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 Contents vii

Essay (Identity): Gender in Classic Country 262

Essay (Songwriting): Story Songs 264
Essay (Culture): The Opry Moves 265
Listen Side by Side: “Muleskinner Blues” 267
Chapter 9: Outlaw Country and Southern
Rock Rebellion................................................................................................... 271
The Emergence of Outlaw Country 272
Artist Profile: Willie Nelson 276
Outlaw Country Runs Its Course 278
Listening Guide: “Luckenback, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)” 280
Southern Rock and the Country Audience 282
Listening Guide: “Sweet Home Alabama” 286
Listening Guide: “The South’s Gonna Do It” 288
Artist Profile: Charlie Daniels 290
Essay (Musical Style): Outlaw Country 292
Essay (Musical Style): Southern Rock 293
Essay (Music Business): Behaving Like Outlaws 294
Essay (Culture): Long-Haired Rednecks, Hippies, and Cosmic Cowboys 295
Listen Side by Side: “Can I Sleep in Your Arms” 297
Listen Side by Side: Red Headed Stranger 298

Part IV: Expansion: Country Makes

It Big-Time (1980s and 1990s)
Overview......................................................................................................................... 301
Chapter 10: Urban Cowboys, Countrypolitan,
and the Reagan Era......................................................................................... 303
History and Rise of Crossover Country 303
Pop Culture, the Cowboy, and the Country Boy 305
Politics, Economics, and the Appeal of the Urban Cowboy 308
New Media and Breaking Down Genre Borders 308
Listening Guide: “Islands in the Stream” 310
Listening Guide: “I Was Country (When Country Wasn’t Cool)” 312
Artist Profile: Ronnie Milsap 314
The Stars and Songs of Urban Cowboy 315
Artist Profile: Barbara Mandrell 316
Listening Guide: “Love in the First Degree” 320
The End of Urban Cowboy 322
Essay (Musical Style): Countrypolitan 323
Essay (Culture): Country Music on the Silver Screen 324
Essay (Music Business): International Country 327
Listen Side by Side: Country/Pop Comparisons 331
viii Contents

Chapter 11: Neotraditionalists

and Remaking the Past......................................... 333
Countrypolitan Fades 333
Neotraditionalist Philosophy 335
Listening Guide: “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” 336
Early Practitioners 337
Artist Profile: George Strait 340
Listening Guide: “Grandpa (Tell Me ’Bout the Good Old Days)” 342
Neotraditionalism Takes Root 344
Artist Profile: Reba McEntire 346
Listening Guide: “How Blue” 348
Co-opted, Conservative, and Commercial 350
Essay (Musical Style): Neotraditionalist Recordings 352
Essay (Culture): Branson, Missouri, and Country Music Tourism 354
Essay (Songwriting): Cover Songs Revisited 356
Listen Side by Side: “Deep Water” 358

Chapter 12: The Commercial Country Explosion....... 361

The Class of 1989 and “New Country” 361
Artist Profile: Garth Brooks 364
Listening Guide: “Friends in Low Places” 368
Themes in New Country 370
Listening Guide: “Gone Country” 372
Stylistic Pendulums and Country-Pop 375
Artist Profile: Shania Twain 376
Listening Guide: “Any Man of Mine” 378
The End of the 1990s 383
Essay (Musical Style): New Country and Country-Pop 384
Essay (Culture): Line Dancing 385
Essay (Songwriting): Songwriting and Sophistication 388
Essay (History): Southernization and Soccer moms 389
Listen Side by Side: Cowboy Songs 391

Part V: Country Music Navigates Genre

(1990s and 2000s)
Overview......................................................................................................................... 395
Chapter 13: Alternative Country and Beyond.......................... 399
Defining Alternative Country 399
Alternative Country Origins 400
Alternative Country Coalesces 401
Listening Guide: “No Depression” 402
Artist Profile: Ryan Adams 404
A Broader Definition: Alternative Country as Musical Space 406
 Contents ix

