A book with a faux-letterpressed cover about not just country music, but marginalized folks within that genre? That's going to play pretty well in our household. However, don't judge a book by its cover (sorry), because Rednecks, Queers, & Country Music is not very good.
The first problem is there just isn't much recorded country music that has any kind of pro-queer content. Hubbs dances around that fact, repeating herself over and over, but when you're devoting more than 1/3 of your book to an underground David Allen Coe album which is mostly about how he enjoyed getting head from dudes while he was in prison, then you're trying to create something that isn't there.
And Hubbs spent a good portion of the rest of book on Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman," which she espouses as a country women's empowerment anthem. I remembered hating the song when it came out because it seemed as pandering as any Hot New Country song, and after giving it a fresh listen now, I still think it's not great. Being "country" is great, but I can't say that Wilson's version is any more enticing to me than
Hubbs did have one insight which I feel like is worth relating: in the early 20th century, being queer was more acceptable as part of working-class life (and it didn't even make you gay as long as you were giving instead of receiving), and was looked down upon by the middle and upper classes. However, as homosexuality became more socially accepted in the '80s and beyond, a lot of the movement momentum got co-opted by the middle and upper classes, and homophobia was assigned to the working classes. The evidence she presented for this was a little scant, but it rang true for me.
