"There are four simple words on the matter, which must be whispered: Color photography is vulgar."

So spoke no less an expert then the revered giant of the form, Walker Evans in 1969. Though it might surprise some, Evans was speaking for most of the art world when he delivered his snobbish indictment.

Seven years later, a young color photographer from Memphis named William Eggleston was given a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. It was the first time color photography had been exhibited inside this venerable institution and the show was met with an avalanche of critical hostility. 33 years later, the art world has changed its mind. And with a vengeance. Eggleston is now considered a giant of the form and one of the most important American photographers of all time. His rich, often oversaturated images of ordinary objects, places and people offer an almost textbook example of the word intangible; for in these images of the ordinary it is almost impossible to escape a feeling of the extraordinary; though most would be powerless to explain in words exactly what is extraordinary about William Eggleston's images.

But they are.

As we live in the age of the Internet, we will now invite the reader to read a little further, watch our latest installment of SoLost (yes, starring Eggleston), then head back out into the wilds of the web to learn more about this singular artist. Eggleston's history is too rich and diverse to sum up briefly. Suffice it to say that his work helped engineer a far wider acceptance of color photography as art and influenced generations of photographers as well as filmmakers like Gus Van Sant and Sophia Coppola. A unique talent, indeed.

Eggleston is also a supremely talented pianist. This we know because SoLost was invited by the makers of "Nothing Can Stop Me: The Big Star Story," a film about legendary cult rockers Big Star (whom Eggleston knew and documented over the years) to tag along for an afternoon with Eggleston at his sister's home in Memphis. He was planning to play the piano.

Here, then, is a small taste of that excursion ...

SoLost was innocently driving through the hills of Southern Tennessee, having just come through the idyllic town of Franklin. Heading South and having turned down a side road, we caught sight of an abandoned shed and stopped to take some pictures. That's when a beautiful cowgirl wearing Daisy Dukes, a bikini and riding on horseback came sailing over the crest of the hill. This was very surprising. And what was even more surprising was how wise this 25-year-old turned out to be.

Calli Jo Bain is a whip-smart cowgirl from Spring Hill, Tennessee living on the Williamson-Maury County Line with her husband Clint and a stable full of horses and cattle on the grounds of her family's old rodeo grounds. Her father, a former bareback bronco-riding world champion, lives across the road along with her brother, a highly coveted high school football recruit. Said brother had just shot a snake and put a hole much larger then the snake in the side of the family barn. Everyone was chuckling about that.

Now if you were to send them a letter, the post office would instruct you to put Spring Hill, Tennessee on the envelope, but you might be better off just putting "Horse Country," because that's clearly where we were. Which brings us to Calli's career. She's a quarter horse trainer. SoLost had no idea what that meant so we decided to find out....

Athens (Georgia) culinary institution Weaver D's Delicious Fine Foods was made famous when founder/owner/head chef Dexter Weaver's trademark slogan "Automatic for the People" was lovingly appropriated by Athens-based R.E.M. on its landmark 1992 album of the same name.

Born in Athens, raised in Baltimore, and relocated back to Athens in the early 80s, "D," as he is known to his devoutly loyal followers, is a unique character. Barking "Automatic" to each customer (the regulars get it; newbies like your SoLosters risk complete confusion), "D" takes your main order, then sends you down to the kitchen window to decide on your sides. You can't go wrong. Then it's your choice of seating in the small, homey main dining room.

No matter how confused you are by the opaque ordering process, there's no confusing the quality of the food, the warmth of the atmosphere or the delightfully broad swath of people chowing down all around. Hippy, hipster, suit, rocker, rapper, black, white, red(neck) alike—and everyone else—all live in happy harmony at Weaver D's. Shouldn't you?

If the commute to Athens is a bit long for you, then why not join our latest SoLost sojourn for a (digital) whiff of culinary & cultural greatness ....

Letterpress printing maestros Kevin Bradley & Julie Belcher created Yee-Haw Industries in 1996 and have been covering America with unique, art-like products ever since.

They opened up shop from a back-40 barn in Corbin, Kentucky, with salvaged, antique equipment previously put to rust. Their vibrant, folk art, wood cut prints of country music's classic stars, such as Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn, caught eyes and told stories. Handmade posters featured stranger-than-fiction characters, like ass-whooping grocer Cas Walker and daredevil icon Evel Kenevil. Soon, modern music acts including Steve Earle, Buddy Guy, Trey Anastasio, Lucinda Williams and Southern Culture on the Skids began commissioning promotional posters and album art.

In 1998, having outgrown the bluegrass barn, Yee-Haw moved to a 100+-year-old building on Gay Street in historic downtown Knoxville (just a few doors down from where Hank Sr. was last seen alive) and they've been making genius art ever since.

Born in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and attending grade school in the 1950's, young Charles Lockhart was never like the other boys. He dressed and acted like a girl. Eventually becoming known as "Madame Lynn," she left Arkansas in the early 60's to dance (as a female) in well-known mob-owned nightclubs of Kansas City. After stints with several traveling circuses, Lynn went to dance in New Orleans and later to New York, where she danced at the legendary Club 82, once ground zero of pre-Stonewall American drag culture.

