Jamey Johnson: genuine homophobe? (photo by Ryan Snyder)
It’s 9 p.m. on a Friday night and there’s a drunk who’s gone staggering backwards after losing his grip on the bar. There’s an extremely pregnant young bartender maneuvering feverishly around her graviditas with one constant hand on the Jim Beam. There’s also a posse of surly, Westernattired country boys thrusting a full-size Confederate battle flag into the air. This isn’t a scene from some watering hole in no-man’s-land Dixie; this is the Millennium Center in the midst of a sold-out show by Jamey Johnson, one of the most sought-after tickets in all of country music.
Despite only having a pair of obtainable LPs under his modestly-sized belt buckle, Johnson has gone from surreptitious hitmaker to a must-see for hardcore honky-tonkers in short order. Once you get past the fact that Johnson was responsible for penning Trace Adkins’ abominable “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” Johnson recalls the best of the bona fide country troubadours of old, with unmistakable sketches of Hank Williams’ dignified heartbreak and Waylon Jennings’ outlaw ruggedness in union with his own inveterate detachment.
Upon laying eyes on Johnson, it is evident that the slick cowboy image that BNA Records slapped onto his major label debut The Dollar was history; no pressed checkered shirt, no neatly trimmed beard and certainly no soft smile. Johnson looks as convivial as an Appalachian hermit greeting trespassers with a sawed-off shotgun. He wastes no time plunging right into the Grammy-nominated “High Cost of Living,” a rocking narrative on boozeand coke-fueled misfortune that allowed the Kent Hardly Playboys to flex their instrumental muscle from the outset.
Johnson takes on nearly every track from his acclaimed album That Lonesome Song; all the while the audience displays an encyclopedic knowledge of every lyric. They reflect the rascally coolness in the hook to “Mowin’ Down the Roses” and the eerily precise prognostications of “Between Jennings and Jones” with adoring aplomb, while Johnson breaks just long enough to take a swig from his red Dixie cup.
Johnson delivers with a clear, unwavering baritone that’s echoed by his imposing stage presence, though he leaves the carousing theatrics to his superb five piece backing band. Guitarist Wayd Battle rips through solos on “Redneck Side of Me” and Johnson’s biggest hit “In Color,” while “Cowboy” Eddie Long works the crowd’s heartstrings the same way he does his pedal steel. Drummer Dave Macafee sweats through his blue plaid shirt midway through the two-and-a-half hour set, about the same time Johnson stops for some of his infrequent words with the audience.
“This is the end of the portion that you’ve paid for. If you’ve had enough, you can leave,” Johnson speaks authoritatively. “If you’re an asshole, you can also leave, but we’re going to keep on playing whatever we feel like playing.”
Whatever Johnson feels like playing apparently means reaching deep into the well of country music, as he immediately produces the Johnny Paycheck classic “Take This Job and Shove It” and Vern Gosdin’s “Set ‘Em Up, Joe.” He scales back the second half’s frantic pace for a cover of George Jones’ “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” before pulling one completely out of left field with Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s “Straight to Hell.”
By this point, even the most progressively-minded music fan is smitten by Johnson’s reverence for the old ways of the country singer, which makes it all the more disappointing to hear Johnson adopting some of the less admirable old ways on stage. “In This Honky Tonk,” from his impossibleto-find debut They Call Me Country, shows a different side of Johnson, one that speaks to a more intolerant persona than his record label may be willing to acknowledge. A reprint of such may never see the light of day, as the only thing less fortunate than Johnson’s choice of words with “buy the guitar band a beer/ this place ain’t no place for queers” was the crowd’s roaring approval of the line.
Yet, as much as I’m repulsed by Johnson’s callous homophobia, it’s impossible to deny that his musical brigandry might still represent a major insurgency in country music. There’s still rarely an exception to decorum that makes invoking such slurs tolerable. The only defensible context puts the rhinestone cowboys of contemporary country airwaves squarely in the role of the unallowable “queer” in his honky tonk. After all, Johnson is a gritty, churlish-looking country boy who’s clearly discarded whatever flirtation he had with the imagemakers of Nashville in favor of something more authentic. Legitimate songwriters tend to have their own peculiar, sometimes colloquial way of expressing metaphor and Johnson is just that.
Still, as much as that explanation might be a stretch, so may be calling him just another dime-store bigot. One with great showmanship and a flair for songwriting that cuts right to the bone, backed by one hell of a band, yes, but a bigot nonetheless. It’s too hard to tell based on one line from one song, but with shows in the summer festival circuit and their heavily diverse crowds forthcoming, Johnson will sure enough learn that folks around those parts won’t take kindly to those who don’t take kindly.
