averyfineline » KH

Kingdom Heirs and Dollywood

Avery — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:18:51 +0000

Yes, yes … Denny as Kenny. But do we really need another adenoidal cowboy poseur? Rather than America’s next whatever (or counterintuitive theorizing about the Kingdom Heirs giving up the gold mine at Dollywood for the pennypinching of the road), I’m more interested in whether or not anyone has heard anything about why Steve French missed opening week at Dollywood?

Echoes from Dollywood (II of II)

Avery — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 20:09:02 +0000

From people who should know, I hear that the Kingdom Heirs flap indeed isn’t ‘t the first time Dolly Parton’s actions have not dovetailed with the values of the Dollywood target market. In contractual terms, the Herschend family - who are business owners with Parton in Dollywood - have a final say on most park management-related issues, so all you folks losing sleep over the possibility that the homuhsexshul uh-ginduh is taking over east Tennessee, go back to sleep. The Herschends, good Baptist stock and upstanding Republicans, probably aren’t going to encourage any deviations from the conservative family-values pitch they’ve used at their parks for so long (they also own Silver Dollar City, Branson). However, they do not have ANY control (contractual or otherwise) over Dolly’s performing career or any activities outside the confines of her tourism ventures with them. Thus, they cannot stop her increasingly public and vocal support for gay rights, even if they wanted to (and I suspect they do). What could happen is that Dolly would stop being a part of the marketing at the Pigeon Forge park (the name could even go back to Silver Dollar City) or the Herschends could buy her out entirely. No matter how stupid I think it would be to sever the relationship with Parton from a business and entertainment perspective, don’t forget how powerful ideology can be. The SBC has boycotted Disney and times could get unpleasant indeed if the SBC and Jim Dobson et al turned their wrath on Dollywood (and Dollywood probably avoided getting boycotted only by vigorously disaffiliating itself from rumors last year of a gay-days at Dollywood).Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer some context to my earlier comments about Parton and Dollywood: The rise in the 1990s of Dollywood was much more of a Herschend thing than a Dolly Parton thing. She seems to have become the public face of the park because it was a nice fit and made financial sense. And though I continue to believe/hope that she has an abiding affection for the gospel roots of country music, it’s probably fair to say she also doesn’t stay up at night wondering about new ways to help promote sg. Which is to say, while sg types love to throw their connections with Dollywood around and while they don’t interrupt anyone who’s getting the impression that doing bidness with Dollywood is doing bidness with Dolly, the real deal for most sg stuff at Dollywood is probably done primarily with the Herschends or their blessing and influence. The PR Dolly will embrace sg all day long (and obviously she knows enough about her house quartet to use them on a recording, a much more flattering recognition than, say, Louise Mandrell’s habit of commandeering the stage during Triumphity’s performances at her theater and forcing them in BGV formation right there on the spot); but the performer Dolly will always be invested primarily in pop culture and its music.