Listening Guide: “Suppose Tonight Would Be Our Last” 408

Americana 413
Another Alternative: Bluegrass 413
The Impact on Mainstream Country 414
Artist Profile: Alison Krauss 416
Changes in Commercial Country 416
“Murder on Music Row”: The Turning Tide 419
Listening Guide: “Man of Constant Sorrow” 422
Essay (Culture): The O Brother Phenomenon 424
Essay (Musical Style): What Alt-Country Doesn’t Sound Like 426
Essay (Technology): The Internet Age 427
Essay (Culture): Gay Line Dancing 429
Listen Side by Side: “Waltz Across Texas” 430
Chapter 14: Redefining Country in
a New Millennium......................................................................................... 433
Country Music in the Spotlight 433
Artist Profile: Brad Paisley 434
Listening Guide: “Whiskey Lullaby” 436
Return of Roots and Rednecks 440
Listening Guide: “Redneck Woman” 442
Listening Guide: “Long Time Gone” 446
Americana and Alternative? 448
Artist Profile: Carrie Underwood 452
Pop Culture Lays Claim to Country Music 452
Reflecting and Projecting Meaning 457
Essay (Culture): Dixie Chicks and Politics 458
Essay (Identity): Race in Contemporary Country 462
Essay (Technology): MP3s Please 464
Listen Side by Side: A Woman’s Voice 466
Chapter 15: Breaking Borders............................................................. 469
The Past Is Alive and Well 469
New Directions 470
Nashville On Screen 471
The Rise of Bro-Country 471
Artist Profile: Blake Shelton 472
Listening Guide: “Cruise” 474
Promises Unfulfilled 477
Listening Guide: “Girl Crush” 478
Artist Profile: Miranda Lambert 480
Listening Guide: “Tin Man” 482
Crossover and Hip-Hop-ification 484
Dark Horse Surprises 489
Through the Lenses 492
x Contents

Essay (Identity): Tomato-Gate and the Women of Country 493

Essay (Musical Style): The Splintering of Country 495
Essay (Identity): Who Listens to Country? 497
Listen Side by Side: “Tennessee Whiskey” 499
Appendix A: Song Form................................................................................................ 503
Appendix B: Country Instruments.............................................................................. 517
Appendix C: Glossary.................................................................................................... 527
Selected Bibliography..................................................................................................... 531
Index................................................................................................................................ 535
Preface

T
his book has grown from two seeds: one is a deep passion for country music
of all stripes, styles, eras, and varieties; the other is an insatiable curiosity
to understand the music, from the notes, rhythms, and words of the songs
to the very human performances, the music’s endlessly varied meanings, and what
it can teach about history, about culture, and about the essence of human relation-
ships. The book offers a journey through a century of country music, presenting
information about the music, musicians, fans, and historical contexts, along with
explorations of several important themes and issues that arise from that study. It is
designed either for a one-semester, college-level course on country music or for use
with country-music units and topics within the framework of a course on American
music or popular music. Individual chapters within the book can also be used in
many other contexts to investigate specific time periods, artists, and topics.

Coverage
The book presents a chronological history of the development of country music. It
begins with the source materials from which country music emerged, then traces
the music from its earliest recordings in the 1920s through the present. The book
covers the developments of different musical styles, the evolution of the music in-
dustry, and the changing ways that the music relates to popular culture and differ-
ent historical contexts. It includes information on an extensive number of country
stars, songwriters, and industry personnel. It does not, however, attempt to be com-
prehensive on that front. It will instead give the curious reader the tools, informa-
tion, and big-picture understanding to figure out how other bands and artists fit
into the history of country music, while country music encyclopedias and websites
can readily provide basic biographical information about bands and artists not cov-
ered in this book.
The main focus of this book is American commercial country music. There are
thriving country music scenes in other areas of the world, and some coverage of
them is provided here. The main narrative, however, explores the music in its native
home. The attention to American commercial country music is an inclusive one: the
book covers bluegrass, alternative country, western swing, and many other styles at
length, and examines geographic centers far beyond the main production sites.
In the intervening years since the first edition appeared, the field of country
music scholarship has expanded, with significant new research by Diane Pecknold,
Dene Hubbs, Jeremy Hill, Travis Stimeling, Charles Hughes, Murphy Henry, Lee Bid-
good, and many others. I have attempted to weave that new scholarship into the text
throughout the book so that students will have access to the most contemporary
ideas possible. This expansion of scholarship on country music is exciting, and stu-
dents at all levels should be encouraged to reach beyond this textbook.

