Book Review: "Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music" by Chris Willman (2005)

Entertainment Weekly writer Chris Willman takes a look at the political climate within the country music community between 9/11 and the 2004 re-election of Dubya. Often mistakenly seen as a bastion of Republicanism, the country world has many centrists and leftists within it. Willman examines the interplay between record label honchos, songwriters, and artists in Nashville through the lens of the first Bush administration.

"Rednecks and Bluenecks" opens with a look at the Dixie Chicks' faux pas in the spring of 2003 when they spoke out against the President from the UK in the stage, and then moves into the feud between lead singer Natalie Maines and Oklahoma Democrat Toby Keith. The author's sympathy lies with the ladies but he does a pretty fair job of getting Keith's point of view out there as well - that is, until the end when the rock critic in him comes out and he slobbers all over the alt-country genre and their snobbiness towards the likes of Keith and Brooks and Dunn.

Three years later, it seems that we're bound to relive the entire affair over again since the Chicks are "Not Ready to Make Nice". Like someone in the book said, it seems that they're determined to keep shooting themselves in the foot and then complain that it hurts ... but I digress.

For fans, this book is chock-full of interesting anecdotes and revealing, candid interviews. For partisans of left or right who may not be country music consumers, those same anecdotes will illustrate some of the colour around the tension between freedom of speech and being accountable for how one exercises that right through the Maines/Keith brouhaha. However, in the end, it's a reminder that entertainers are just that - entertainers - who are probably best ignored when they start mouthing off about the intricacies and complexities of international affairs.

After all, you don't hear Donald Rumsfeld telling Merle Haggard how to sing in key, do you?

Overall rating: 7/10