Country music historically has been sort of middle-aged people's music.

Every time I look at Atlanta I see what a quarter of a million Confederate soldiers died to prevent.

We could say that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow stock-car racing, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt 'possum, go to Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to Scotch are likely to be Southerners.

As long as there are Japanese tourists, there will be a market for the Old South.

The nature of the South is changing faster than the stereotypes are. Much of the South now looks like San Jose. Is it still southern?

I think there's a suspicion in the South of people putting on airs. You see it in most successful Southern politicians, but you also see it in someone like Richard Petty, who may be a multimillionaire stock car driver, but he's also beloved because he has a nice self-deprecatory way about him.

Barbecue is the third rail of North Carolina politics.