Diamanda Galas On Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter: “Don’t Waste The Music With Your Politics, It’s An Insult To The Real Culture”

According to Spinmagazine.com, during her interview with the publication, Diamanda Galas shared her thoughts about Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter. “Her voice is a beautiful voice, and she clearly has good ears. She could have studied the traditions of the great, great country singers. But she didn’t. She decided to do ‘soul’ renditions of country songs. But we aren’t talking Ray Charles, Esther Phillips, Patti LaBelle, or Fantasia, masters of vast musics.”

When sharing her thoughts about the traditional country vocal discipline that cannot be faked, Galas adds: “”You’ve got to incorporate the timbres of their voice. They’re scratchy timbres, like sandpaper. They’ve got sandpaper in the sound, and they’ve got unusual, slightly-off intonation when they choose to use it. The language is the dance—is the singing. It’s got its own characteristics, and you have to respect that. You never talk down to that culture. You never talk down to poor white trash. People who talk down to them have never been there; they don’t know how those people live.”

The singer concludes with: “Look at Hank Williams dying in the back of a car because he had a very dangerous spinal condition, but he could only travel in cars. They didn’t have money to take trains. So he had to go and do gigs, and he died in the back of a fucking car in Knoxville. I played the Tennessee Theatre at the Big Ears Festival, and he died in a hotel right down the road from it.”