xi
xii Preface

Approach
As explained in the Introduction, the book focuses on three interpretive themes
that run throughout the history of country music: cultural identity; authenticity;
and otherness, specifically the ways in which country music remains distinct from
mainstream popular culture.
The book carefully and consistently avoids making any arguments about what
music is or is not “real” country, and instead takes the stance that the student of
country music should ask questions about “how” and “why” rather than merely
assign categories. The fastest way to stall one’s learning is to declare a song “country”
or “not,” or a performance “authentic” or “not.” Asking students to think beyond such
binary judgements will lead to far more insight and understanding. Individual in-
structors and students will have varying personal tastes for country music, and their
interpretations of these issues will encompass many different perspectives. These are
to be encouraged and can lead to very insightful class discussions and supplemental
research projects.
This course of study can be undertaken from a variety of disciplines, including
but not limited to music, history, cultural studies, American studies, English, soci-
ology, and communications. The book assumes no formal musical training on the
part of either the student or the instructor. Supplemental materials are included for
students in a music discipline or those seeking more technical study of the music
itself. These include an appendix on song form and a few musical examples that are
not essential to the main body of the book.

Layout
The structure of the book will readily align with a typical one-semester or one-
quarter course syllabus. The book is laid out in five parts, each of which covers ap-
proximately two decades and features three chapters. Each part begins with a brief
overview that presents the major developments covered in the unit and situates
them in a broader historical context. Each chapter contains the following:
1. A main narrative that covers the musical and cultural history of one era.
2. Two artist profiles that explore the biographies of key figures.
3. Three detailed listening guides that connect specific recordings to the ideas
presented in the chapter. These listening guides form a core component of the
book and should be a major part of the student’s experience, because they link
the ideas and main narratives to the sound of the music.
4. Comparative listening, identified as a “Listen Side by Side” exercise. These ex-
ercises guide close readings of two or more songs in relation to each other,
where comparisons yield better understanding of the main themes of this
book. These also serve as useful stimuli for in-class discussions.
5. Several essays that offer in-depth exploration of a single topic. These essays
fall in one of seven categories: history, musical style, the music business, cul-
ture, technology, songwriting, and issues of identity (such as race, class, and
 Preface xiii

gender). For instance, the musical style essays provide definitions and dis-
cussions of different musical styles such as western swing or countrypolitan,
and the technology essays provide concise discussions of key developments
in music technology that have had a major impact on country music. These
essays will help students and instructors explore threads in these categories
across the whole span of country music and tailor their courses to their spe-
cific disciplinary interests.
6. A playlist that suggests additional listening beyond the three songs covered in
the listening guides. Together, the listening guides plus these additional playl-
ists offer approximately eight songs associated with the main topics, issues,
and ideas covered in that chapter.
7. Suggested sources for additional reading.
8. Review materials, including questions that are suitable for class discussion or
writing assignments.
Four appendices are also provided. Appendix A is an introduction to song form
that covers technical vocabulary and ways to analyze a song’s form. These skills are
essential to any close reading or analysis of individual songs. Appendix B offers a
basic introduction to the instruments commonly heard in country music. Each
entry describes the instrument’s role in the history of country music and suggests
songs where the instrument can be readily heard. Appendix C provides a glossary of
key terms. And Appendix D presents a timeline of events in country music history
along with touchstone events in American history.
The listening guides that appear throughout this book require some techni-
cal explanation. The timings shown for the start of each section align with the
first structural downbeat of that section. This approach is consistent throughout
the book and matches the accepted methodology for formal analysis of popular
music. Students without a formal musical background may think more casually of
sections starting with the singer’s lyrics, which in many instances may be either
pickup notes or after-beat patterns and may therefore occur a few seconds before
or after the timing listed in the book. Therefore, students who are not focusing as
much on the music-analytic aspects of this subject matter may treat those timings
as general guidelines, while students taking a more rigorous approach to the musi-
cal analysis and music theory will be able to use them to identify specific structural
features of the songs.

Source Materials
Along with this textbook, students will need access to recordings. Students and in-
structors have a variety of resources at their disposal to help in this task. Listening
to the recordings is essential, and students should rely on those recordings as a
primary source throughout their study. Students should also consult song lyrics;
these are readily available on many internet sites, in liner notes to recordings, and
of course through firsthand transcription of the recordings.
xiv Preface

Outcomes
The student outcomes for any course in the history of country music are determined
by the specific disciplinary approach and course design that the instructor chooses.
This book will support a wide variety of learning outcomes, including but by no
means limited to the student’s ability (a) to recognize by ear many different styles,
eras, trends, individual artists, and major themes in country music; (b) to interpret
the varied meanings of country music within different historical and cultural con-
texts; (c) to use country music as the creative lens through which to study different
people, cultures, places, and times; and (d) to explain country music’s role and iden-
tity as a genre within popular culture.
Most of all, I invite instructors and students alike to incorporate this book into
their personal explorations of country music. I hope that, in the course of their
studies, students will encounter country music they love, country music they hate,
­country music that confuses them, and country music that inspires them. I encour-
age them to engage all of that music with a heightened sense of curiosity and critical
inquiry. The music has much teach us all about human relationships, history, and
culture. Enjoy the journey!

Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the many people who have helped me write this book.
­Richard Carlin guided its creation with his extensive expertise and his own passion
for the subject matter. Hannah Whitcher and the publication team of editors were
invaluable throughout the publication process.
Thank you to the many reviewers for Oxford University Press who have pro-
vided productive suggestions and insights throughout the book’s existence.
Colleagues who share my deep interest in country music have offered their own
expertise, including Nate Gibson, Joti Rockwell, and Travis Stimeling. Fellow speak-
ers at conferences, including Jewly Hight, Barry Mazor, Jon Weisberger, Fred Bartens-
tein, James Akenson, Don Cusic, Erika Brady, Diane Pecknold, Russell ­Johnson, and
so many more have stimulated my thinking. The many students who have enrolled
in my country music classes over the past decade, served as teaching assistants, and
undertaken country music research projects with me have all helped me shape this
book, including Christa Bentley, Gina Bombola, Meg Orita, and more. And I am
grateful to the professors who inspired me to pursue this path of scholarship in the
first place and made such study possible, including Betsy Marvin, Dave Headlam,
and John Covach,
I owe the greatest debt to my family for their support of this project. My parents
instilled in me a love both of music and of teaching. My children, Caelen, Rhiannon,
and Liadan, are the center of my world. They have grown up surrounded by both
this music and the research that led to this book. May they follow a pathway in life
enriched both by music and by an endless desire to understand both the people and
the culture of all the music they encounter. It is to them I dedicate this work.
Introduction:
Heading into
the Country

W
hat is country music? It is an indelible part of American popular cul-
ture, interwoven with our sense of identity and our retelling of history.
It is nostalgic, yet focused on the present. Some of it has been called
hillbilly music, but at times the music has purged itself of all hillbilly associations. It
is rural in origin, yet has always been reliant on an urbanized commercial industry.
It is primarily white in terms of its racial and ethnic associations, but inextricably
dependent on a range of musical styles with strong racial and ethnic pasts, including
black, Cajun, and Latin, and home to diverse artists and audiences. It is extremely
popular, yet one of its main concerns is to differentiate itself from what we call pop
music. It offers both a window on working- and middle-class life and a punch line
for tasteless jokes as old as some of the tunes themselves. Ask five different fans to
define it, and you will likely get five contradictory yet equally passionate answers.
None of these characteristics produces a clear definition, yet the music’s complexity
is what makes studying it so rewarding.

Country as Genre
Country music is a genre of popular music whose boundaries are determined by
the interactions of fans, the commercial music industry, and musicians. “Genre”
means category, and this book—along with most studies of popular music—­
includes the opinions of the music’s fans as an important way in which a genre
is defined. P
­ opular music is the term by which we identify mostly commercially
produced and disseminated music that is a common part of its audience’s daily
lives. Popular music is generally popular (meaning lots of people like it), although
some genres within popular music have much smaller fan bases. In the past, music
that has not been considered part of popular music has included art music, which
is sometimes called classical music, and folk music. Some scholars in previous de-
cades considered art music to be music that was neither a product of nor intended
for mass culture, and folk music to be that which was entirely outside commercial
enterprise. Art music was described as intellectually cultivated and an expression of
high culture, such as a Beethoven symphony. This music was taught in formal music
appreciation courses and supported by grants and institutions of higher learning,
with the assumption that it was good for people to study it and hear it. Folk music,
by contrast, was considered the anonymous music-making that was simply part of
oral traditions in local communities and families. It was valued by collectors in the

xv
xvi Introduction

early twentieth century precisely because it appeared to represent a grassroots, raw

