Posted on 08/07/2002 10:33:07 AM PDT by weegee
EDINBURGH, Scotland (Reuters) - Country and Western diva Tina C wants to share her grief with the world over September 11 and what better way than a Twin Towers tribute album?
As she launches into a chorus of her hit song "Kleenex to the World," shame on anyone who suggests it is all a cheap publicity stunt to sell records and revive a flagging career.
That is the acerbic message from English drag queen Chris Green who decided with Tina, his larger-than-life, all-American patriotic girl, to push out the boundaries of taste at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival by taking a dig at grieving "celebrity saints" jumping on the 9/11 bandwagon.
Featuring songs from her charity album "9/11:24/7" Tina C has garnered plaudits from critics for a "fabulously politically incorrect show" and won a devoted following from fans in Edinburgh, an anarchic extravaganza billed as the world's largest arts festival.
Green, winding down after a show that was greeted with whoops of delight, told Reuters backstage: " The attacks were a huge thing in Nashville. There was a lot of product released and a lot of people who had their careers slightly augmented by 9/11 material.
"I wanted to raise the question 'how far do we go before we become uneasy? What is the role of a singer?'
"I really love country music and I think it has a wonderful emotive quality that nothing else has. But as I say in Kleenex to the World, you don't need to write songs about people dying on 9/11. We can work out that is sad.
"Maybe that is a cultural difference," he added. "That is me as an English person thinking that it is too mawkish, too sentimental."
Tina C certainly had a tough time, confessing to her audience that she suffered from "Grief Exclusion Syndrome" -- she was having plastic surgery at the time of the attacks and missed out on a string of telethon and charity appearances.
Green makes no apology for his satire. "I can't help thinking that perhaps some people were achieving Number Ones that they hadn't achieved for some time. That makes me sound cynical but they did."
Green, the latest in a long and rich tradition of British female impersonators, insists: "What I am not doing is making jokes about people dying. I am not making jokes about people stuck in an airplane about to crash. I'm sticking clearly to the megalomania of the big stars who respond to it and I think they are completely up for parody. They don't need protecting."
He plans to take his show on the road to Australia and then hopes to face the ultimate challenge for his material: "I would like to take it to the States. New York is the place to do it because there is that counter culture there.
"It is not an easy thing to do -- the aim is not to be insensitive but to challenge and to question."
As Tina C promises in her show-stopping hit belted out to an adoring Edinburgh audience: "I'll keep the songs coming even if they nuke us."
IMO, the actual counter culture in the US is to be found mostly in flyover country.
"It is not an easy thing to do -- the aim is not to be insensitive but to challenge and to question."
But don't question his insensitivity.
"Patriotism is not old-fashioned. It's the new, hip thing." That's what Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn fame was quoted as having said. Now, chances are, of course, exceedingly strong that Dunn was not poking fun at those who do record patriotic songs.
After all, that would be like the pot calling the kettle black as B&D's catchy "Only in America" was part of the group of patriotic songs that surfaced after Sept. 11.
No doubt the best known was Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)," a song that helped him capture three Academy of Country Music awards in May.
Others on the list include David Ball's "Riding With Private Malone," Charlie Daniels' "This Ain't No Rag, It's A Flag," Aaron Tippin's "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly," and most recently Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," an ode to his late father.
Not every song is going to be a career-type song as "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)." That's the type of song that causes listeners to give pause to the problems we faced as a people after the events of last summer. And kudos to the generally shy, soft-spoken Jackson for speaking so eloquently after winning his awards in dedicating the awards to the victims.
Others like Daniels and Hank Williams Jr. ("America Will Survive"), chose to give their message in an angry, defiant tone to the enemy.
No one has a hold on patriotism of course or how to demonstrate those feelings. Rest assured that Ronnie Dunn doesn't feel that way either.
Yet, all of the songs cited plus others dealing with the tragedy certainly speak to some segment of the American public and help us deal with our continuing sorrow. While the airwaves were flooded with feel good songs after Sept. 11, radio did not only hone in on patriotically-themed songs. And thankfully not every artist perceived a need to get to the recording studio to air his/her feelings because not all songs would have been top notch.
Fortunately, at least patriotic songs haven't become the "new, hip thing." That would make it far too easy to accuse country music of trying to take advantage of the situation.
But based on what has happened in the past nine months, you can rest assured patriotism isn't old fashioned either.
The song was released well before 9/11.
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