- Saturday, March 28, 2015
- 11:15 AM–12:30 PM
- CFAC 135
Me and Jesus Got a Good Thing Going: Unpacking how religious expression really operates in country music
If there is a genre of music other than CCM and gospel (urban, southern or otherwise) that’s presumed by critics, academics and outside observers to consistently reflect evangelical Christian commitments alongside conservative social values, it’s mainstream country music. But that notion isn’t necessarily borne out by country acts, their material and their audiences. A lot of what’s really there—like strong tendencies to either keep beliefs private or present more complex worldviews—gets overlooked, misinterpreted or lost in translation. It’s worth pondering how that happens, and how classist paradigms are involved, and confronting the ambiguities of country’s religious expression, from the wryness of Brad Paisley’s “Crazy Christians,” Miranda Lambert’s “Heart Like Mine,” Toby Keith’s “If I Was Jesus,” Bobby Bare’s “Dropkick Me Jesus” and Tom T. Hall’s “Me and Jesus” to the self-awareness of Vince Gill’s confrontation of Westboro Baptist Church, as documented on YouTube, and the U.K. newspaper interview during which Carrie Underwood spoke of both her church and her support for same-sex marriage. Fact is, the realities defy tidy generalization.
Presenter Bio:
Jewly Hight is a freelance music journalist and critic based in Nashville. She’s contributed to NPR/NPR Music, Billboard, Rolling Stone Country, Wondering Sound, CMT Edge, The Nashville Scene, The Oxford American and numerous other outlets and been a talking head on PBS, CMT and On Point with Tom Ashbrook. She published her first book, Right By Their Roots: Americana Women and Their Songs, in 2011, has a Master of Theological Studies from Vanderbilt Divinity School and teaches Entertainment Reporting and Writing at Middle Tennessee State University.
