch Powell, he’s a great man, speaking truth. Vote for Enoch, he’s our man, he’s on our side, he’ll look after us. I want all of you here to vote for Enoch, support him, he’s on our side. Enoch for Prime Minister! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!"<67>

This incident, along with some explicitly pro-fascism remarks made around the same time by David Bowie as well as uses of Nazi-related imagery by Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux, were the main catalysts for the creation of Rock Against Racism, which occurred on 30 April 1978.<68>

In response to his comments, rock photographer Red Saunders and others published an open letter in NME, Melody Maker, Sounds and the Socialist Worker. It read "Come on Eric... Own up. Half your music is black. You're rock music's biggest colonist". It also concluded, "P.S. Who shot the Sheriff, Eric? It sure as hell wasn't you!".<68>

In an interview from October 1976 with Sounds magazine, Clapton remarked: "I thought it was quite funny actually. I don't know much about politics. I don't even know if it would be good or bad for him to get in. I don't even know who the Prime Minister is now. I just don't know what came over me that night. It must have been something that happened in the day but it came out in this garbled thing... I thought the whole thing was like Monty Python. There's this rock group playing on-stage and the singer starts talking about politics. It's so stupid. Those people who paid their money sittin' listening to this madman dribbling on and the band meanwhile getting fidgety thinking 'oh dear'."<69>

In a 2004 interview with Uncut, Clapton referred to Powell as "outrageously brave", and stated that his "feeling about this has not changed", because the UK is still "... inviting people in as cheap labour and then putting them in ghettos." In 2004, Clapton told an interviewer for Scotland on Sunday, "There's no way I could be a racist. It would make no sense".<70> In his 2007 autobiography, Clapton called himself "deliberately oblivious to it all" and wrote, "I had never really understood or been directly affected by racial conflict... when I listened to music, I was disinterested in where the players came from or what colour their skin was. Interesting, then, that 10 years later, I would be labelled a racist... Since then, I have learnt to keep my opinions to myself. Of course, it might also have had something to do with the fact that Pattie had just been leered at by a member of the Saudi royal family."<71> In a December 2007 interview with Melvin Bragg on The South Bank Show, Clapton reiterated his support for Enoch Powell and again denied that Powell's views were "racist".<72>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Clapton#Controversy_over_remarks_on_immigration

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. +1

[stevedeshazer]

23. That stuff isn't really country music.

Just sayin'.

[XOKCowboy]

24. Amen to that.

Even Merle Haggard came out against the Iraqi war. I never heard Emmylou slam any President but I have her sing a rousing "Joe Hill".

I also think the OP paints with a very broad brush. Larry Gatlin hasn't been relevant in Country Music for 20 yrs.

[SoxFan]

28. Emmylou headlined a fundraiser for John Kerry and Music Row Democrats

"Kerry-oke"

[guitar man]

25. He's still alive

Who knew?

I hadn't heard anything out of him since the late '80s