Rugged Stuff

A Rednecktified Texapino in Big Sky Country

By R. Keith Rugg, 9-23-08

	Texas hillbilly or not, McCoy is a sharp lookin' cowpoke. Photo credit: Senor Maguire

Neal McCoy has a distinctive ethnic heritage of Filipino on his mother’s side and Texas-Irish on his father’s side, and he refers to himself as a ‘Texapino.’ (He’s in good company, as Ruggs with roots in the Philippines can be found from the balmy Bay Area on up to the frozen wastes of Minnesota.)

Perhaps it’s this background that gives him his individual look- including what has prompted him to comment on his skin; “I’ve got a lot of wrinkles, and I think it’s from smiling so much. At least that’s what I write them off to!” I’ve always thought he’d look right at home where I grew up, on the reservation in Northwest Montana… in fact, ever since he changed his hairstyle from the 1980s-influenced long-in-back style to the shorter, clean-cut look, he has reminded me in particular of a kid from my hometown named Goober McClure.  I’m not sure just why… maybe they’ve got the same grin.

And speaking of Montana, even though he’s a through-and-through Texan, McCoy says he really enjoys playing shows in Montana and Wyoming.  We noted last time that he’s worked in the past with the Montana Special Olympics for a benefit concert, and he’s been on-stage for the Cheyenne Frontier Days event.  He says that the crowds in the northwest Rockies are “real good country music fans.”

I also reminded him that he’d done a song called Mountains on the Moon, in which he mentioned Montana.  He remembered it, and recited,

The Montana night is still
There’s a coyote on the hill…

I knew of the song, but hadn’t actually heard it before, (it’s the last track on the album Where Forever Begins) and when he quoted those lyrics to me, I was delighted as all get-out, because McCoy pronounces the word ‘coyote’ the way it’s supposed to be said.  He pronounces it ‘ki-yot’ (long i, long o) instead of the citified ‘ki-yo-tee’ (long i, long o, long e).  (Go ahead and argue with me… it’s an etymological debate you’ll lose.  I bet you probably say ‘chaps’ with a hard ‘ch’ instead of ‘shaps,’ too.)

It’s that kind of authenticity that McCoy has that makes his latest single, Rednecktified, so much fun, ‘cause it’s so real, with lines like, “Country as dirt,” “Fried bologna with a side of sweet pickles,” and “I still say y’all and fixin’ to.”

Co-written with Eric Silver, Neal said this was the first song he’d written to be sent out as a single for air play.  And I was hesitant to mention that it hadn’t made much of a splash on the local radio stations, but McCoy beat me to it, commenting that he was a little disappointed at the amount of air play that it had received.  But I think he nailed the problem with one other line from the song- “I’ve been singing country music since before it was pop.”

Mainstream country music will always push the limits toward pop/rock.  It means more widespread appeal, more public recognition and more money, and it’s been that way for a long time (Alan Jackson’s Gone Country notwithstanding).  But maybe that means we can keep the real cowboy singers like McCoy to ourselves.  Hopefully, he’ll keep on doing the good music (and community service) that he does, and those of us out here who have also “been hillbilly since way back when” will keep on showing him that we’re real good country music fans.

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