Southern-raised musician Zac Brown and the Zac Brown Band’s GRAMMY nominated song Chicken Fried is featured on this year’s GRAMMY Nominees album, proceeds of which benefit charity.

Chicken Fried, from ZBB’s album The Foundation, speaks to a simpler, country life of family, friends, cold beer and a great-fitting pair of jeans. On first glance the song and video, directed by Clifton Collins, Jr, might appear to be promoting that dreaded Southern stereotype of poor, backwoods, ignorant hicks with guns, a “boot in your ass” attitude and secessionist tendencies. But listen closely and you’ll hear, along with the amazing instrumentation, a celebration of the simpler things in life – a sunrise, the taste of a favorite meal, a woman’s love and the “touch of a precious child.”  All of these things resonate especially true now that we’re mired waist-deep in the consequences of years and years of a consumer-centered economy that placed more value on keeping up with the Joneses than keeping our families together, our children safe and our country intact. Zac invites you to join him for a drink if you agree with him about what is important in life. His melodic invitation gives you the sense that, regardless of whether you’re country, hip-hop, progressive, punk, straight, gay, northern, eastern, international or any other classification you give yourself, you would be warmly welcomed at this party.

Chicken Fried also pays tribute to our American soldiers, present and past, who have fought to save these small but vital things for the rest of us to enjoy. Yes, that’s Gunny Sergeant R. Lee Ermey screaming “Lock ‘n load, ladies!” at the end. See photos of Ermey, Zac and the crew during the video shoot for Chicken Fried on director Clifton Collins Jr’s MySpace page.

The Zac Brown Band are Zac Brown, himself of Dahlonega, Georgia, bassist John Hopkins, fiddler Jimmy De Martini, guitarist/organist Coy Bowles and drummer Chris Fryar along with newly joined Clay Cook of John Mayer and Sugarland fame. Cook brings guitar, vocals, organ, mandolin and pedal steel as well as his acclaimed song-writing talents.

A portion of the proceeds from sales of the 2010 GRAMMY Nominees Album will benefit MusiCares and the GRAMMY Foundation. Get your copy today and be sure to tune into the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards January 31st at 8pm ET/PT.

It’s Veteran’s Day. Today we say Thank You to our United States Military Veterans. Yesterday the US Marine Corp celebrated their 234th anniversary. We also mourned the 13 Army soldiers killed on November 5 at Fort Hood. When it comes to our soldiers, sometimes it’s hard to find words for how we feel, but Jason Isbell comes close in his song Dress Blues.

Dress Blues is a tribute to Jason’s high school friend, Matt Conley. Cpl. Matthew D. Conley was killed in Ramadi, Iraq on February 18, 2006 when a roadside bomb hit his combat vehicle. He was 21 years old.  As Jason says, he was a Marine. As you listen to Jason’s  soft ‘Bama drawl over his haunting guitar chords, you realize that Dress Blues isn’t just about mourning Matt, but about the real-life, unromanticized consequences of the sacrifices made by every soldier and every person who has ever cared about a soldier. Each soldier is someone else’s son or daughter, sister or brother, father or mother, aunt or uncle, cousin, friend, manager, employee, neighbor or even grandmother (Lt. Col. Juanita Warman) or mother-to-be (Pvt. Francheska Velez).

Matt is one of 4,365 American casualties to date in Iraq; so far 911 Americans have died in Afghanistan. Two soldiers are currently MIA, Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie and Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl. Every soldier killed or missing shows us what we really have to lose when we follow demagogues or dollars without considering all the options.

Matt was a Southern boy from Killen, Alabama. The South has been hit hard by the Iraq war, as several US Military Bases are located here and a majority of recruits come from Southern states. Odds are strong that, if you’re a  Southerner, the Afghan and Iraq wars aren’t just news cycles on CNN or Fox but are playing out live in your living room, in your bedroom or in someone you love thousands of miles away.

