On this page you won't find any cute phonetic spellings ("kuntry kookin'"), plugs for crafts fairs/shops, jokes of the "you might be a..." type, nor any attempts to render into English spelling the distinctive "rebel" yell (a misnomer). Sorry. It ain't all serious, of course, but there's plenty of that stuff on other sites, right? Another disclaimer: A lot of the people featured on this page aren't even hillbillies, not by anybody's definition. They just want all the prestige that comes with the "hillbilly" moniker. Who doesn't?

• Hillbillies live in Appalachia and the Ozarks. We've been the subject of both ridicule and study: See "...The Truth about Hillbillies" by Phyllis Rossiter Modeland, repub. from The Ozarks Mountaineer
. I'm one of the Appalachian ones.

• Check out The Encyclopedia of Appalachia and the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services (East Tenn. State University). And don't miss the Sociology of Appalachia at Tennessee Tech. University.
• A lot of good work is done at the Southern Empowerment Project (Maryville, Tenn.); the Highlander Center (New Market, Tenn.); the Mountain Women's Exchange (Jellico, Tenn.); Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM) (Lake City, Tenn.); The Foothills Land Conservancy (Maryville, Tenn.); Community Shares (Knoxville and Nashville, Tenn.);
• Who says Hillbillies and computers don't mix? Hillbillies in Cyberspace: Yes, it's true! There's also The Hillbilly Supercomputer (by Luke Mester)
• Hillbilly Housewife: "A treasure trove of cooking and household information." Take that, Martha! Lots of scratch recipes, including many that will seem familiar to those of us who remember a little jar or cup of bacon grease always being around in the kitchen....
• Hayseed: "The On-line Journal for Hillbillies, Rednecks, and White Trash"
• On the other hand, "Hillbilly Stereotype is No Joke," from the non-profit Home For Good. And remember the ESPN commercial?
• How come we're called "hillbillies"? Etmologies: a theory from Electric Scotland and a debunking from World Wide Words Q&A;
• And, of course, there are lots of Hillbillies in pop culture (and not just the ones from Beverly. Hills, that is):
  
  • Bugs Bunny has had his run-ins with hillbillies. See "Hillbilly Hare" (a transcript of that Bugs Bunny cartoon featuring Curt and Pumpkinhead)
  • You might also have seen hillbillies (of sorts) on old labels for Mello Yello, as discussed in "The Mello Yello Mystery" (The Beverage Container Museum).
  • And, while there are lots of pages about a man named Jed and all his kin, a good place to start isSitcoms online or The Other Side of Oz (Buddy Ebsen's official website). My favorite BH page, though, is this one, about their TRUCK! "'The Beverly Hillbillies' and Buick?"

Hillbillies can write, and some of us are real good at it, too:

• James Agee: "James Agee" by Georgia Steinhardt;
from MetroPulse Secret History, "Agee Park: Finally, a memorial to a native genius"; from The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.; Bartleby.com); Links to Literature: James Agee (with a chat link); The James Agee Collection (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, U. of Texas, Austin)

• Lee Smith: Her official homepage, "From Fair and Tender Ladies to Good Ol' Girls"; "A Diamond from Coal Country" (North Carolina State U. Libraries: Exhibits); "Lee Smith" by Crystal Black
  
• Thomas Wolfe: The Thomas Wolfe Web Site (U. of North Carolina, Wilmington); The Thomas Wolfe Society;"Thomas Wolfe" by Jennifer Mooney; The Thomas Wolfe Memorial (official site from the state of North Carolina);

Hillbillies (and hillbilly wannabes) live all around the world!

• Some are Shriners: Hillbillies (Khedive) and Sudan Hillbillies.
• Some clog in Australia: The Hillbillies cloggers.
  
• Some square dance in California: The Sierra Hillbillies Square Dance Club.
  
• Some party down in Somerville, Mass., at Johnny D's Hillbilly Night.
• Some have "off road adventure" in Dorset, England (!): The Henley Hillbillies.
• Some go camping in Ontario: Camp Hillbilly Estates (Muskoka).
• Some drive Jeeps in Colorado: The Hillbillies 4x4 Club.
• Some play rugby in Germany: Rugby Verein Dresden.


• And some, as you might expect, play baseball in West Virginia (The MHS Hillbillies); race ATVs in Missouri and Arkansas (Hillbilly Gran Prix); and stir up some homebrew in Tennessee (that's homebrew BEER, by the way: The Hillbilly Hoppers; see below for that other famous hillbilly homebrew).

And lots and lots and lots of them play music of all kinds, though most of it ends in "abilly":

• The Kinks were not hillbillies, but they did record an album called Muswell Hillbillies! Read it about it at InkBlot Magazine.
• The Hillbillies from Mars "have been rocking the contradance scene in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1983. They combine their love and dedication to Celtic and American traditional fiddle music with a healthy dose of their own "folk roots" of rock 'n' roll, swing, Latin and African beats..."
• The Hotrod Hillbillies are "a punkabilly-cowpunk trio from Austin, Texas" whose website demonstrates their "love for speed, art, and music." (Speed as in cars, that is.)
• Big Hillbilly Bluegrass play "hard-driving bluegrass along with country, folk and original material." Plus, their website is among the Top 100 Bluegrass Sites.
• Mike Hillman and the Latin Hillbillies, whose "musical style is country, rhythm´n´blues, hillbilly, rockabilly, swing, from the 40´s to 50´s," and who, according to their website, "Send To You Powerfull Rockin´Hillbilly/Rockabilly Creetings From
  Málaga,From The Deep South Of The Spain."
  
• Billy and the Hillbillies, who "lead where other bands refuse to walk. Hillbilly style combines classical music with bluegrass, Broadway with rock , country with disco, then adds a most magical ingredient, humor." Here's their fan club, Da Billy Club.
• The Tipp Hillbillies, a "y'allternative country and blues jam band" (contact Bubba for merchandise and booking!)


