A RED RIBBON WHERE INTEGRITY WOULD SUFFICE

Something peculiar is going on in Nashville.

Not that the city isn't ripe for odd goings-on. A sleeping giant of a city in the near South, Nashville probably hasn't been the same since Robert Altman encapsulated its foibles and Americanism in a bicentennial-year, Oscar-winning movie.

"Nashville" revealed everything a person could want to know about country music, sexual cynicism, overwrought media, mental exhaustion, misguided patriotism, star worship, dumb luck and political assassination.

It was some piece of work.

And even though modern times require modern dilemmas, Altman's work was so universal in its reach that it could embrace today's Nashville oddities, which entangle materialism, hypocrisy and a higher spiritual calling.

One of the players in the contemporary episode is Wynonna. In an earlier career incarnation, when she sang with her mama, she went by the name Wynonna Judd. Apparently, in dropping her surname for heightened stage impact, she acquired a bit of recklessness. Maybe that happened to Cher and Madonna.

As part of The Judds, Wynonna cultivated an image of a girl having trouble straying from the matriarchal apron strings. On stage, it was a sister act with one generation askew, which made it all the more endearing.

Despite all those gold records and cash flowing in as if through a spigot, the duo gave off the down-home disposition of plain folks who would sit out of the porch with a glass of lemonade after finishing the dishes.

And that may not have been far from the mark; mom and daughter are ordinary people with ordinary problems. The elder Judd left the road to accommodate a chronic illness. Wynonna left the nest, apparently, with gusto.

None of this aims to castigate Wynonna for becoming pregnant while unwed ... because that happens in this life and bears itself especially as a celebrity prerogative.

Announced last week on a national cable show, which also seems a celebrity prerogative, the pregnancy came about because of Wynonna's union with a Nashville boat salesman named Arch Kelley III, vying for Arch IV.

Asked about her plans to marry the father, Wynonna demurred, "One thing at a time."

Fine. We are '90's kind of people and glibness graces such an old-fashioned question. With the right guitar licks and proper light shows, you can define your own pre-natal chic.

However, flash back to various award shows and assorted charitable endeavors where country music notables, keeping step with entertainment brethren in coastal locales, sought to educate their audience about the dangers of AIDS.

You couldn't flick a guitar pick and not hit a country star wearing a red ribbon ... among them a certain one-named singer. Without doubt, Wynonna has not been the only luminary to don the red ribbon of awareness and ultimately forfeit reason to carnal risks. But, as the saying goes, if you talk the talk, you must walk the walk ... or do whatever with the whatever.

Across town, a different standard for practicing what is preached was being developed. Michael English stands at the summit of stardom in the field of contemporary Christian music. (Such is the snowballing influence of this branch of entertainment that it requires identifying industry shorthand: CCM. It hasn't reached the level where Michael can get away with using just one name.)

Last month, when the Gospel Music Association handed out its Dove Awards (a Grammy equivalent), Michael English needed a basket to carry home his haul.

This month, he gave them back. In an announcement more suited to a 12-step program than "Entertainment Tonight," Michael English told the world he had fallen from grace, having cheated on his wife with another married woman.

In a word that usually finds no place in the ego-driven world of entertainment, the singer decided he was "undeserving."

There were the usual and absurd reactions to this, with some radio stations refusing to play Michael English songs because of his dishonor (abdicating forgiveness for the sake of those whose religious grounding is based on forgiveness).

And there were distrustful insinuations, those who said the singer's offense was about to become public and he beat it to the punch to apply his own spin.

But what a lot of people conclude in Michael English's admission is that his business remains more ministry than medium and that the guilt expressed is genuine. Entertainers ride out the storm on public relations setbacks all the time. What this man couldn't seem to do was countenance the hypocrisy.

Maybe such as isolated act wouldn't hold up in a Robert Altman film. Maybe Michael English will forsake his conscience and grab the ante afforded by his increased notoriety. But maybe his unique gesture will make someone think twice when displaying a red ribbon where simple integrity would suffice.

Ken Newton is editor of the Southeast Missourian.