Redneck Boy in the Promised Land

April 14, 2008
A former congressman from Georgia, Jones earlier portrayed grease-covered garage owner Cooter Davenport on the early-1980s TV show Dukes of Hazzard
. Now Jones and his wife, Alma Viator, own the Cooter’s Place museums in Nashville and Gatlinburg, Tenn.; they also stage Dukesfest, an annual Nashville gathering of Dukes
fans. Looking back at his hardscrabble childhood, he recalls his “barefoot days” growing up in a Virginia railroad shack minus electricity and hot water. He studied TV-radio at the University of North Carolina, but graduated as a “likker drinkin’, hell raisin’, dope smokin’, fist-fightin’, womanizin’ jailbird wild man.” During the 1960s he participated in civil rights sit-ins, established a theatrical career and kept on drinking. At 36, after “three disastrous marriages and countless fractured relationships,” he went on the road to recovery. When the Dukes
ratings soared, he became a heartland hero, and Jones’s congressional career fills the final chapters. Capturing Southern culture in a burlap bag full of funny anecdotes, Jones covers miles and memories: “In the vastness of America, I have never found a road that wasn’t interesting.” Observing life from his porch in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this modern-day Will Rogers writes with a mix of humor, pathos and passion in a rip-roarin’ book with a down-home flavor.