Talk:Johnny Rebel (singer)

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Contents 1 External Link to Pittman Article? 2 Revision 3 Rockabilly 4 Improved 5 Request for sources 6 Record sales and verifiability 7 Ubangi 8 Two Rebels? 9 Notability 10 Two Rebels 11 Article 12 Following 13 Protected 14 Disambig 15 Removed 16 Jay Miller 17 johnny rebel edits I did 18 Do not remove 19 Status of the Nick Pittman Article about Johnny Rebel 20 Photo of him? 21 Vandalism

[edit] External Link to Pittman Article?

Someone removed the external link to Nick Pittman's article about Trahan, in which Trahan confirms that he was indeed Johnny Rebel. I believe this external link should be preserved because it leads to a substantive, well-researched article on the subject at hand.

--Skb8721 20:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a subsequent request to the anonymous user who has repeatedly removed the external link to the Nick Pittman article:

Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. However, unconstructive edits are considered vandalism, and if you continue in this manner you may be blocked from editing without further warning. Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the work of others. Thank you. --Skb8721 15:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revision

I've just thoroughly revised this entry and removed the Wikipedia warning at top that the entry was below standard in quality.

I tried to weed out as much data as possible for which I could not find a source; however, I did not remove all unsources data . . . for example, the name of his 2001 single and his 2003 CD. I figure someone can easily check the accuracy of these two claims via the Internet.

My sources (for information I added) are John Broven's "South to Louisiana" and Shane Bernard's "The Cajuns," both of which discuss Trahan/Johnny Rebel, which are listed at the bottom of the article as sources.

I would like to use Nick Pittman's excellent and revealing article as a source (it actually is based on a lengthy interview with Trahan, who confirmed that he is indeed Johnny Rebel), but the newspaper for which Pittman worked at the time has deleted this article from its archives.

I removed material from the entry that I though was extraneous or unverifiable, including quotes from Trahan/Rebel about his life and career taken from Pittman's article, because these quotes can no longer be verified via the Net (and unfortunately I don't have a hardcopy of Pittman's article).

I did find copies of Pittman's article on some hate group Web sites, but I don't want to use these cites as primary-source documents because of their racist views; and in some instances the Web masters of these sites had clearly tinkered with Pittman's original text.

I thought it was unnecessary to go into extreme detail about which Web site or company or person claims ownership of Trahan's/Rebel's catalog of songs, since this gets into "he said/she said" disputes; I though it sufficient merely to say that ownership is disputed and unclear.

Finally, I linked this entry to a new entry for J. D. Miller, which I recently created (or for which I recently created a stub).

--Skb8721 16:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

in case you didn't see, i just added pittman's article to the external links -- he has it hosted on his geocities account. --dan 19:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rockabilly

I have downloaded and listened to Johnny Rebel and that is not rockabilly music. Rockabilly is typified by steel-stringed acoustic electric guitar, slap bass, and echochambered vocals. Of these the only possible elements that could apply is steel-stringed acoustic electric guitar. As such I removed the rockabilly artist categorization.

[edit] Improved

This is more clearly written than it was a few hours ago; it now says he is a musician. I am inclined to doubt that his legacy surpasses that of MLK or that he is as popular as the article suggests. Forty or fifty years ago, advocates of racism may have been mainstream; that has changed. Michael Hardy 00:10 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

I do believe that cheese is not a great source of food!

[edit] Request for sources

Could someone provide a source for the information contained in this article? I just searched Google for info with a view to neutralising the article a bit, but was unable to confirm any of the info presented here. --Camembert

[edit] Record sales and verifiability

10,000 records have been sold since its release. Do we have a source for this? Tannin

I'm sceptical that we do - "Thats how a nigger goes", with or without an apostrophe, returns exactly 0 hits on Google. It seems to me that this article should be deleted on the grounds of unconfirmability (if that's a word) unless somebody comes up with some sources. --Camembert

This "Johnny Rebel" exists and has put out some music with titles similiar to the ones mentioned in this article. That's all I was able to confirm in my admittedly hasty search. There is another musician who goes by that name; the two are not related in any way. -- Stephen Gilbert 01:09 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

I couldn't find the exact location of the source of the record sales so I deleted that (anon)

The titles of the songs are on ANY JR website and the content of the songs are explicite in the songs. Other info was gathered from various JR websites about the musical artist, such as http://www.johnnyrebel.tk/

I cannot find any biographical information either on that site or on the other sites linked from it. I did find lists of songs, and lots of KKK imagery, but that was about it. --Camembert

[edit] Ubangi

What's the Ubangi movement? Google search returns zero hits. -- Evercat

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ubangi Robertwharvey 20:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two Rebels?

