Country Music for College Graduates

Country music - that music of the great unread masses - is adopting the mantra of intellectuals. More of today's country songsmiths think "book learnin'" is a good idea, and they're tossing an increasing number of references to college in their songs.

The duo of Montgomery Gentry, for example, hit the charts last year with "Something to Be Proud of." The song recounts the struggles of a couple who get married after the young man finishes college. He got the degree, the song notes, because "that was momma's dream."

The college campus is also a place for country lovers to meet, at least according to Trace Adkins' hit, "Ladies Love Country Boys." That song tells of a young lady from above the Mason-Dixon line whose parents "sent her down south for some higher education." She was "on the fast track to a law degree" until meeting her country boyfriend.

One likely reason that country musicians like higher education may be the party atmosphere on campus. Kenny Chesney's "Keg in the Closet," for example, celebrates fraternity parties. Chesney's knows what he's talking about in this song. He attended East Tennessee State University, where he was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.

Similarly, Rodney Akins release - "These Are My People" - notes that "We got discount knowledge/at the junior college/where we majored in beer and girls." Granted, he doesn't mention anything about graduating. Just the opposite, in fact. The song's hero acknowledges that his higher education career ended when "they threw us out into the world."

Still, the song at least mentions attending college - something alien to country music from an earlier era. That old mentality was expressed by Charlie Daniels who wrote in his "Long Haired Country Boy" that, after high school, "a rich man goes to college and a poor man goes to work."

Why the recent addition of college life in country music? One reason is that, like Chesney, more country music performers and writers have gone to college themselves. Former American Idol winner Carrie Underwood, for example, graduated from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma before charming country audiences with her latest hits.

Songwriter Joe Chambers, director of the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville, believes more of Nashville's music professionals have college experience than in the past. "That could be true for most any field of work these days," he added. " . . I believe more people are going to college period."

That trend is so strong that Nashville's Belmont University opened an academic program for aspiring artists in 1971. Today that has grown into the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. Its graduates include hit-makers Brad Paisley and Trisha Yearwood,

Even those who don't attend college, though, seem to be caught up in the collegiate mood. That may come from the South's almost religious-like devotion to college football. Several, such as Vince Gill or The Oak Ridge Boys, are avid fans of Nashville's own Vanderbilt Commodores. Toby Keith is an avid Oklahoma Sooners fan.

Chambers, though, sees nothing surprising about the collegiate trend other than its ability to tear down regional stereotypes. "There have always been educated people in country music," he said, "even though the perception in the past has been that of backwoods inbreeding."

Regardless, country music is moving up the educational ladder. Maybe it's leaving that stereotype behind too.