If you want to hear an accent that is fairly representative of the contemporary Southern U.S. accent, then you should try to listen to an interview with the American pop singer Britney Spears. She is from Louisiana. The way she speaks is fairly widespread in the South.

Chameleon wrote:

I would group the major english American accents thusly: SOUTHWESTERN: Texas, Arizona, New Mexico

Hmm.  Texas has several distinct accents: the Southern dialect; a cot-caught merged dialect with the Southern vowel shift; the Northern accent found in the large cities, and the Western portion has a Western accent.  Arizona and New Mexico are considered part of the Western dialect, and have accents that are virtually identical to a California accent, so I don't see why they are being classifed with Texas.  Only the Southeastern portion of NM has a transitional accent.

SPANISH: everywhere!

Ok

WEST COAST: California, Oregon. Probably closest to "standard" American accent, although Californians have several different accents depending on location

Hmm.  Oregon and California have slightly different accents (although are both part of the Western dialect, which also includes WA, ID, MT, WY, NV, AZ, NM, AK etc.).   Oregon is not as progressive in the California vowel shift and has backer and more rounded /u/'s and /o/'s.  I'd put California in with AZ and NM, if we want to try to subdivide the Western dialect.  As for calling them the "standard" accent, because of the California vowel shift, and the fronting of /u/ and /o/, I'd hardly call it the closest to the standard Ameriacn accent.

MIDWESTERN: from Montana east to the great lakes, including Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana (watch the movie "Fargo" for this one! William H. Macy is one of my favorite actors...)

Huh?  Montana has an identical accent to Idaho and Washington.  North Dakota, and the northern portion of the Upper Midwest are part of the North Central dialect.  The rest are part of the Northern, the Inland North, and the Midlands dialects.

DEEP SOUTH: Louisiana non-Cajun, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia CAJUN: rural / French influenced Louisiana NEW ENGLAND: New York (like California, VAST differences based on neighborhood), New Jersey, etc.

New England dialects are divided into at least Eastern New England and Western New England.  NYC and Boston have distinct accents.

Northern accents vary greatly, even from state to state. And although I'm exposed to them at work, I'm hardly qualified to quantify their rules. "> Maybe someone else can make a stab at it.

To a Westerner, Northern accents often sound just as accented as Southern accents.