Linnell Gentry: A Country Music Encyclopedic Mind
James E. Akenson What if you compiled one of the first Country Music encyclopedias that today isn’t known to lots of scholars, journalists, and serious fans? Even in the afterlife you would probably want your hard work to be remembered and frequently referenced. Just how many scholars and fans of Country Music recognize the […]
Dolly Parton: Independent Study!?
James Akenson Being a professor ain’t always easy. People think we’re lazy and couldn’t hold a ‘real’ job if our life depended on it. It ‘don’t matter ‘one eye-oh-tuh’ what you think. I try to work hard. I want folks to think “I done good.” For all my years at Tennessee Tech University www.tntech.edu […]
Phoebe White: Country Music Through and Through
James Akenson Folks are always looking for The Next Big Thing in Country Music. Some folks are looking to SAVE Country Music. Despair and anxiety about the state of Country Music is not at all new. The despair over Bro Country with the likes of Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line, the lack of […]
XMAS, MOJO, Bob Dylan, Bobcats, and a Good Bit More
James Akenson Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat. Well, not really since we won’t even order one from a mail order catalog like Mackenzie. It may be September, but out here on the Ponderosa time flies. It will soon be time to think about the outside Christmas lighting and then a tree in […]
Call It Lust, Sin, Booze, and Jesus: Call It Sacred and Profane
James Akenson Once upon a time in a galaxy long ago I wrote a piece about Tennessee Tech University PhD student Randy Williams. The title “Randy Williams: Just for the Hell…Or The Heaven…Of It” fit nicely with what Randy Williams thought would be the focus of his PhD research. Turns out he was spot on. […]
You Shoulda Could a ( and Woulda) Been There: ICMC 2023
James Akenson Yes. Indeed! You shoulda,coulda…let’s add woulda to be complete…been there for the 2023 International Country Music Conference (ICMC ). The 2023 edition of ICMC took place Thursday 1 June through Saturday 3 June in The Board Room of The Massey Business Center at Belmont University overlooking Music Row and downtown Nashville. Even […]
Andrew Smith: Developing An Icon
James Akenson A few years back I wrote a piece for Country Underground Australia about a mate, a friend Andrew Smith of Tasmania who I had never met. We had corresponded over almost thirty years by old antiquated ‘snail mail’ and then through email and social media. Finally, in 2018 at the International Country […]
What Comes Round
I vividly remember Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, Jr’s version of That Old Wheel with lyrics including That old wheel will roll around again. The theme….evening up scores from past wrongs…works well for my use in using Country Music to deal with topics in how to teach history, geography, and even literature. And…it also relates […]
Country Music Cowboy: Trashtastic, Fun, and Deconstructable
James E. Akenson Managing Editor If you’re tired of long dense sentences from the likes of William Faulkner, Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn, or Leo Tolstoy then Sasha Summers Country Music Cowboy is just what the doctor ordered. And…less you think that romance novels such as Country Music Cowboy fall beneath your dignity level…think again. It reminds me […]
Ronald D. Cohen: An Introduction
James E. Akenson Managing Editor Ronald D. Cohen is a distinguished scholar of the Folk Revival. Managing Editor James Akenson and Cohen have connections to the University of Minnesota. They became friends at the International Country Music Conference at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2014 Cohen and his colleague social activist Si Kahn […]