CMT Blog: Uncle Dave Macon

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.

It wasn't too long ago that country performers routinely incorporated a title with their name, the idea being that such an addition gave them a little extra boost in stature and individuality. Thus, Roy Acuff was the King of Country Music, Kitty Wells the Queen and Tammy Wynette the First Lady. The practice went a long way back. Jimmie Rodgers billed himself as the Singing Brakeman (and later bore the title of Father of Country Music). Grand Ole Opry patriarch Uncle Dave Macon was known as the Dixie Dewdrop. Eddy Arnold gained fame as the Tennessee Plowboy (but gradually eased away from that designation as he sought a broader, more urbane audience). Tennessee Ernie Ford styled himself as the Old Pea Picker, and Ernest Tubb labored as the Texas Troubadour. Patti Page was the Singing Rage.

Sometimes these titles were conferred on performers by their admirers and sometimes by their paid promoters. But whatever its origin, the value of a title lay in whether or not it stuck and eventually became synonymous with the performer's name.

Before there was a Gary LeVox, Vern Gosdin was the Voice. Roy Rogers was King of the Cowboys, Bill Monroe the Father of Bluegrass, Hank Snow the Singing Ranger, Johnny Cash the Man in Black and Tom T. Hall the Storyteller. Generously proportioned Kenny Price of Hee Haw went to his grave as the Round Mound of Sound. Ranger Doug Green of Riders in the Sky continues to call himself (albeit puckishly) the Idol of American Youth.

So here's what I'd like to know: What do you think would be fitting honorifics for the likes of Garth Brooks, Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire, Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill (separately or in tandem), Josh Turner, Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert or any other act of your choosing? Here's your chance to influence country music history. The floor is yours.