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Let's either throw out the word "elitist" in this discussion (a word that has been hopelessly corrupted by ascendant politicians) or at least pause to define it. I'd suggest that an elitist is someone in a position of favor who seeks above all to maintain that position. I stand ready to be corrected or amended. Woody, a good thirties leftist, often put his political beliefs in the songs he sang. "This Land Is Your Land" surely wasn't written to lend comfort to bankers foreclosing on mortgages. That he wouldn't have made it as a country singer is clear from the fate of his friends, Pete Seeger and the Weavers, who were blacklisted in the fifties and I suppose would nowadays be called elitists. But Woody's voice had an authority similar to what you hear in Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb. He left Oklahoma early on, but he had Oklahoma in his voice as surely as latter-day Okies such as Reba McIntire or Vince Gill. In my book, that makes him good as country. Bob Taylor 495 Rocky Top Lane Independence, VA 24348
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