expression of regular people’s culture.
These distinctions, however, do not hold up to critical examination. In recent
years, scholars have explored how some art music is both extremely popular and
highly commercial, and how folk music was never really isolated from the forces of
commerce, meaning that the songs that people sang in their homes, churches, and
gathering places often came from identifiable songwriters, published songbooks,
and traceable commercial sources. Thus, any apparent distinctions between popu-
lar, art, and folk music, which were never clear-cut in the first place, are even more
suspect in the twenty-first century’s musical landscape. To further complicate
these terms, so-called folk singers such as Peter, Paul, and Mary or the Weavers
were very much a part of popular music in the mid-twentieth century, when “folk”
became a genre within popular music. For our purposes, we mainly need to un-
derstand popular music as that which is created for mass consumption within the
commercial marketplace. Popular music includes some art music and is continu-
ally interdependent with folk traditions. Finally, the definition of popular music is
always closely tied to the cultural identity of its fans: the people who listen to it,
the circumstances in which they listen to it, the reasons why they listen to it, and
the meanings they find in it.
Different genres of popular music include rock, pop, jazz, blues, hip-hop, rhythm
and blues (R&B), gospel, Latin, folk, and country; think of these as the different bins
one might have seen in a conventional record store. Thus, we will consider country
as one genre within the broad category of popular music. Most music fans listen to
and like many different genres. Similarly, individual artists might perform music
that belongs to more than one genre. Songs, and even performers, often cross over
from one genre to another. These categories we call “genres” are constantly shifting
and changing, but there are some characteristics that remain consistent in how we
understand them.
One point of potential confusion is that one genre of popular music is com-
monly called pop music. Historically, pop music emerged as the genre most widely
accepted by mass culture as represented by a generally (although not exclusively)
white middle class. Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, Frank Sinatra, and Rosemary Clooney
were all routinely described as pop singers in their day. In later decades, pop music
describes a musical genre and performers that have achieved mass acceptance by a
young mainstream audience without being subsumed into racially and stylistically
differentiated genres such as hip-hop. Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Justin Bieber are
examples of pop stars.
The relationship between pop and country is particularly complex. For instance,
country fans and performers often complain that country music is crossing over
into pop, or that a pop star is trying to make country records; at other times, they
celebrate the fact that country music is being accepted by a pop audience. The ever-
evolving tension between pop and country will form an important part of our study.
Some writers have proposed that musical genres are merely labels that the music
industry applies to recordings in order to market them. That perspective, however,
relegates fans to a passive role and discounts their power in defining musical genres.
 Introduction xvii

Our approach will instead acknowledge the fans’ role in this process. In recent years,
record labels have on several occasions packaged a CD as “country” and offered it to
the fans, who have resoundingly rejected it on the basis of genre. Conversely, some
recordings that sound radically different from most country music have been em-
braced by fans and accepted as country music, a process that can radically change
the genre. And finally, some music that sounds like country is made by musicians
and listened to by fans who reject that label entirely. Fans are active participants in
how genres are formed and defined, primarily through the ways that they identify
and express themselves in relation to their musical preferences.

Definition of Country
Country music, as we will define it in this book, is a commercial genre that claims a
lineage from early twentieth-century, rural, white, mostly Southern, working-class
popular music. It is symbolically related to the cowboy, and it draws on a largely
Protestant, evangelical theology for its underlying philosophy. Its songwriting relies
on storytelling; sympathetic, working-class characters; clear narratives; and relat-
able experiences from everyday life. Stock references such as trucks, cowboy hats,
family, small towns, church, “y’all,” and countless others often signal a song’s affin-
ity with country music. Although its musical sound has changed radically over the
past century, it retains associations with certain iconic instruments such as fiddles,
steel guitars, banjos, mandolins, and acoustic six-string guitars, although not all
of these instruments are present in all styles of country music, nor does their in-
corporation automatically mean that a recording is country. Country singers and
musicians often use Southern vocal accents, verbal interjections, and particular
techniques of playing their instruments to differentiate country from other genres.
Artists’ biographies come into play at various times in the music’s history, when a
singer’s hometown, family, or occupation may be invoked to help define the genre.
Country music often situates itself in particular geographic locations: small-town or
rural America, the South, Texas, the West Coast. One additional determining factor
is whether the people who think of themselves as country fans accept a particular
performer or performance music as country.
Our text will address many different musical styles within country music.
Musical style is difficult to define but refers to those characteristics that can be
identified by listening to the music. It describes the particular approach to a per-
formance, the use of instruments, and the musical arrangement, based on what
one can actually hear in the performance or recording. It tells us what tradition
that performance came from and provides clues as to when, where, and why the
recording was made. Think of the country genre as a large umbrella that covers
many different styles of music. Over the decades, the styles gathered under that
umbrella have changed and evolved so that what we hear today (instruments, type
of singing, musical arrangements, etc.) may not sound at all like what we might
have heard on a country radio broadcast in the 1920s. Nevertheless, all of those
styles come together in the idea of country as a genre, which is a larger category
defined by fan identity, traditions, and lineage.
xviii Introduction

