Porter: The Last of the Great Hillbillies
Sitting at Porter Wagoner’s funeral the other day and pondering his legacy, one thing became very apparent to me: The last great hillbilly is gone. My old Austin pal, the writer Dave Hickey, once said that Porter was the last of the great hillbillies, and I am proud to steal that from him. Dave also said that you need to recognize and appreciate the value and the difference between a genuine rhinestone and an imitation pearl. Porter was the genuine rhinestone. If Porter could have discovered Nashville’s lost rhinestone mines, what a different place this world would be.
Porter was a true hillbilly from the Ozark Mountains in Missouri. He was a rawboned farmboy with plain musical tastes. He was a man as plain and simple as dirt. Early on in his career, he was a singing butcher, warbling on station KWPM in West Plains, Mo., while working as a butcher. He went on to become a master of simple, direct, homespun music, combined with an unerring taste for hillbilly flash and dazzle. My boss at CMT recalls the years when CMT was headquartered at Opryland and we shared the Opry’s backstage parking lot. On late Friday afternoons, my boss would see Porter arrive for work, stepping out of his latest big, gaudy pimpmobile, with his dark sunglasses, puffing on a cigarette, with his garment bag holding a couple of flashy suits slung over one shoulder. Porter’s appearance signaled that all was running on schedule in the country music world.
“Hillbilly” has had an interesting history in country music. Once considered a denigrating term, it seems to have regained some integrity as a word defining traditional taste in old-time, rural country music. The first country music records, back in the 1920s, were referred to as “hillbilly” records. The first country music record chart was launched by Billboard magazine in 1939 and it was called the “hillbilly” chart. Over the years, the term hillbilly became a truly denigrating putdown. But things change and the word became more or less neutralized. Porter made it seem a desirable thing at last.
It’s hard to define a true hillbilly, but you know one when you hear one. There’ve been only a few truly great hillbillies over the years. Uncle Dave Macon, Charlie Poole, Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Faron Young, Webb Pierce, Lefty Frizzell, Porter … you pick the rest. But there aren’t any more of the great hillbillies left. And there won’t be any more.
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Steve says:
Great post Chet. I love reading your articles. I am 32 years old and find it very sad to see the end of that era. I agree wholeheartedly that Porter was the last of the great hillbillies. Porter represented a link to the past.
I feel that Country Music today has lost its soul. I know we have a few who carry the torch. However, when I look at the “Stars of Country Music”, I don’t see them having that passion for the music and its legacy.
I also don’t see these stars having the connection with the fans. The legends of Country Music looked at the fans as being friends. Porter symbolized this. I know many in the rural South who grew up on his show. These people felt like Porter was one of their family.
I’m sure Porter knew he didn’t have much time left and yet a month before his death he was playing the Opry. Porter LOVED the Opry and its legacy. How many of today’s stars will be playing the Grand Ole Opry in their last days on Earth?
hotelmotel says:
I don’t think “the legends of country music looked at the fans as being friends.” No way. George Jones didn’t act too friendly when he refused to show up at his concerts!
Friends spend time together, help each other with problems, and generally provide mutual support. Country artists never did that with any except a small minority of their fans.
Its remarkable that country singers have managed to dupe their fans into thinking that they consider them to be “family” or “friends.”
hotelmotel says:
When Garth Brooks was big, we’d hear new stories of people who got a Garth autograph: Garth smiled, made small talk and other Chit-Chat. These people said things like “He treated me like a friend,” or “It was like we’d known each other for years.” Then you hear people coming back from a concert saying “It was like the singer was singing just for me.”
This is called acting, people. Don’t fall for it.
Dixie Lee Smtih says:
I have been a country music fan all my life. However, what is being played today isn’t worth listening to - it certainly isn’t country. It’s noise. There is no real country music anymore. I listen to cds of rural country, bluegrass, and the old timers when I want to listen to true country. When Merle Haggard, Tom T. Hall, George Jones are gone, true country music will be gone. I do think of these people as friends. The ones that strut around today (females in particular) sound like cackling hens - hurts the eardurms.