"...Johnny B. Deere..."

Here's another brain wrinkle or two on the whole "pure" country thing.

My personal early years were spent in an environment where music was, simply, music and labels weren't part of the paradigm.

Save, of course, for the actual labels on the records.

Har-har.

And while the combination of my particular generation and the geographical/sociological nature of my childhood reared me up into a fuller appreciation of pop and rock and roll than it did country, I was only marginally inclined to be dismissive of the "twangin' hokey honky tonkin'" presentation that country music seemed to offer in those years.

I mean, after all, a lot of the abuse that country music suffered in those years was self inflicted.

It's a little hard not to giggle just a bit derisively when a guy like Porter Wagoner stands there in his fully nuked Nudie designed toreador cut suit and announces, with a straight and sincere face, that the "next song we'd like to play for all you friends and neighbors is a number that I wrote...it's called 'Life Rides The Train...But Time Always Flies'..."

Those of us who laughed at that kind of stuff weren't trying to be mean spirited.

We honestly thought he was trying to be funny.

Honest.

I think it was somewhere in the mid sixties where the tide started to turn just a little in terms of the acceptance and/or rejection of country music by the masses. It was during those years that acts like Roger Miller and The Statler Brothers, among others, started showing up on the pop charts, sprinkled ever so obviously amongst the Beatles and Byrds and Beau Brummels's that were dominating the teenage airwaves of choice in those days.

My twenty buck JC Penney's transistor radio was always tuned to either WNOE or WTIX in New Orleans, both blatantly top forty stations in the day, and it didn't seem a bit odd or jarring to hear "I Feel Fine" followed by "King of The Road" followed by "Mr. Tambourine Man" followed by "Flowers On The Wall."

Admittedly, it would have been a little jarring to hear "Laugh, Laugh" followed by "Life Rides The Train, But Time Always Flies", but even then programmers had a sense of just what level of push the envelope could bear and still sell oil changes and breakfast cereals.

From that point on, I dont think you have to be a Mensa member to realize that it was inevitable that the door, so to speak, between the genres' was now open and the "friends and neighbors" would increasingly cross back and forth, sharing with one another their respective tastes and recipes.

And in the grand scheme of things, that's really a very positive thing.

Rock and rollers learned that country music was more than just some nasal pining for mama's fried chicken and a sturdy tractor and country music fans realized that you could, in fact, rock and roll all night and party every day without having your final destination pass irrevocably stamped "GOING TO HELL".

Turns out, we really could, in fact, all get along.

Think United Federation of Planets.

Then unplug "humans" and "Klingons" and plug in "rockers" and "rednecks".

Live long...and party on...

Ya'll.