Claudia
12-10-2002, 6:55am
A Fist in the Air for Faith
Thanksgiving seems so long ago, but it’s never too late to applaud Faith Hill for her splendid Thanksgiving eve TV special. Like Shania Twain, she represents country music with such grace, strength and honesty it doesn’t really matter whether you love her songs or not. (I do.) Seventy-five years after the famed Bristol sessions that brought us the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, country music is still viewed by many as a yokel art. Nobody reinforced that stereotype more than country artists themselves. Even such career-savvy types as Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton tended to present themselves as hicker-than-thou in public.
But starting with Reba McEntire (who slowly but consciously smoothed over her rustic outcroppings), women in country music have led the drive toward cultural assimilation. And why not? Adaptability is evolution -- is survival. So thanks to such class acts as Rosanne Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, K. T. Oslin, Kathy Mattea and Trisha Yearwood. And thanks to Faith and Shania for continuing to ignore the drones and the ankle-biters. Elegance need never apologize.
http://www.cmt.com/news/feat/hottalk.120902.jhtml
Thanksgiving seems so long ago, but it’s never too late to applaud Faith Hill for her splendid Thanksgiving eve TV special. Like Shania Twain, she represents country music with such grace, strength and honesty it doesn’t really matter whether you love her songs or not. (I do.) Seventy-five years after the famed Bristol sessions that brought us the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, country music is still viewed by many as a yokel art. Nobody reinforced that stereotype more than country artists themselves. Even such career-savvy types as Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton tended to present themselves as hicker-than-thou in public.
But starting with Reba McEntire (who slowly but consciously smoothed over her rustic outcroppings), women in country music have led the drive toward cultural assimilation. And why not? Adaptability is evolution -- is survival. So thanks to such class acts as Rosanne Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, K. T. Oslin, Kathy Mattea and Trisha Yearwood. And thanks to Faith and Shania for continuing to ignore the drones and the ankle-biters. Elegance need never apologize.
http://www.cmt.com/news/feat/hottalk.120902.jhtml