Faith and Virility (aka Rock & Republic Butts Drive Me Nuts)

Since I am the most charismatic female in a short list of New Yorkers we know who do not hate country music, Pithymanica aka Recent Vintage escorted me to Madison Square Garden for some unencumbered PDA and fluffy stache action. (Not to mention: deconstruction of the Skinny Jean.) I will admit to attending partly for the sake of my dear old mother, who I will see face to face in the country of my birth within the month, and who would simply murder me if I forefeited a concert with her favorite spousal superstars.
Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, in love for life, the latter waxed but beards neither, I suspect.
Faith was easygoing and a fascinating dancer– she moves like one would move at a 7 pm wedding reception. It was the first time I had consciously heard the majority of her songs, and the one I remember most, “Mississippi Girl,” was Hill’s equivalent of “JEnny from the Block” — her fan-promise that mega-stardom, a honey-blonde Beyonce weave, and the spoils of world travel had not, in any way, took the country out the girl.
Only, Hill is the singer alt-country purists (aka backwoods rockists) accuse of commercializing, and thus diluting, the true country aesthetic. Even I can trace this back to 1998’s “This Kiss,” a transcendent midtempo softrock song about an out-of-this-world smooch that is amped with the twang of a lap steel, which in my opinion makes it no less country than most alt country, except like 1000 times more listenable. (What can I say? I grew up watching the Mandrell Sisters on prime time, leading to a lifelong affection for the shirred blouse. I was country when country wasn’t cool.) I was also impressed with Hill’s soulful voice and apparent debt to gospel, but Jon reminded me that tradition is long, and lo: revisiting Mandrell’s backcatalogue, what do I uncover but a cover of Shirley Brown’s 1974 Stax classic “Woman to Woman,” replete with strings and Rhodes twinkle. [Also, DUH! Ray Charles! And everyone! excuse my unintentionally revisionist stee. I’m an urban cowgirl and I don’t know much about country.]
More importantly: Tim McGraw can eat crackers in my bed anytime. Backed up by loping two-note bass, he’s little truer to the old-old-west aesthetic — handlebar moustache and a horse-rider’s posture but, in a post-millennial plot twist, Rock & Republics in lieu of Wranglers — Tim is an archetypal cowboy and a bona fide sensitive thug who can emote safely thru songs like, “Grown Men Don’t Cry” because his prescribed masculinity is never in doubt. How could it be, what with that facial hair. And while rugged individualism cuts a safe rut for cowboy tears, his tone is everything: evocative, soulful (more than Faith, and richer too).
Why NY rap crits love country more than some mixtapes is no mystery: I mean, Tim Mcgraw has a nostalgic values song called “Back When,” which includes the line, “I like the old and outdated way of life. Back when a hoe was a hoe. A coke was a coke. And crack’s what you were doin when you were crackin’ jokes.” I don’t care how country and retrospective and you are, that is some sly, self-aware bullshit right there. That’s a real son of a bitch, as we’d say in Big Wyo.