CMT Blog: Redneck Yacht Club

By the time you're reading this blog entry, I will be aboard the Barefoot Lady Pontoon Excursion, deep in the crystal clear waters of a Wisconsin lake. As you might imagine, I elected myself Music Director and put together a playlist of songs to thoroughly entertain my friends and me as we cruise up and down and around this lake. But I didn't want to make it all about the patriotic weekend, because we'll have enough of that on Sunday. Nor did I want to make it all fun-in-the-sun songs, since too many of those can feel like you are actually trying to turn your day into a country song. But now that I look at this mix I've come up with, I realize I'm a little heavy on the good-time songs, so please add a few I-Heart-America songs to the list to balance it out.

"Water," Brad Paisley
"Redneck Yacht Club," Craig Morgan
"Drive (For Daddy Gene)," Alan Jackson
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It's no Chattahoochee. But this Saturday (July 25), if you can navigate your boat over to the Kowaliga area of Lake Martin in Alabama, you will be able to watch Alan Jackson perform for AquaPalooza. It's also known as the world's largest boating party. Or a gigantic "raft-up." I'm sort of picturing the images from Craig Morgan's "Redneck Yacht Club" and Jackson's "Chattahoochee" videos, only with one legendary headliner on a stage fronting the water. They say you don't even need a boat and that any old inner tube will do. You do have to come by water, though, as no vehicle parking will be provided. And if, like me, you can't rationalize a trip to Alabama right now, you can watch the show when it airs on CMT on Sept. 4.

In the back of my mind, I've always thought country artists might embellish their stories to make their lifestyles sound a little bit more worthy of song. I mean, how exciting is real life? But I never thought people actually did all these things, like shooting buffalos from 100 yards, salt-curing hams, taking Louisville Sluggers to headlights, drinking moonshine and smoking Pall Malls while watching Laura Ingalls. But this weekend, I went to a "Redneck Yacht Club." And it was exactly like Craig Morgan said it would be.

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