Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Dixie Lullaby A Story of Music Race and New Beginnings in a New South by Mark Kemp Brad Paisley and LL Cool J: Southern Music’s Racial Ties. Mark Kemp is the author of "Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race and New Beginnings in a New South." He is the editor in chief of the alternative weekly Creative Loafing. Updated April 11, 2013, 8:27 AM. Like any effective popular song that explores cultural misunderstanding, “Accidental Racist’’ has ignited a lively dialogue about language and symbols that can mean very different things to different people. And it is hardly the first time a song by a Southerner dealing with white blue-collar issues has produced strong reactions among the Northeastern-based media. In 1974, the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd released “Sweet Home Alabama,” whose lyrics suggested that non-Southern characterizations of the South as one giant cesspool of racism were hypocritical. Skynyrd was criticized for its right-leaning perspective and use of the Confederate flag during its performances. That same year, The Charlie Daniels Band released “The South’s Gonna Do It (Again),” which played on the popular post-Civil War rallying cry “the South’s going to rise again” to suggest that Southern musicians were making new inroads in popular music and culture. Daniels was criticized for invoking the Civil War, after which he went on to become a vehement right winger, though not one known for his racism. The racist tag stuck for Southern rock, though, and it still colors perceptions of Southern-based white musical styles like contemporary country music. That’s something that clearly bothers Paisley, who has not been shy about expressing his decidedly left-wing perspectives on issues of race, immigration, gender and sexuality. In “Accidental Racist,” he adopts the persona of a Skynyrd-loving country fan trying to come to terms with his feelings about Southern pride and the symbolism of the Confederate flag. In a sort of call-and-response, LL Cool J appears in the song adopting the persona of a young black kid trying to understand this Southern character. My worry is that people are listening to “Accidental Racist” and assuming the characters are actually Paisley and LL Cool J themselves. In 2002, the leftist country-folk singer Steve Earle ran into the same wasp’s nest when he released “John Walker’s Blues,” in which he took on the perspective of John Walker Lindh, the American kid who converted to Islam and joined the Afghan Taliban. That time it was right-wing writers who assumed Earle was somehow “supporting” the Taliban. This time left-wing writers are assuming Paisley is somehow “supporting” the Confederate flag. These issues deserve more than lazy thinking. Because art — even when it fails to impress the critics and pundits — really is that influential. Mark Kemp. Early on in the era of cancel culture, Ani DiFranco angered fans by planning an artist retreat at a former plantation. The irony was stunning: Here’s a woman who’d spent her entire career as a stanch political ally, not just of Black Americans, but of all people of color, all gender identifications, the poor — basically, all people marginalized by the dominant culture. DiFranco survived the controversy with her fanbase intact. The New Southern Rock: Latin Music in the Carolinas. The images in La Rúa’s video are quintessentially Southern: hot rural roads, rich green grass and trees, deep red dirt, dusty construction sites and a gritty pool-hall parking lot filled with people in jeans and T-shirts, dancing and singing. Whitney Houston: A (Very) Personal Tribute. By the late ’90s, Whitney’s “children” regularly passed through the green room at MTV, where I was then working as vice president of music editorial on the daily show TRL. Like Whitney, I was at the top of my game — or, so it seemed. Beck: The Rolling Stone Interview. My first Rolling Stone cover story, in 1997, was sort of a Part 2 of an earlier cover story I did on Beck for Option in 1994. The One That Got Away: Billy Joe Shaver (1939-2020) The prospect of sitting down with Billy Joe Shaver and talking about his music had been exciting for me. After all, so many of his songs had been an important part of my teen years. The Pixies: Democracy, Cuban-style. Thirty years ago this August, The Pixies released their third album, Bossanova. That year, I sat down with Black Francis over rice and beans at a Cuban restaurant in Manhattan. Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: 1948-1997. In 1991 I had the great pleasure of meeting and interviewing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the world’s greatest singer of qawwali , a devotional vocal style associated with the mystical Islamic practice of Sufism. Sadly, in 1997, I was tasked with penning his obituary. My Bloody Valentine: Beauty in the Beast. It’s a Friday night in 1992, and the members of My Bloody Valentine are squashed together in a rental van and barreling down one of the many endless, flat streets of Houston, Texas. Tom Waits: Weird Science. TweetIf you ever find yourself interviewing Tom Watis, don’t expect straight answers. Don’t even expect bent answers. He doesn’t really answer questions. He questions questions. […] Why We Need Phil Ochs Now More Than Ever. “Phil Ochs was like Lenny Bruce – he just totally uncensored himself. He wrote the songs nobody else would.” — Butch Hancock. Mark Kemp. Mark Kemp is a veteran journalist who’s served as editor in chief at Creative Loafing and SF Weekly, music editor at Rolling Stone and VP of music editorial at MTV Networks, among others. He is the author of Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race and New Beginnings in a New South , and currently serves as senior editor at the North Carolina magazine Our State . Visit Mark’s blog, Kempspiel, for news, commentary, stories from his archives and progress reports on new writing projects, books, readings and more. And buy a copy of Dixie Lullaby in hard and soft cover on Amazon.com (please avoid the ebook version, though, as it is riddled with errors introduced by original publisher Simon & Schuster). Follow Mark and Dixie Lullaby on Instagram @markkemp, Twitter @mkempNC and Facebook: 3 Comments. Hi Mark, my boss is a songwriter and is interested in speaking to you directly if possible! Do you have an email address she can send a message to? Or would it be best if she just send a message the way I am sending one now? Hi Mark-I just read your story on Facebook about the Soap Stone mine near Ramseur and It brought back a flood of memories for me. Having spent most of my Wonder Bread years in Siler City back in the 60s and early 70s, my friends and I spent many summer days basking in the sun and plunging in the very cold blue waters of the quarry. I’m not sure if there was shrinkage involved, but probably. The only blemish was the day a kid did a header off the top cliff and landed on the rocks. Luckily, we had just left and were spared the anguish and tragedy. FYI, I had an orange VW Beetle with a Craig 8 track player and a set of bodicious speakers in the back blaring out the tuneage of the day, even Black Sabbath. Ah, the “salad days,” stealing a line from Raising Arizona. Thanks for bringing a great memory back to the front of my brain. Jax. Hi Jax, Thank you so much for sharing your rock quarry story. That piece seems to have resonated for lots folks in Randolph, Guilford, Alamance, and Chatham counties. It wouldn’t surprise me if you and I were there on some of those same summer days. Leave a Reply Cancel reply. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Dixie Lullaby : A Story of Music, Race, and New Beginnings in a New South. Then the down-home, bluesy rock of the Deep South began taking the nation by storm, and Kemp had a new way of relating to the region that allowed him to see beyond its legacy of racism and stereotypes of backwardness. Although Kemp would always struggle with an ambivalence familiar to many white southerners, the seeds of redemption were planted in adolescence when he first heard Duane Allman and Ronnie Van Zant pour their feelings into their songs. In the tradition of Nick Tosches, Peter Guralnick, and other music historians, Kemp maps his own southern odyssey onto the stories of such iconic bands as the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and R.E.M., as well as influential indies like the Drive-By Truckers. In dozens of interviews with quintessential southern rockers and some of their most diehard fans, Kemp charts the course of the music that both liberated him and united him with countless others who came of age under its spell. This is a thought-provoking, searingly intimate, and utterly original journey through the South and its music from the 1960s through the 1990s. Отзывы - Написать отзыв. Dixie lullaby: a story of music, race, and new beginnings in a new South. Kemp, a former Rolling Stone journalist, uses rock'n'roll to expunge his Southern-bred guilt and insecurity and highlight the dramatic transformation of Southern culture. He attributes the beginnings . Читать весь отзыв. Give ‘em the (Free) Bird. “Creative people struggle with demons, and try to deal with them on certain levels,” suggests Mark Kemp, author of the just-published rock ‘n’ roll memoir Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race and New Beginnings in a New South . “Based on conversations I’ve had with musicians, alcoholics, drug addicts and recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, there’s a sense of unease that needs to be assuaged,” he went on to add in our recent interview. And growing up in the South, for Kemp, meant growing addicted to feeling backward, defensive and inferior, thanks to the entrenched contempt non-Southerners displayed for citizens of Dixie — and the legacy of slavery that still lingered there. “With white [Southerners], there was a tremendous amount of shame and guilt that needed to be somehow treated. A lot of people ‘treat’ themselves. “And in the South,” Kemp acknowledges, “there’s an uncanny ability to sweep things under the rug.” The author airs all of it in his book — shame, guilt, addictions, unease and the unmentionables swept out of view. But Dixie (Free Press) isn’t about rock ‘n’ roll’s dirty laundry: It’s about music’s ability to heal. