Dinah Shore Color

[earlyfilm]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Hers was perhaps a BIT on the "Contrived" side... One of US can always tell when someone is "Puttin' on "Airs" w/the Southern drawl. Subtle, but its there. Hers was/is a LOT better than most, though.. ... (grin)

Speaking as a former West Tennessee native, if you listen to Dinah's recordings from the 1940's and 50's, her accent was a blend of McMinnville-rural with Nashville-educated and it worked! By the time of her TV shows, with great effort, she had lost that speech "problem", but then found it was good business to add a bit of southern drawl back in.

In Tennessee, before television, one could travel a few miles and the accent was completely different.

When I moved to Georgia in 1959, I had no trouble understanding the people of Atlanta, but once you were ten miles away from the city, I needed a translator!

James