Country Music Saved Me
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By Tom Lanham photo by Matthew Berinato
20 illinoisentertainer . com january 2023
f you ’ re craving some homespun wisdom in these complicated , hi-tech times , you need to look no further than old episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies , a popular CBS TV series that ran from 1962 to 1971 ( and later a 1993 film ) and applied old-saw simplicity to complicated modern society . For any Gen X- , Y- or Z-er who might have missed it , the sitcom ’ s fish-out-of-water premise was simple – Ozark patriarch Jed Clampett and his kin , after stumbling across oil on his property , moves into a palatial Southern California mansion Jed and spends almost every episode unraveling the schemes of his avaricious banker Milburn Drysdale , who oversees the clan ’ s $ 96 million ( equivalent to over $ 710 million today . The family is charmingly devoid of any pretension : To them , the pool is a “ Cement pond ,” the billiards room features ‘ Fancy dining table with pot servers ( cue sticks ),” and Jed ’ s casual aphorisms are often many directed at L ’ il Abner-dense nephew Jethro Bodine , like “ If that boy had lard for brains , he could not grease too many skillets .” But the true heart and moral center of the series was always his blonde bombshell daughter Elly May Clampett , as played by a deadpan-droll Donna Douglas , who was always unaware of her own beauty and preferred moccasins and ropebelted dungarees to ‘ 60s Hollywood fashions like high heels and miniskirts , and would rather hang out with Duke the bloodhound and her cavalcade of beloved pet “ critters ” than go on a Mystery Date with some shallow Tinseltown creep – many of whom were keenly interested in her family fortune .
Viewers couldn ’ t help rooting for this wide-eyed naif , even though her cooking was truly atrocious . And Elly May still strikes a resonant chord with Grammy-nominated bluesrock belter Elle King , whose 14-year career has followed a similar , if slightly more serpentine path . When she last checked in , early in the pandemic , she was bunking with her sister and her children in Los Angeles and had become “ a true Hollywood Hillbilly ” with access to her own high-falutin ’ cement pond , even an inflatable hot tub , she joked at the time while promoting her then-current , gently acoustic “ In Isolation ” EP , which a displayed a hushed , thoughtful new songwriting side of her , inspired by the pandemic . “ But that was like an eternity ago ,” the singer now sighs , on the eve of her latest full-length release , “ Come Get
Your Wife ,” which is straightforward country , was composed and recorded in her comfortable new hometown of Nashville , and features cameos from genre artists Dierks Bentley , Ashley McBryde , Miranda Lambert , and some of the best co-writers and session players Music Row has to offer . The swimmin ’ pools and movie stars celebrated in “ The Beverly Hillbillies ” theme song ? P ’ shaw , King spits – she ’ s had enough , and she ’ s returned to the familiar backwoods territory that was her home turf all along .
This remarkable stylistic U-turn might appear shocking to fans of King ’ s rollicking signature hits like “ Ex ’ s and Oh ’ s ,” “ America ’ s Sweetheart ,” and “ Playing For Keeps .” But for anyone paying closer attention , she says , she ’ s
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