>In this case, the misinterpretors were a bunch of well-educated, reactionary
>liberals who got off on hearing themselves denounce a band they knew nothing
>about. Hell, all they had to do was listen to Skynyrd's The Ballad of Curtis
>Loew to tell where they were coming from--if they really wanted to know,
which,
>of course, they didn't.
The Ballad Of Curtis Loew, which describes the bond between a black adult and a white child, may be evidence of Skynyrd's intention to be anti-racist, but I don't think it evinces complete success.
Also, the song does not represent anything all that distinctive about Skynyrd but rather a recurring theme in the mythology of country music. Tom T. Hall has a similar song called Coot Marseilles Blues. The Curtis Loew theme also appears plain as day in the personal legends of Hank Williams and Bill Monroe.
Hall also has at least two songs that are near misses to the CL theme: The Year That Clayton Delaney Died, which doesn't mention the color of the unrespectable but good-hearted musician, and Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine, where the subject of cross-racial solidarity is a young man instead of a boy and the object is a raconteur instead of a picker.
I've known some white southerners who sincerely try to oppose racism and love the theme and others who feel pretty uncomfortable about it. To hear an all-white crowd sing along with The Ballad Of Curtis Loew in a bar would be a little much for an awful lot of people though, I can tell you.
I couldn't find my cassette with The Ballad Of Curtis Loew, but I've had a good time listening to Tom T. Hall just now. A Week In A County Jail and Who's Gonna Feed Them Hogs.
Tom Thomas Waters twaters at panix.com Bronx, New York