Being from Indiana, my accent is almost non-existent. Therefore, since Atlanta is also a melting pot, I don't hear this as often as some, and most people in Georgia assume I am from Atlanta. I do have some country stuff working, but I don't try to make it work, it's just there.
I've seen agents from New York and Boston do well in the south, because they don't try to say y'all. It isn't you-all. They just dive in with their Bronx accent, and take a lot of ribbing about talking "funny", but they take care of business.
Then I've seen those who try to fake a southern accent.
There are supposedly 32 different dialects of the southern accent in Georgia alone. The first split is northern and southern (for some reason southerners are always hung up on north and south, even within the state). That is because the Chattahoochee River runs through Atlanta, and most of what was north was the Cherokee Nation at one point, without much white influence. It's why the mountain people talking with that whiny Appalachian "twang" and folks from deep south Georgia make four into four syllables (as in fa-aw-ur-uh).
With that said, none of those 32 dialects sounds like a Long Island native trying to sound like he's from Albany.
So my advice to fellow decendants of the War of Northern Aggression is to be yourself, be honest, be sincere, and you will be accepted as you. Don't try to sound like Joan Rivers in Valdosta!
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