• The Hillbilly Soul Surfers, apparently, "chew up the genres their name belies and spits out a style uniquely their own." The reviews use a lot of words like "surfabilly" and "eclectic."
• Hillbilly Moon Explosion: German rockabilly. Whoa!
• Wilma and the Unkool Hillbillies, of Sweden, who play "rock and roll with a great boogie woogie piano" and "top piano rockabilly." (Wilma plays the washboard, of course.)
• The Hillbilly Hellcats play rockabilly, rock, bluegrass and country, and, according to one website pundit, they're "easily one of the greatest American psychobilly bands in existence." And they have the coolest logo of them all.
• Hillbilly IDOL "draws from the deep, rich well of American music to blend an original hybrid sound - 'Town and
  Country.'" They say, "It ain't your Grandpa's country music, but he'd probably approve."
• The Hillbilly Voodoo Dolls play "some of the best R&B, and Rockabilly-Blues around," according to one reviewer. Another says, "a spirited musicality and sense of simplicity elevate the Hillbilly Voodoo Dolls above the rest of the pack."
• The Hillbilly Gypsies are "a West Virginia native string band who specialize in playing their own homegrown style of Appalachian Old Time mixed with that Hard Drivin' Bluegrass Sound."
• The Hillbilly Stringpickers do their pickin' in the Netherlands, and as I can't read Dutch, I can't offer any pithy promotional quotes. But they quote Charlie Feathers on their homepage, and that's a helluva good start: "Rockabilly is a lead guitar, a rhythm guitar and a upright bass. Real true rockabilly... well you get too carried away till a drummer can't keep up with it!"
• Hillbilly Devilspeak plays "its own brand of post-punk noise." According to their website, folks either love 'em or hate 'em. Hmm.
• Erik Brandt and the Urban Hillbilly Quartet's newest album "finds the band taking chances, stretching further beyond their Americana roots to paint with some new colors, deftly adding jazz, soul, blues, and even a splash of doo-wop harmony to their canvas."
• Vassar Clements is the "father of hillbilly jazz."

If you want more than just bands that are named for Hillbillies, check out HillbillyMusic.com, or listen to the Hillbilly Hits radio show. Think you know all about it? Take Slapmedia.com's Hillbilly Quiz, with three levels, and try for the title "Expert of Hillbilly Music."

The official soft drink of Hillibilly-dom: RC Cola

• Royal Crown Cola (and Diet-Rite) homepage (official)
• The RC Cola story (a tribute page)
• "RC Cola Celebrates 10th Purchase" from the Onion

Would you like a sweet treat with your RC?

• The One and Only Moon Pie (official site--get your Moon Pie merchandise here!)
• "Legend of the Moon Pie" by Virginia Marin: A collection of edible moon mythology.
• Every summer, Bell Buckle, Tenn. hosts the RC and Moon Pie festival!
• GooGoo Clusters (official site)

Or a not-so-sweet treat? Ramps have a lot of fans.

• There's a ramp festival in Cosby, Tenn.
(It claims to be the oldest one in the state....)

• There's also a festival in Polk County, Tenn.
• There's one in Robbinsville (Graham County), North Carolina, too.
• And in Elkins, West Virginia, as well, where it "smells like spring"!
• This is what all the ruckus is about! (courtesy of N.C. State University)

And, of  course, the real official beverage: 'Shine

• How to Make Moonshine! (and much about the history, culture and consumption of  corn likker)
• North Carolina Moonshine: "A Survey of Moonshine Culture, 1900-1930"
• "Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his load": The ballad of Thunder Road (1958, starring Robert Mitchum), a movie about moonshining in my neck of the woods (Internet Movie Database)
• Find the lyrics to "The Ballad of Thunder Road" here.

• "Supreme Court Rules that Tennesseeans Are Sentient Beings"! (From The Onion)
• Have you heard the story about hanging the elephant? It's part of Unicoi County History. You can also read it about here: "The Hanging of Mary the Elephant" (rootsweb). And there's a book about it: The Day They Hung the Elephant (by Charles Edwin Price)
• And this isn't exactly breaking news, either, but Salon.com honored Hee Haw stalwart Buck Owens in their "brilliant careers" series: "The Baron of Bakersfield"
• "Arkansas Hillbillies Speed Up" (From Pigdog Journal): The drug of choice for hillbilly dealers is meth, not moonshine.
• You may also have heard of OxyContin, the prescription pain reliever sometimes known as "hillbilly heroin" or "redneck crack." Here's the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research site on OxyContin. And here's a bulletin from the U.S. Dept. of Justice's National Intelligence Center on OxyContin. Best of all, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) provides this FAQ on OxyContin. 'Nuff said.
• Eric Rudolph is on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for terrorist bombings in 1996 (the Olympic Games in Atlanta) and 1998 (a clinic in Alabama), as well as two other Atlanta-area bombings. He's believed to have been a fugitive in the mountains of western North Carolina. Here's a story from CNN.com about his indictment by a grand jury. Here's the Washington Post's index of Rudolph stories. He was also featured on Unsolved Mysteries.

These, by the way, are the hills I mean:

• The Great Smoky Mountains National Park (official site)
• Great Smoky Mountains News and Information Service (for lots of info about hiking, backwoods, etc.)
• Cades Cove, in the Smokies, is near where I grew up.
• I was born in Blount County, Tenn. (touted as "the peaceful side of the Smokies," a jab at the burgs below)
•  Southern Meccas Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg: That would be the ugly side of the Smokies, I guess. The tacky side, anyway. Branson, eat your heart out. (from Roadside America)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority (official site)

Background courtesy of  The Background Boutique