Maybe there are two Johnny Rebels? For example, this one doesn't look in any way related to the segregationist one. -- Wapcaplet

As you say (and as Stephen Gilbert pointed out earlier), the two JRs seem to be unrelated (I'm going to write a sentence on the other one now). We could potentially have an article on this singer if we can back up the facts presented. But as it stands, we can't. --Camembert

Well, there is a link to the German fan site... Might take some confirmation from other sources, but there it is. At the very least it could be written up as speculative info. -- Wapcaplet

I've been to the German fan site, and as I wrote above, I can't find any of the info presented in this article confirmed there. If I'm missing something, I'd be grateful if somebody could point it out for me. --Camembert

If an article is verified (not speculative), NPOV, and non-racist, I would have no problem with it. Danny

Various lists of JR songs can be found on NUMEROUS different web sites. (anon)

Regarding the offensive song titles... the german site has lyrics and scanned LP labels showing these titles. Clearly, there is someone going by the name of Johnny Rebel who has recorded these songs. Why are we deleting them? As for the other bio information, a google search turned up quite a bit. -- Wapcaplet

Odd, I did a Google search and couldn't find anything substantive. As I said before, I'd be grateful if you could provide links. --Camembert

This search and this search both turned up several different sites with song lyrics and mp3s, for starters. Haven't found much substantial biographical info yet, though. -- Wapcaplet

Also, Definitive Johnny Rebel site. -- Wapcaplet

Yeah, I'd been there and seen most of the song lists, lyrics and so on, but I never thought of searching for "johnny rebel racist" - thanks for that, it turned up something vaguely interesting. --Camembert

[edit] Notability

If some totally obscure singer writes a whole bunch of songs with racist titles, in my opinion they are not appropriate for an article here, as it seems to amount to getting a racist message on Wikipedia by stealth. A small sample of his titles should be sufficient. The whole list is unnecessary. -- Evercat

Well stated. Danny

I'd agree with that also. Apart from anything else (and there is plenty of "anything else"), in an article this short, a long list overwhelms the article. --Camembert

Definitely agree that the article is overwhelmed. Can't we move the big article to, say, Clifford Trahan, and get this page back to a sensible sort of disambiguation page? --Percy Snoodle

The dates of release in order show how JR's music was in response to the America's changing social landscape during the 1960s and to provide information on a an artist, who, although not mainstream, is significant to a southern culture in its own right. (anon)

wikipedia is a facts sight not a opinion sight what you guys say is opinion and this shouldnt be removed since its stateing facts not insulting a race

[edit] Two Rebels

Are the segregationist JR and the one formerly of the Twistin' Tarantulas the same person? For all my searching, I can't find any indication that this is so. Does anyone have any hard evidence to tie the two of them together? --Camembert

After quite some time spent on the web, it appears clear to me that there are two different Johnny Rebel musicians who have absolutely nothing to do with each other except for their assumed name. It's also clear that the racist one is really foul, and his followers are even fouler (his foulerers? Ah, now here's a REAL POV statement: skinhead = pinhead). Read some of the posts on his discussion site if you doubt. I think that information on such a racist is valid material for the Wikipedia, but I also think that we don't have to list a complete song list. Here's the racist Johnny Rebel website if you want indigestion: http://johnnyrebel.proboards13.com/index.cgi jaknouse 03:16 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Article

For anybody interested in expanding this, this might be of interest. I've not read it all, but it seems well written. I'm off to bed now - it's been... interesting. Good luck everyone (nearly everyone). --Camembert

Google's cache. Hyacinth 09:06, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Following

hgfdhfdhdfghdgfhdgfhdfghgfdhdfhfga disambiguation link, preferably at the top of the page. jaknouse 03:57 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

There's some information on usenet: [1] [2] [3] AxelBoldt 04:08 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Protected

The page is now protected. That is what happens when a group of users cannot agree on which version to edit and cannot stop an edit war by negotiation. Hopefully a good nights sleep will bring clearer heads to the table in 24 hours or so. --mav

This page is now unprotected Martin

[edit] Disambig

There is Johnny Rebel, the musical artist, and there is "The Johnny Rebel Band". There should be a page about the band, and a separate page referencing the gay porn reference. It's not true that "JR supports the KKK" - better would be "JR has views that run parallel to the KKK" (anon)

[edit] Removed

• "According to JR, his life-changing event occurred when his father went off to fight in World War Two, and upon his return, discovered a colored man had taken his job. His father supposedly lost his house and sought assistance from the federal government. According to JR, his father was told that he was 'not dark enough to even qualify'."

