One ROCKIN good Chevy commercial, Campbell-Ewald's "Ain't We Got Love"

Watching the Final Four this weekend, and then tonite's championship game, I kept admiring the current Chevy commercial which begins with Mary J. Blige and ends with Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

-

Others have been impressed too. Here's Barbara Lippert writing in Adweek.com:

-

"Now, I'm not necessarily a fan of anthemic commercials since they usually turn our to be sort of fake, bland and generic (and that's when they're good). Chevy's previous anthem with John Mellencamp music was completely wrongheaded--it's never a bright idea to combine car sales with the image of Rosa Parks (now, if only Rosa had owned an Impala . . .).

-

"But I found their new spot (which aired first at the Super Bowl) high-spirited and delightful. A simple idea, well produced, it mixes cuts of cars and stars, and also uses some actual Chevro-lated American music in a clever, organic way. The look is effortlessly diverse and the tone feels authentic. Grade A-."

-

The title for the piece, created by Campell-Ewald, is "Chevrolet--Ain't We Got Love." Here are the segments:

-

(1) MARY J. BLIGE with a Black Tahoe LTZ ("Chevrolet"/Foghat*): "Buy you a Chevrolet, buy you a Chevrolet, gonna buy you a Chervrolet, if you give me some of your love." *possibly this is the version performed by Ed Young and Emma Ramsay.

-

(2) male collector with a vintage black SS ("Crocodile Rock"/Elton John): "Holdin' hands and skimmin' stones. Had an old gold Chevy and a place of my own."

-

(3) racedriver JOHNNY O'CONNELL with a yellow Corvette Le Mans race vehicle being unloaded from a truck ("Goin' Back to Cali"/LL Cool J): "Top is down on the black Corvette and it's fly cuz it's sitting on Daytons."

-

(4) BIG 'N RICH with a blue Silverado ("Save A Horse"/Big 'n Rich): "And I wouldn't trade ol' Leroy or my Chevrolet for your freak parade."

-

(5) T.I. with a black Impala ("Top Back"/T.I.): "I like my beat down low and my top let back. Can see me ridin' 24's on my Impala wet black."

-

(6) a young woman waxes her red HHR ("409"/The Beach Boys): "Giddy up, giddy up, 409."

-

(7) a male surfer pulls into a beach parking lot in his HHR ("Brand New Chevy"/The Devil Dogs): "Nobody can shut that Chevy down, 'cuz that brand new Chevy is mine."

-

(8) a young woman struts through a car show, between several Cobalts ("E.I."/Nelly): "I drive fast call me Jeff Gordon. In a black SS wit' navigation."

-

(9) DALE EARNHARDT, JR. driving a red Corvette convertible ("The Jet Set"/George Jones & Tammy Wynette): "No, we're not the jet set. We're the old Chevrolet set, but ain't we got love."

-

The truly striking segment is the concluding "Jet Set," which was a Billboard Top 15 country hit in 1974 written by Bobby Braddock for George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and included on their excellent Top 5 album "We're Gonna Hold On." You don't hear Jones on the brief snippet selected by Campbell-Ewald, but Wynette's voice still sends shivers. And Earnhardt correctly pronounces the word Chevro-lett.

-

"No, we're not the jet set

We're the old Chevrolet set

There's no Riviera

In Festus, Missouri

And you won't find Onassis

In Mullinville, Kansas

No, we're not the jet set

We're the old Chevrolet set

But ain't we got love?

-

John Prine's 1999 album "In Spite of Ourselves" offers up collabs with female artists Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless, and Lucinda Williams, among others. But most memorable is his wry yet poignant duet with Iris DeMent, singing "The Jet Set."

-

Tammy Wynette had 17 #1 country hits in ten years, beginning in 1967; the famous "Stand By Your Man," released in 1969, was her fifth. Here's how Rosanne Cash remembered Wynette, delivering this eulogy (Wynette died at age 55) in 1998:

-

"The first time I saw her in person was in the early '70s at one of my father's "guitar pulls" in his living room, when a lot of musicians and songwriters previewed their new work. I was about 19 years old, with purplish hair and insouciance to spare, and the honored guests that night were George Jones and Tammy Wynette. I sat slack-jawed and transfixed as they sang "We're not the Jet Set, we're the old Chevrolet set." Tammy sat on the plush blue antique sofa, hair poufed out to here, with nails, makeup and outfit perfectly coordinated. She looked like a lotus blossom sitting next to George Jones, a perfect foil, but completely herself. It was the most relaxed I was ever to see her.

-

"Tammy was sweet in the way that only Southern women are sweet, but also a bundle of nerves. I don't ever think she got over her ascendancy from the beauty parlor [editor's note: Wynette held an active cosmetology license from 1963 until the day she died, in case her career ever went bust]. She was a vehicle for her Voice, and it seemed to have ambition of its own, sometimes overreaching her personal understanding or goals. I remember clearly driving by her house in Nashville and staring at the wrought-iron gates with FIRST LADY ACRES scrolled across the top. I think of her--proud but not egotistical (a feat in itself), delicate and strong--and how the world will never be innocent enough again to produce a Tammy Wynette."

--

FYI, the term "jet set" came into usage circa 1951, when BOAC inaugurated the world's first commercial jet service using the deHavilland Comet. Cities on the jet set route included the obvious London, New York, Paris, and Rome, but the term quickly became associated with stylish living in Acapulco, Nassau, Cannes, St., Tropez, Capri, Miami Beach, Rio, and finally Bali.