The Kingdom Heirs’ Valentines Day surprise

Avery — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 20:01:38 +0000

Just in time for Valentines Day, the Kingdom Heirs - in the role of back-up vocalists for Dolly Parton - will appear on a new two-disc compilation of love songs being released by the Human Rights Campaign. For those of you not familiar with HRC, it is “a bipartisan organization that works to advance equality based on sexual orientation and gender expression and identity, to ensure that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community.” The cd is called Love Rocks and includes Dolly Parton’s song “Sugar Hill,” from her 2002 album Halos and Horns (the label that produced H&H has no record of Parton cutting a new version of the song for the Love Rocks compilation). I called Sugar Hill records this afternoon and confirmed that the liner notes list “The Kingdom Heirs: Steve French, Arthur Rice, David Sutton and Eric Bennett” as back-ground vocalists on the track, which Dolly Parton contributed to the Love Rocks project because, in her words, “I believe love rocks. Love comes in all colors. We are rainbows and should all shine with our own true colors. Rock on!” (the Southern Baptist Press has an article about the cd release here.) It’s not at all clear that Steve French and at least one of the members of the KH at the time feel the same way Parton does. Eric Bennett, you will recall, is part of the Restoration Team whose members performed a de-gaying exorcism of sorts on Kirk Talley when he came out and sought their help. And the longtime friendship between Steve French and Kirk Talley has evidently suffered since Talley came out.I doubt French and Bennett and the rest of KH at the time had any knowledge that the cut was going to be used on the compilation disc. And even if they had known and expressed objections, it’s unlikely that would have changed things. But in any event, the Love Rocks release brings into full relief the fraught relationship that sg generally and the KH specifically have with Dolly Parton. The KH and other sg types with connections to Parton (cf SGMA) like to tout their relationship with her. Look, she’s one of us, a good evangelical girl from the hills who made it big, and she does bidness with us. And in addition to noting her professional support of gospel music, these sg types point to her frequent and eloquent mention of the role her evangelical roots played in the development of her character and the importance she places in that faith still. But what no one talks about is how Parton and many of her sg business associates have fundamentally opposed values about many things, namely sexuality and gay rights - issues that evangelical fundamentalism does not compromise on, at least not theoretically. This isn’t a problem for Parton so much as it is for the sg folks who regularly denounce just the kind of “worldliness” that Parton represents. They pull off this feat of cognitive dissonance by pretending that Parton the Social Activist and politically progressive star doesn’t exist, that she doesn’t appear on the television show Ellen (which she does), that she hasn’t done a live singer/songwriter special for cable with Melissa Etheridge (which she has), that she hasn’t made repeated and public statements in support of legal rights for same-sex couples (which she continues to do).

So long as the image of Parton that sg fans get comes from Dollywood (which remains pretty well scrubbed cleaned of any progressivist activism of the kind Parton regularly speaks about in public and from the stage), the sg notion of Dolly the sweet country church girl is usually a manageable pretense to perpetuate. But as far as I know, this Love Rocks business is the first time that an sg affiliation with Dolly has become directly and inextricably linked with Parton the Political Progressive and her commitment to organizations that share her values and support causes she believes strongly in - organizations and causes whose purpose and aims the Christian right specifically opposes. The KH and some of sg’s most prominent players have taken a hear-no-evil-see-no-evil approach toward Dolly in order to enjoy the benefits of an official business relationship with her. The SN (which banned mention of Talley’s name in the magazine after he came out but accepts advertising from Parton), the SGMA, and the KH are only the most prominent operations in sg with close ties to Parton and her business. Hard to see any way that this charade of blissful ignorance can go on much longer without forcing a lot of folks into a tight spot where they’ll have some ’splainin’ to do.

Who’d thought

Avery — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 21:46:19 +0000

Honestly, I would never have expected Billy Hodges’s appointment as the new Kingdom Heirs tenor to have created such a hubbub. It’s difficult to recall the last time a personnel change like this sparked the kind furor raging over at the sogospelnews message board (and I’m only referring to the comments about Hodges and not the typical administrative silliness going on in this thread, preposterously epitomized here by one administrator’s claim that people were criticizing Hodges because two of the Unthanks are ill). I mean, unless there’s a rampant and widespread outbreak of sarcasm running through the message boards, this particular hire has touched off some of the most succinctly withering comments I’ve read recently: “wow, it’s a sad day in southern gospel.” “You’ve got to be kidding me.” “I am shocked.” “I hated billy’s ego.” And on and on. Clearly, this fella has left lasting impressions and strong feelings wherever he’s gone, one way or another. Knowing very little about the guy, I don’t have anything subjective to offer about his voice or professionalism (and how someone in Hodges’ position behaves professionally is a legitimate topic of conversation, publicly and privately). But even if his voice had been conditioned for twice or thrice weekly work as a church music director as I originally thought (which it hasn’t been; he’s been on staff as recreation director at Marcus Pointe BC), he’d still needs to hunker down now and get into serious shape for the grueling demands of multiple daily shows at Dollywood. Given he’s not been singing professionally for a while now (at least the year he’s been on staff at MPBC), he’s got some major prep work to do. Otherwise, he won’t have a voice to speak of or with, and the only way he’ll be able to interact with anyone for better or worse is with the silent treatment.