{"id":112057,"date":"2021-06-23T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=112057"},"modified":"2022-01-31T10:14:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T16:14:38","slug":"ill-take-my-stand-rock-around-the-clock-by-billy-joe-russell-aka-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/ill-take-my-stand-rock-around-the-clock-by-billy-joe-russell-aka-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ll Take My Stand: “Rock Around the Clock” by Billy Joe Russell (aka \u201cGuy\u201d)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Billy Joe Russell aka “Guy”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It was love at first listening when, at age 6, I heard the words \u201cIn Dixie\u2019s land I\u2019ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie!\u201d The timeframe was the summer of \u201954. The place was Fontana Village<\/a> in North Carolina\u2019s Great Smokey Mountains. My cousin Helen Hawkins Weber had invited me to spend the summer with her; her two daughters, Elizabeth and Gracie; and her husband, Mac(beth), who was working at the resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m pleasantly surprised that the resort\u2019s website still has a few photos from that era, including a shot of their rec room. Just to the left of center can be seen the jukebox on which I first heard the song \u201cDixie\u201d. I knew at once that the words \u201cI\u2019ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie!\u201d were directed to me. (But I didn\u2019t know that it would be another 56 years before Grace would lead me home.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Square Dancing in the Fontana Village Rec Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The title of this column also alludes to the book I\u2019ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition<\/em><\/a> by Twelve Southerners (as the authors of this collection of 12 essays style themselves). In the song, \u201cstand\u201d is a metaphor for son or daughter (as it\u2019s been explained to me\u2014as in a corn stalk standing in a field). But the book\u2019s authors mean \u201cstand\u201d in the sense of their Agrarian stand on political and social issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


As with Capitalism and Communism (and Judaism and Christianity), there\u2019s no single definition of Agrarianism. With apologies for oversimplification, a useful way of looking at Capitalism is that it was originally the application of industrialism to free trade, and now also brings information technology to the mix. Free trade, in turn, is the idea that if I buy a can of Diet Coke for a dollar from a local store, I\u2019m better off because I wanted the Diet Coke more than I wanted that particular dollar, and the store is better off for the converse reason. In other words, win-win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


As Capitalism is the ultimate form of free trade, Communism is the ultimate form of Marxism. For now, I\u2019ll just say that Marxism as currently practiced is the belief that all inequality derives from social injustice, and only<\/em> social injustice. Further, that any means necessary are justified in the cause of eliminating that inequality. If circumstances permit, I\u2019ll have much to say in the future about Capitalism and Marxism as they apply to contemporary America in general and Southern Agrarianism in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Note that both Capitalism and Marxism are godless\u2014everything about them operates according to mechanical laws. (The spectacular predictive success of Newton\u2019s physics strongly influenced both.) In my reading, Agrarianism asserts, by contrast, the primacy of traditional values of Faith, traditional values of Family, and traditional values of Patriotism, ie, loyalty to the soil you were born and raised on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDixie\u201d isn\u2019t the only song I remember coming from that jukebox. There\u2019s another: \u201cRock Around the Clock<\/a>\u201d by Bill Haley and his Comets. It had been released only a few months before. It\u2019s widely recognized as the first rock \u2019n roll tune to reach the general public (ie, the White majority).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lisa Gays and Earl Barton<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Compare and contrast that performance with the \u201cJumpin\u2019 Jive<\/a>\u201d segment from the movie \u201cStormy Weather<\/a>\u201d made 11 years earlier. Surely Cab Calloway and his orchestra out-jived the Comets; and the Nicholas Brothers out-jumped the White couple. (Are the two men standing in the background in black face?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My personal feeling about the \u201cRock\u201d video is: Wow! That looks like fun!<\/em> Whereas my feeling about the \u201cJumpin\u2019 Jive\u201d clip is: Goodness Gracious, great balls of fire \u2014 that\u2019s impossible!!!
<\/em>
I think a reasonable person could assert that Bill Haley and his Comets had engaged in cultural appropriation (from many Black predecessor-performers). That their status as \u201cpioneers\u201d are analogous to claims that Europeans \u201cdiscovered\u201d the Americas (though people had already been here for some 15 millennia). That, as such, they have greatly benefited from White privilege (notwithstanding that they worked very hard to get where they got). It could even be said that the System itself tilts in favor of the White majority (as would likely be the case with any majority tribe anywhere).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nicholas Brothers<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But, beyond academic debate, the practical question is: What is to be done? Aye, there\u2019s the rub. Because, whatever is done (or, not done), some will benefit more, or be harmed less, than others. I\u2019m tipping my hand a bit by predicting that, if past be prelude, those who will benefit less, or lose more, will not be part of the pool of talent from which The New York Times and NPR (to name just two examples) draw their opinionators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope to have the opportunity in future editions to explore these and other issues from a candidly Southern-partisan perspective that nonetheless seeks to be sensitive to more progressive sensibilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, before I go, I need to mention a mystery that\u2019s been plaguing me while writing this piece. Away from Fontana Village\u2019s rec room, during mealtime at cousin Helen\u2019s home, aside from becoming acquainted with Spam (about which I remain agnostic), I was introduced to saying Grace before eating. (It was not practiced in my parents\u2019 home because, as an old ditty has it, Me father, he was Orange, and me mother, she was Green<\/a> {in the denominational sense}.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Roy Rogers and Dale Evans<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For related reasons, it was in Helen and Mac\u2019s home that I was also introduced to spiritual music. There\u2019s only one song I clearly remember hearing there: \u201cThe Bible Tells Me So<\/a>\u201d, if not in the voice of Dale Evans (who composed the song), then a voice remarkably similar.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have carefully reconstructed the timeline (based upon other events the date of which I am certain) that places me in Fontana Village in the summer of 1954. Consistent with that placement, Wikipedia confirms \u201cRock Around the Clock\u201d had been released that spring. And yet, according to the omniscient Internet, \u201cThe Bible Tells Me So\u201d was not released until the late summer and early fall of 1955\u2014in both cases by a male<\/em> vocalist. Dale\u2019s own recording didn\u2019t come out until 1960. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps a more knowledgeable reader could resolve the puzzle for me. Or, maybe  my memory has played a trick on me all these years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way: Happy trails, until we meet again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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