Tim McGraw's 'Southern Voice' is a song, a theme, a message and a lesson that all need hearing

"It’s a cliché among liberals to look at the rural American South with snobbery and scorn," David Masciotra writes for the Daily Yonder, and he gives examples, before touting Democrat and social critic Tim McGraw’s new single, “Southern Voice,” from his album of the same name, as "required listening for country music fans — and for liberals who amuse themselves, and no one else, by pretending that the American South is simply a pit of toothless, rump-scratching, drunken low-lives whose favorite hobbies are burning crosses, incest, and dropping out of school."

Masciotra calls the song "a desperately needed and musically exciting documentation of the vastly rich contribution the South has made to American culture," with references to the Allman Brothers, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, Dale Earnhardt and Rosa Parks." I was once a disc jockey at a rural station in Southern Kentucky that played all those artists, and would still like to have a station formatted on the overlap between country, rock, blues and bluegrass.

That sort of "roots music" is harder to find in larger markets, dominated by large companies that program to niche audiences. And it's getting harder, Masciotra writes: "For most of the history of popular radio, small markets and the nation’s regions were given equal power when determining the Billboard chart rankings. For example, John Mellencamp grew in popularity throughout the Midwest before making it to flagship stations in New York and Los Angeles. Lynyrd Skynyrd started first as a Southern band. Recent changes in the way Billboard compiles its rankings have given priority to stations in the largest markets. And that is killing the kind of heartland rock played by Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty and Bob Seger."

That's why "Springsteen’s 'Devils and Dust,' a subtle anti-war folk song told from the perspective of an active-duty solider in Iraq, and Mellencamp’s 'Our Country,' an anthem calling for unity against bigotry, poverty, and war, received greater airplay on country radio and Country Music Television than they did on rock formats," Masciotra writes. He says McGraw is one of the best at what makes country music successful, dealing with "real life issues of love, communal struggle and solidarity, as well as the existential dread and joy that bridge Saturday night and Sunday morning [I hear Ralph Stanley calling]. . . because he carries a commitment to progressive reform and a willingness to wrestle with the darker side of human nature, both personal and political. It is through this multi-colored, cracked lens that McGraw sings his music, looks at the world, and raises his 'Southern Voice'."