That’s the difference in Appalachian twang and plantation drawl, the two basic Southern accents. The map in post #82 calls them Inland Southern and Lowland Southern (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3749412/posts?page=82#82) and shows where you’re most likely to hear them.
I’ve lived in various parts of the South and am familiar with both. The first sounds like poor hillbillies with a moonshine still and the other sounds like Gone with the Wind style aristocrats or sitting around the courthouse in a seersucker suit. Alabama governor Kay Ivey has one of the thickest plantation/Lowland Southern accents I’ve ever heard.
The two accents are distinctly different but also distinctly Southern and so they can get lumped together by non-Southerners. Like sometimes you’ll see an actor playing a poor TN redneck but sounding like landed old-money MS/AL/GA gentry. The fact that there’s quite a bit of overlap in where they’re spoken (more than the map suggests) probably adds to the confusion. The overlap is because the division isn’t just geographic — it’s also a class thing to some extent. Also the simple fact that the Appalachian twang seems to be kind of infectious and good at spreading itself around. You’ll hear it from the Florida panhandle up into Kentucky and over into Texas.
Actors don’t know how to do southern accents. We call it the “Blythe Danner accent” here. She doesn’t know what she’s doing but she always gets cast as a lady southerner. British actors tend to do a better job of it.
The one accent I’m having trouble with is the African-American southern accent. My lovely lawncare guy must be speaking Geechee or something! I have never understood a word he has said but just stand there nodding my head and smiling. Good lawncare guy, though!
114 is a good post
You hear country accent what you refer to as inland southern also even in southern Indiana Ilinois and Ohio a bit
And southeast Kansas some