Moving this deleted content to talk. It's been repeatedly deleted by a number of people, but nobody bothered to explain why, as far as I can see. I'm inclined to reinstate it. Martin 10:45 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

And I will delete it every time!!! Danny

I would support reinstating it, Martin, largely on the logic that it sounds perfectly plausible. Plausible, I hasten to add, insofar as people really do tell these sorts of stories, and almost certainly believe in them. For example, I have often had people here in Oz tell me that "All you have to do is be born Aboriginal and the government will give you a house and $700 a week for sitting around and doing nothing" - which is hopelessly wide of the truth. Hell, because of the difficulty in determining actual descent (and for various philosophical reasons), to be classified as legally Aboriginal here, all you have to do is proclaim that your psychological self-identity is indeed Aboriginal: if you really got a free house and $700 a week, we would all have become "Aboriginal" years ago!

Now all that assumes that the story is untrue (which is certainly my guess), but the truth or otherwise of the story is irrelevant here: the passage does not claim that the story is true, simply that JR tells the story. We don't have actual 100% proof that he tells the story, but it seems perfectly plausible and, on the balance of probabilities, I'd reinstate it. Tannin 11:04 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

"Colored man" is considered derogatory. Danny

I replaced the term "colored" with "black". Para reinstated. Martin 11:23 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

Beyond questions of racism, oughtn't there be some question of editorial discretion here? Should there really be a list of 8 different (highly offensively titled) songs by this completely marginal "artist"? Ought there be a lengthy paragraph about his racist, and possibly apocryphal, story about the origins of his beliefs, when there aren't yet articles about far more important individuals? Does the "NPOV" idea extend to the idea that one can't have any editorial discretion as to what is of interest to readers? john 11:30 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

I suspect that an article on Johnny Rebel is likely to be of interest to readers who have searched Wikipedia for "Johnny Rebel". Other readers are unlikely to stumble across this entry in the long term.

I doubt that deleting this article will magically create an article on a more "worthy" figure. If you wish to see more articles on "worthy" figures, arguing for deletion of this article is a suboptimal method of going about this. A better approach might be to create articles on "worthy" figures. Martin 11:48 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

(Reply to Danny via edit conflict) I agree entirely with your mailing list post, Danny, and fully support Jimbo's decision. That's one matter. This (at least as I see it) is another matter and (again, as I see it) should be handled in the exact same way that we handle, for example, entries on people who deny the Holocaust. We report the statement as a statement, attributed to the person who said it. Often, we also report the contrary evidence from other sources (which, as we both know, is overwhelming). In this instance, the statement seems to me silly enough on its own not to require any refutation. It does capture the attitude pretty well (or at least the attitude of some people I have met over here, which is probably the same thing), and is not particularly offensive. On the other hand, I think the full track listing should go. Better to mention just two or three examples, and cut this article on a very minor musician down to an appropriate size.

Myself, I would not delete it entirely - someone will only make a new one, after all - just make it brief, factual, as inoffesnsive as possible, and watch out for hit and run editors making gratuitous links to it. Tannin

A PS: The trouble with written communication is that it's difficult to express the weight of commitment one has to an opinion. Let me put it this way: I'm not too fussed about this one (just so long as the entry does not become grossly offensive again). I won't vote for deleting the entry now that it's been pretty much cleaned up, but if you can muster a consensus for deleting the whole damn thing, that's OK by me. Tannin

Let me clarify. I do not support deleting the article. I support the removal of all POV from the article. I do not support removing all mention of his songs. I agree that a few examples is appropriate. I do not even reject the idea of having the story of his origins given, if, in fact, it can be corroborated that he claims this to be his origin, and it is explained as such. Claiming that he became racist because an African-American took a job that "belonged" to his father is, however, racist and inflammatory. In its own way, it actually justifies racism. Danny

