On Part Two of our Honky Tonk case study, we pick up when the genre hits the national spotlight. We start with Urban Cowboy and Gillies in Pasadena, when a real club turned into a movie set and the movie turned into a blueprint. Neon spreads, mechanical bulls become symbols, and the honky tonk stops feeling local.
From there, we follow how honky tonk starts pulling in opposing directions. One side leans toward polish and crossover. The other stays tied to the barroom roots. We talk about how venues change when entertainment competes with the stage, how tourism districts turn into curated versions of themselves, and how the culture keeps pushing back through new traditionalists and smaller scenes.
Part Two is about that tension, and why honky tonk never really disappears, even when it gets dressed up and sold back to us.
