Sunflower (obviously not her real
name) and I went to high school together. We were friendly but not particularly close until after graduation, and got to be good friends sort of late in college, and afterward. She lives overseas now, but we still email. We weren't into a lot of the same things specifically but there was some overlap. We were the only two kids I knew of in school who knew what ska was (even if we'd never actually heard it) and we both went to see How To Make An American Quilt at the same theater on the same night by chance--she and her sister were sitting in front of me--and cracked up during the scene where the guy drives through the field waving strawberries at Winona Ryder, because we were reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles in English class and there is seduction-by-strawberry in that, too. And we went to see the Blair Witch Project together and thought it was lame until we had to drive back to our respective homes through the woods. She got home first and called to make sure I hadn't been kidnapped by witches.
I don't recall how this conversation started--it was a long time ago
now, and it wasn't in the middle of anything crucially important--but I
was trying to describe to her the "look" that a guy I knew had. You know; hair, clothes,
attitude. It was beard-y and flannel-y and old-T-shirt-y but he wasn't a
hipster. It was sincere.
"Oh," said Sunflower, "I call that the Seventies Southern Rock Anthem look."
Which was perfect.
Maybe it worked better at the time (this was probably in the early 2000's) before facial hair and flannel become ironic. It sort of had a resurgence in the 1990's as, I guess, Westernized grunge? Maybe this was a regional thing; I'm from Texas, so mixing grunge with cowboy boots and Stetsons probably seemed like an obvious thing to do. There was all that alt-country music going around to listen to while you wore it.
It's a mix of redneck, cowboy, and hippie, and it's better illustrated than described:
The Allman Brothers:
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's Deja Vu cover, which is even in sepia tone with a semi-daguerreotype style, pretty much exemplifies it:
Neil Young, when he was young (did you know he was ever young?):
Lynyrd Skynyrd:
Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter:
Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons:
Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt, early 1990's:
Austin's Weary Boys, while they lasted, did it well in the 2000's:
The Turnpike Troubadours have at least a flavor of it. I think it doesn't work as well these days, though, when flannel has become so--forgive me--normcore.
The King:
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