Let me put it this way: "claiming that he became racist because X" is indeed racist. But reporting that "he claims he became racist because X" is not. Or that's my take on it, anyway. Perhaps yet another edit to the passage could clarify this a little. But whatever. I'm not going to throw my toys out of the pram either way. Tannin

I have to say, I think that's nonsense that the story justifies racism. It shows that Rebel thinks his views are supported by "real world" events, and is likely to convince that segment of the population that already agrees with his point of view. IMO everyone else is likely to dismiss the story as paranoid self-justification and a semi-clever attempt at self-aggrandizement. Koyaanis Qatsi

As of Tannin's edit, 12:24, Apr 29, 2003, I think it's acceptable. -- Evercat

Cheese and pie?

[edit] Jay Miller

Interestingly enough, Jay Miller was known for running Excello Records which specialized in blues, and Louisiana blues greats had recorded at his Crowley studio before, during, and after the same period that Johnny Rebel had recorded there. I had heard rumors that some black blues musicians played on Rebel's very anti-black material. Is this true?

[edit] johnny rebel edits I did

I know this is two years late, but I edited this article. I put in a full list of his 1960s music, plus a disclaimer about violence. I also called into question copyrights on the music. I disspelled the WWII story — it is a lie. Please do not put it back in as fact. Trahan is Rebel. Period. See my site for more. (geocities.com/pittman1978/) I wrote the article on him that contained his first interview. I am tired of being asked questions about him (usually by his racist fans or by people who do not bother to fully read my work). I'm not a supporter of Rebel, just want to set the record straight. — Nick Pittman

why isn't pittman's page (http://geocities.com/pittman1978/rebeltimes.html) in the article as an external link? i would just pop it in, but this comment and (more importantly) a mention in the article itself suggest it used to be there and was taken out for some reason. i glanced at the edit history, but people's descriptions aren't very helpful and i don't feel like wading through 56789 revisions. i'll give this a few days if anyone wants to say why it's out, then otherwise i'll put it back. --dan 06:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Do not remove

This article ABSOLUTELY should NOT be removed. Anyone LOOKING for this information will NOT be offended by it. This politically correct garbage is getting WAY out of hand!

[edit] Status of the Nick Pittman Article about Johnny Rebel

Over the past several months an anonymous user or users (i.e., not logged in to Wikipedia) have repeatedly removed or sabotaged an external link leading to journalist Nick Pittman's article about Johnny Rebel.

Only once -- today -- has this anonymous user or users given a reason for deleting or interferring with this external link.

That one explanation is that Pittman's article is not a "real" article, or is not a "real" interview.

I take strong exception to this claim:

While it is true that Pittman's article is located on his personal web site, his article originally appeared in the The Times of Acadiana, published weekly in Lafayette, Louisiana, and owned by the major Gannett media corporation.

Pittman only transferred the Rebel article to his personal web site after the article no longer could be accessed per the Times' online archives.

Pittman now writes for the Lafayette weekly The Independent, and is indeed a legitimate journalist.

For these reasons, I believe the external link to this article should be preserved.

In addition, the article -- which is indeed based on a candid interview with the man who recorded under the pseudonym "Johnny Rebel" -- contains much journalistic merit, in my opinion, as well as much highly topical information.

Sincerely, --Skb8721 03:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo of him?

I have searched for months over the entire Internet but I cannot find any photo of him. Not even on his official Web site! What's up with this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.225.78.230 (talk) 04:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

There are some pics in an issue of Motorbooty magazine from 1984 or 1985, and he is on a couple of his album covers. Cheers. L0b0t 15:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe there is a photo of him in the book Memories: A Pictorial History of South Louisiana Music by Johnnie Allan [John Allen Guillot]. --Skb8721 16:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Alright, so how come this is the case? I have a pretty exact mental image of him, so I guess it would be a shame to have it ruined, but still...

[edit] Vandalism

An anonymous user not only vandalized Johnny Rebel (singer) but also my personal user page, deleting everything and replacing it with "(RACISM IS NOT TOLERATED!)"

For the record: I regard racial and ethnic hatred as the worst form of ignorance.

So I, too, do not tolerate racism.

However, this wikipedia entry is not racism itself, but an article about a particular racist.

Deleting this entry doesn't help to put an end to racism. If anything, exposing racism and racists, by bringing them to the light of day, does counter racial and ethnic hatred.

--Skb8721 22:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)