One of the worst stereotypes today about the South is the assumption that every white Southerner is conservative, Republican, fundamentalist Christian, pro-war and pro-”boot in your ass”.  Add that to the typical portrait of the redneck Southerner as uneducated and stupid with a taste for cruelty, violence and pigs (see Deliverance), you have a dangerous combination for discrimination. Being any of those things may work for a few, but it’s not true as a whole. And whole stereotypes always, always lead to discrimination. It’s discrimination when we assume that every soldier doing his or her duty buys into the fuzzy politics that led to this “Hollywood” war in Iraq. It’s discrimination when we assume that every Muslim is a terrorist. And it’s discrimination when we believe that every person who is against this war is against our soldiers. The American Ideal is respect for the individual and individual rights. If our soldiers are fighting here at home and around the world for the American Ideal, then I thank them with all I’ve got for fighting for my right not to be imprisoned in a stereotype.

So today I give my thanks to the soldiers I know: Thank you, Barry, Uncle Joe and Possum, for serving our country in past wars. Thank you, Robert, for serving in Iraq this last year. The whole Kirkhart family is relieved that you’re stateside now. Thank you, Joe Bear and Julie, for what you endured on our behalf in your recent service to this country. Thank you, Rooster, for being a hometown Marine that I’m proud of. And thank you, Murray, for what you’re doing today – this very minute – for us in Afghanistan. May God bring you safely home to us.

I also give my thanks to all of you, the soldiers I don’t know but think about daily anyway. Remember, Mamas and Grandmamas love you, but that is not all we know how to do: Each one of us has the power to raise our voice and do the hard work to bring all of you home safely. If some of us don’t know where to start, we can take the first step by sending a little piece of home to one soldier at OpGratitude.

My Southern Belle Instructor

I called my grandmother Mema. She was born Mildred Franklin Brannen. As Southern tradition dictates, she was given her mother’s maiden name as her middle name. My parents continued the tradition (but skipped a generation) and gave me her maiden name, Brannen, to fit between my first and last names. This explains why so many Southern girls have boy’s middle names, in case you were wondering.

She was my father’s mother and she was responsible for making sure I understood all the rules for being a proper Southern Belle. And she had beautiful, big blue eyes. I was the first grandchild and had hazel green eyes. She always told me that I had Dada’s green eyes. Dada was her husband – my grandfather – whom I never knew because he was killed in a tragic tractor accident while working our family farm at Denhamville when my father was only 12 years old and my uncle, 8. Both my father and uncle inherited Mema’s blue, blue eyes. Growing up, I could always tell if Dad was angry (and hence I should make myself scarce) because those blue eyes would become pale, almost white. I’ve researched it and learned that the phenomenon of blue eyes turning pale is due to the blood pressure spike that occurs during anger or fear…part of the fight-or-flight response.

My two younger brothers both inherited my Mom’s intense brown eyes, and my son and daughter were both born with hazel eyes. But my son’s eyes turned brown before he was one year old, while my daughter’s eyes turned from hazel to brown when she was six years old. I had thought for sure that she would’ve kept those green eyes after 6 years but alas, it was not to be. My uncle’s oldest daughter, Kaly, has Mema’s beautiful blue eyes and his son, Jeremy, has the hazel eyes like me. My uncle’s little twin daughters, Jenna & Kayla, have the blue eyes and show no sign of them changing color now that they’re 6 years old, so I guess it’s just me and Jeremy to carry on Dada’s hazel eyes.

Have you been able to keep track so far? Good. Because family history and relationships are very important here in the South. Mema made sure I understood that, too. However, I’m pretty sure that my Mema’s been rolling over in her grave for several years now, ever since I went “rogue”.  That was her prediction in case I violated one of those proper Southern Belle rules – “And when I’m long dead and gone, I’ll just roll over in my grave if I catch you doing [blank].”

I miss my Mema. I wear her wedding band as part of my wedding set. I touch it every day and think of her.