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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by guildslinger:
Wow, what a tempest.

I guess I'm like a previous poster who said he sounds like the people he's around. Perhaps due to lots of stage experience (acting, as well as singing) including using different accents because they belonged in the piece, I have, for better or worse, what is sometime called an "ear" for accents. I'm a bit of a linguistic chameleon. Some people crash miserably when they attempt, for example, an Irish or Scottish accent, or Southern for that matter. Others can "nail it." Others, like me, soak up their surroundings and start to sound like wherever they are at the time.

I would submit that that ability does not necessarily put us at the same level as Satan or Osama, nor does it amount to "selling out." Try living in a foreign country for a few weeks, and see if you don't come back talking a little differently. If you don't, you probably weren't listening or engaged with others. It's not a conscious effort to deceive or dissemble, simply a response to one's surroundings. Country music, to me, is simply like going to a different place, and when in Rome (Georgia) it's helpful, and quite natural, to sound as the Romans do. Those with a "tin ear" for language, who lay it on thick, should probably be real careful about making the conscious effort, though.

Some songs just cry out for the twang.

Spare me the moral outrage. I've got much bigger faults than this, if you want to be outraged we can talk about them instead! [Linked Image]

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No one is talking about picking up a hint of an accent. I'm talking about people who have NO country/southern accent whatsoever to begin with. I'm talking about a guy who lives in California all his life, doesn't speak with any southern accent to this day, but sings with one of the thickest southern drawls of any current country artists. Sorry, that's a sell out in my book.