A country performer who injected homophobia into a Merle Haggard
song at a city-sponsored event in Reidsville, N.C., will never
be hired again, according to city officials.
Matt Boswell and the
Hillbilly Blues Band performed on October 10 at Reidsville's popular
fall festival. While singing a version of Haggard's "Are the Good
Times Really Over for Good?" Boswell sang, "Well you'll never take my
guns, and I'll pray anywhere that I please / My daddy always told me,
if you were able, and didn't work then you don't eat / All you Wall
Street bankers, as far as I'm concerned, you can all go to hell / And
you can't get married, you stupid gays and queers, so why don't you go
somewhere else?"
Boswell's performance was broadcast live on a local television station, which later received complaints from viewers.
Reidsville city manager Kelly Almond told Q-Notes,
an LGBT newspaper that covers North and South Carolina, that the
language used by Boswell was "tasteless" and that "it was absolutely
unacceptable, and certainly unacceptable at a city-owned venue and
city-sponsored event."
Almond said that Boswell would never be booked by the city
again. The singer is a frequent performer in venues throughout Virginia
and North Carolina.
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