Episode 3: Nostalgia, Race, and Rebels in 70s Southern Rock

This [“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”] is a song of pain. There were Virgil Caines of the early 1970s who looked around and they ALSO saw a South that they were starting to find unrecognizable. The landscape and how people lived were shifting. The low hanging fruit here is, of course, to focus on the race. We can’t ignore it. In 1970, we were only six years out from the Civil Rights Act and the end of Jim Crow laws. Whether white southerners like it or not, their past as one of the largest slave societies in world history and as the former Confederacy of the United States will likely never escape them, in part because some people do not want to escape it.

Episode 2: Countryish Music of the 1970s

Fueled by a few too many gin and tonics, Charlie Rich announces that John Denver is the CMA Entertainer of the Year but it does not end there. He reaches into his pocket, takes out a lighter, and sets the card on fire. Fortunately, John Denver was appearing via satellite from Australia and did not see it but a whole lot of other folks did. Charlie said it was an accident and blamed it on some painkillers but given the state of country music in 1975, it seemed too obvious of a statement to ignore. That statement was that the likes of John Denver were not welcome in country music.

history, music, music historyAmy LivelyNovember 21, 2018country music, countrypolitan

Episode 1: Disco Doesn't Suck

The Loft was the beginning of the members-only sanctuaries that attracted gay men, in particular, because it was places like the Loft and the Sanctuary, and Paradise Garage that welcomed...legitimized the presence of the queer community. No more sitting in dark corners, making sure that you had your bail money in your pocket.