In the late 60's Lynn returned home briefly for an operation and became the first person in Arkansas history to complete a sex change. Many recipients of these early operations are no longer living, but Madame Lynn is alive today and as irrepressible as ever. No longer sporting the Kim Novak look she was once known for, Lynn lives happily on a lake with her husband of many years.

SoLost caught up with Madame Lynn to hear a little bit about her life.

America's only manufacturer of cast iron skillets is Lodge Manufacturing in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. Lodge has been operating since 1896. SoLost took a trip through their foundry....

Are iconoclasts normally cheerful and wry? Wayne White certainly is. The Chattanooga (well Hixson, really), Tennessee-born artist is the product of a feverishly-decorated-and-redecorated Southern home where boys played football and art-making was not what a boy should aspire to. A rebellious teen, White wisely put sports in the background, studied art at Middle Tennessee State University, then moved to New York City in 1979 to pursue his calling. He achieved quick success as an animator, art director and puppeteer on productions as varied as Pee Wee’s Playhouse and videos from the Smashing Pumpkins. He won Emmys and MTV Video Music Awards, produced off-off-Broadway puppet shows and generally made lots of great art in a wide variety of mediums.

And now he's becoming a star of a slightly different sort: an art star. White has become known for paintings that riff off of thrift store lithographs which he augments with hilarious, three-dimensional words and phrases rendered in oils. These pieces, as well as a variety of works on paper, sculptures and installations, have been gathered in the recently-published Ammo Books monograph: Wayne White: Maybe Now I’ll Get the Respect I So Richly Deserve by famed (and similarly-multitalented) designer/photographer/art collector Todd Oldham. White's latest piece is a giant George Jones installation at Rice University and a soon-to-be-unveiled set of outdoor works which will debut at the Wolfsonian Museum as part of the international art explosion known as Art Basel this month in Miami.

Got all that?

SoLost couldn't cover ALL of that at once, so we just decided to experience Wayne's world for a day as he prospected thrift store art and talked about his life and art-making. We had fun and hope you will too.

Legendary rockabilly frontman and session player Billy Lee Riley died this summer and was honored with a benefit concert at the equally-legendary Silver Moon Club in Newport, Arkansas, which lies along the newly-dubbed "Rock 'N' Roll Highway 67."

Artists that performed at the show included many of his Sun Records labelmates as well as a host of other pioneers of rock music: Sonny Burgess and the Pacers, W.S. Holland (from Johnny Cash's and Carl Perkins' bands), Carl Mann ("Mona Lisa and "Pretend"), Ace Cannon ("Tuff"), Teddy Reidel ("Judy"), Larry Donn ("Honey Bunn"), Dale Hawkins ("Suzie-Q"), Ben "Cooter" Jones (TV's "Dukes of Hazzard"), Smoochy Smith (the Mar-Keys' "Last Night"), Travis Wammack ("Scratchy"), C.W. Gatlin (from Levon Helm's and Ronnie Hawkins' bands) and more.

The Carmichael general store near Utica, Mississippi was opened in 1898 and run by three generations of Carmichael men until its closing in 2005. W.D. Carmichael founded it in 1898; his son D.A. ran it from 1918 to 1945, and his son Harris Carmichael took it over and operated it for sixty years until his passing in 2005. A genuine time capsule, the decaying country store still draws the curiosity of passers-by and the affection of former customers years later. Harris Carmichael's devoted widow Marian still lives in their home next door and is known to give a tour every so often ....

Siblings Matt and Ted Lee grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. When they left to attend colleges in the Northeast, they so missed the foods of their hometown that they founded The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, a stripped-down hand-made mail-order catalogue offering southern pantry staples like stone-ground grits, fig preserves, and, of course, boiled peanuts. When an editor of a travel magazine asked them to write a story about road-tripping their home state in search of great food, they embarked on a second career as food and travel journalists.

Their debut cookbook "The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners" was a massive hit, and garnered the boys a bit of culinary stardom. The cookbook won the prestigious James Beard award for best cookbook in 2007 and now they're readying their latest surefire hit, "The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern."

Yet with all the mainstream glory, the boys keep coming back to Charleston to make their boiled peanuts catalogue and distribute their favorite Southern specialty foods. And where does it all occur? A cramped little office in an old Charleston boarding house. SoLost took a peek ....

The second episode of SoLost explores Sweet Home Farm in Elberta, Alabama, which was the subject of John T. Edge's article "My Cheesy Passion" in The Oxford American's 2009 Best of the South issue. In his piece, Edge pays tribute to the place where the husband-and-wife team of cheesemaker Alyce Birchenough and dairy farmer Doug Wolbert have perfected their art. This video delves into the history of the farm and the art of fine cheesemaking.

In its premiere episode, SoLost delves into the unique vibe of Mountain View, Arkansas, a place that dubs itself as the folk music capital of the world. Besides being home to a legendary yearly music festival that celebrates folk, bluegrass, country and mountain music, what truly distinguishes Mountain View is the fact that people literally break into song on any street corner, home or porch at any time on any day of the year. And they'll come long distances out of the Ozark hills or even across state borders to do it. Professionals, amateurs, seniors, and teenagers alike all converge on the town square every night of the week to sit in musical circles and play standards and originals from every genre. SoLost went to check it out.