Sorry to depart from politics, and to inflict upon you my acutely uncool taste in music (Mark Steyn can switch between the two subjects with ease, but I can’t lay claim to his expertise). However, Eddy was a class act and deserves to be remembered for that. When so many celebrities and musicians are revelling in trash, it’s worth remembering someone who enjoyed a great deal of success yet lived his life pretty much above reproach. I’ve no idea what his politics were, and he never posed nude for a magazine cover (nor let his fifteen-year-old daughter do so like Billy B. Badd did.) He just sang, and sang well, in a great warm baritone that you’ll probably like even if you don’t like country.

In fact, that was part of his appeal, and a source of some criticism against him: along with Jim Reeves’, his style became known as “countrypolitan”. Eddy dropped a lot of the distinctive country instrumentation and the bedazzler’d shirts, and donned a tuxedo and sang in front of a sound-stage orchestra with lots of strings. The Jordannaires (or vocalists who sounded like them) backed him up in the kind of production music writers like to call “lush”. But all that lush backing still couldn’t hide the country in his voice. (Once in a while, he still indulged it.)

He was branded a sellout to his country roots by a lot of folks in Nashville, but his sound has aged better than many of the hillbilly acts of the day. I hesitate to dub Eddy a “crooner”, because that term conjures up (to me) a degree of smarm and guile and syrup I can’t detect in that voice. He’s not slick, or even smooth, which means he can handle some pretty sappy lyrics and still have it work. Dean Martin belting out “Make the World Go Away” would just sound like he was making excuses for being drunk; Eddy sounds like he’s been hurt and he means every word.

So if you’ll permit me one dedication: this is going out to Hillary in Chappaqua.

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{Post by See-Dubya, who assumes all liability for accusations of fogeyness resulting from this post. Any uncoolness is solely mine and not Michelle’s.}

Democrats angered at the image of country and western as Right-wing “redneck music” are planning a tour of Middle America during the 2008 election campaign by Nashville artists opposed to the Iraq war.

An alliance called the Music Row Democrats is poised to re-launch itself early next year in an attempt to seize back country music from the Republican camp and spread their message that President George W. Bush’s party does not care about ordinary people.

Slowly but surely, more country singers are performing songs critical of the Bush administration. Merle Haggard, who once sang the anti-hippie anthem “Okie from Muskogee” for President Richard Nixon at the White House has even penned a tribute to Hillary Clinton.

In his “Hillary”, dedicated to the Democratic front runner, Haggard sings: “This country needs to be honest/ Changes need to be large/ Something like a big switch of gender/ Let’s put a woman in charge.”

Pro-war songs like Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” and “American Solider”, and Darryl Worley’s “Have You Forgotten (About Bin Laden)?” still dominate country music stations.

Go figure!

You choose:

Merle Haggard crooning for Hillary:

Toby Keith, “American Soldier:”

Check out the selection of moonbat country songs from the Music Row Democrats:

“Big Blue Ball of War” –Nanci Griffith

Country-folk star Nanci Griffith has been a passionate anti-war activist throughout her career. She campaigns regularly against landmines and was the first to popularize the international peace anthem “From a Distance.” Her stately and eloquent “Big Blue Ball of War” is a plea that can be found on her 2005 CD Hearts in Mind. The song suggests that if women and mothers were in charge, war would cease to exist. Much of the album was inspired by Nanci’s trip to Southeast Asia and by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Songs such as the album’s “A Simple Life,” “Heart of Indochine” and “Old Hanoi” are other powerful statements. “Mountain of Sorrow” stems from 9/11. “Before” and “Love Conquers All” also make reference to our troubled times.

“You Let the Fox Run the Henhouse” – Shawn Camp

Shawn Camp is a triple threat on Music Row, as a brilliant instrumentalist, a dynamic songwriter and a dandy vocalist. “You Let the Fox Run the Henhouse” showcases him having some bluegrass-y fun with the Administration. The fox, of course, has “a Bushy tail.” The track was recorded especially for this album.

“Al Gore” – Monkey Bowl

Nashville is well known as the capital of country music, as the headquarters of the Christian-music field, as the home of bluegrass music and as the center of the Americana music movement. But it also has a thriving pop/rock scene. The Music City recording unit Monkey Bowl shot to instant notoriety in 2004 with this delightfully catchy ditty. Songwriter Robert Ellis Orrall does, indeed, live on the same Nashville street as the former Vice President. In the song, he recalls being robbed and cheated and states that he’s still angry about. Popular-vote Presidential winner Al tells him to get over it.

For once, good advice from the Goracle.

***

Clint Taylor reviews great conservative country music hits.

Among the musicians on the front lines: A husband of one of the Dixie Chicks. Well, good for him.

Eco-activist Robert Redford is pushing Prop. 87 in California–a $4 billion oil tax increase in the name of environmental do-goodism. The initiative is funded by Hollywood producer Stephen Bing and supported by Julia Roberts, Jamie Lee Curtis, James Caan and Ben Affleck.

On Thursday, HBO will air a documentary called “Hacking Democracy” that lionizes leading election conspiracy theorist Bev Harris of Black Box voting fame.

On Sunday, Fox is set to air an episode of “The Simpsons” sharply critical of the war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the desperate Dixie Chicks are on the attack against conservative Internet users of the Free Republic.

Will Cameron Diaz do a repeat on Oprah this year about how, like, rape could be legalized if we don’t make the right voting choices?

Stay tuned…