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll — but he likes it. Raised in Asheboro, N.C., the author was in third grade when schools there were first integrated. Though he discarded racist sentiment at a young age, Kemp didn’t find a voice for his feelings until he discovered the Allman Brothers Band at age 13. “The Allman Brothers’ first album, released in 1969, redefined the boundaries of rock & roll,” Kemp writes. “This psychedelic music conveyed the ambiance of the Deep South — the mournful echo of a country church choir, the lonesome moan of a Mississippi farmhand, the exasperated cry of a confused trailer boy. This was southern music, but it was like nothing that had ever been heard before.” The book also follows the careers of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels, Doctor John and later acts like R.E.M., Jason and The Scorchers and the Drive By Truckers. But this more than just a history of rock; Kemp aligns his own coming-of-age story with the exploits of his musical heroes. “It didn’t start out as a memoir, but as I wrote and talked to all the musicians and people on my trip through the South, I found myself interjecting my story,” the author explains in our interview. “I’m not a sociologist — I’m a music writer who lived through a particular time,” he continues. “This isn’t objective.” In fact, it’s that subjectivity that keeps Dixie likable — even readable — amid the sometimes-tedious deluge of information Kemp offers in support of his thesis. Not so Hee-Haw. “By the mid-’70s some Southerners were tired of feeling guilty, tired of being told they were guilty by people in other parts of the country,” Kent relates in his book. “Their rage wasn’t essentially aimed at blacks … it was a rage born of fear.” “This book started with an issue I’d been talking about since I was a kid,” he imparts during our phone conversation. “I’d always felt white Southerners had been given a one-dimensional definition in the media. It gave me a sort of inferiority complex.” In ’98, Kemp wrote an essay for The New York Times that he’s described as a “sort of evolution of southern rock”: an opportunity to redeem that negative stereotype of the Southerner. Positive feedback gave him the impetus he needed to further mine his subject. He hit the road, reconnecting with old friends and interviewing musicians, producers and eyewitnesses to important musical events. “The one thing I noticed as I wrote this book was the safe haven for tolerant blacks and whites [that] was music,” he explains now. “And that’s the beautiful thing about music.” But inside his voice of authority — of the jaded music critic who cut his teeth on early Skynyrd concerts and went on to work for Rolling Stone , a job he’d coveted since age 14 — there’s also the fervor of the diehard fan. “I didn’t know his name at the time,” Kemp writes of a particular band front man. “It didn’t matter. To me, this band had been sent straight down from heaven and was taking us back home on the wings of the free bird they were singing about.” So, did framing his autobiographical sketches — his own accomplishments and failures — in the context of such luminaries as Duane Allman and Skynyrd’s moody, sometimes-violent Ronnie Van Zant give Kemp any insights into these larger-than-life characters? “It brought me to see these people as struggling people,” he reveals as we talk. “By the time I wrote this book, I’d worked for MTV, so I’d lost that star-struck-ness. But it gave me some compassion for the musicians that I hadn’t had before.” And the beat goes on … Of course, Kemp didn’t remain that teenage enthusiast. He moved on, adding groups like country-punks Jason & The Scorchers, Athens-based indie rockers R.E.M. and Asheville-native guitarist Warren Haynes to his growing canon. He worked for Rolling Stone during the Nirvana- dominated grunge era, and then crashed and burned — rock-star style — in a drug-induced haze in New York City’s famed Chelsea Hotel. So when Kemp muses about the demons haunting artistic types, he’s been there; he knows. And he also understands that “a lot of us turned to music [because] music, throughout history, is healing.” These days, Kemp — now an entertainment editor with The Charlotte Observer — is keeping his eye on a new breed of musician. “A lot of Southern music now, of the rock genre anyway, is in a period of acceptance: ‘That’s who we are, and we’re OK,'” he reveals to me. “No longer the anger or melancholy.” As for finding a distinctive Southern sound, the longtime music critic looks mostly to up-and-coming Athens and Atlanta acts. “Underground bands like the Drive By Truckers are still attacking the questions [of race and place].” The author also cites the hip-hop of Mississippi-based David Banner, whose rhymes address the world of the black Southerner. “There’s no rap in New York,” Kemp concludes proudly, “that sounds like that .” Mark Kemp reads from Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race and New Beginnings in a New South at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe (55 Haywood St.) at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 25. 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