MAIN COUNTRY STYLES WE WILL STUDY

The main styles of country music that we will study include the following. Dates
indicate when the style was most prominent; keep in mind, however, that many
styles were present for several years before they became widely known, and many
styles remained part of country music long after they faded from prominence. The
chapters indicate where the main discussion of the style is found.
Hillbilly music 1920s–1930s chapters 1 & 2
Western swing 1930s–1950s chapter 3
Singing cowboy 1930s–1940s chapter 3
Brother acts 1930s–1940s chapter 3
Honky-­tonk 1940s–1950s chapter 4
Rockabilly 1950s chapter 4
Bluegrass 1940s–1950s chapter 5
Country teen crooners 1950s chapter 6
Nashville sound late 1950s–1960s chapter 6
Bakersfield sound 1960s chapter 7
Country rock 1960s–1970s chapter 7
Progressive Bluegrass 1960s–1970s chapter 7
Classic country 1960s–1970s chapter 8
Outlaw 1970s chapter 9
Southern rock 1970s chapter 9
Countrypolitan 1970s–1980s chapter 10
Neotraditional 1980s chapter 11
New country 1990s–2000s chapter 12
Country pop 1990s–2000s chapter 12
Alt-­country (postpunk) 1990s–2000s chapter 13
Alt-­country (retro) 1990s–2000s chapter 13
Commercial country (roots revival) 2000s chapter 14
Commercial country (honky-­tonk themes) 2000s chapter 14
Commercial country (Latin influence) 2000s chapter 14
Commercial country (Southern rock influence) 2000s chapter 14
Bro country 2010s chapter 15
Country/hip-hop 2010s chapter 15
 Introduction xix

Imagine for a moment that you are flipping through various radio stations. What
clues do you hear that help you quickly identify the country station? Your responses
might include the lyrics (the words of the songs), the instruments, or the overall
timbre (the general description of the sound), which is often described as having a
“twang.” Imagine that you are shopping in a record store. What visual clues tell you
which CDs are country? Your responses might include the types of clothing and ac-
cessories worn by the stars, the way that the stars are presented in the photography,
or the props seen in the photographs and cover art. Imagine that you are attending a
concert or a club with live music. What clues identify the genre of the performance?
Your responses might include the wardrobe or modes of transportation favored by
the audience members, the types of graphics used in advertising posters, or even the
name of the venue. In other words, country music has many signifiers in its sounds,
visual presentations, and fan identities. As part of our studies, we will examine where
these signifiers come from, how they became part of country music, and what they
mean, both to country fans and to others.

Is it Real? Issues of Authenticity in

Country Music
The biggest issue in scholarship on country music is the idea of authenticity. Schol-
ars have written extensively about the topic; many agree that authenticity is a qual-
ity or value that fans ascribe to music based on two general considerations. The first
is listeners’ perception that the music is traditional, “like it used to be,” or from a
source that is an accepted part of country’s roots. In this sense, listeners might de-
scribe a performance as authentic if it sounds like country music from some earlier
era, or if the fans believe the artists belong to the country music tradition (perhaps
through their family’s history or biography). The second consideration is listeners’
perception of the music as original (as opposed to a copy or facsimile), genuine (as
opposed to artificial), and honest. In this sense, listeners might describe a perfor-
mance as authentic if they feel like the singer is telling a story based on his or her
own experience and attempting to connect directly and honestly with the listener
without any calculated or constructed mediation. These very complicated and nu-
anced ideas of authenticity sometimes conflict with each other. Yet together, they
help explain how fans continuously make judgments about what is or is not “real”
country music.
What passes that test of authenticity will vary from one fan to the next, and from
one era to the next, as we will see. Many fans of alternative styles of country claim
that the Top 40 country music on contemporary radio is not what they consider
“real.” Conversely, lots of fans of Top 40 country music are not fond of and do not
value alternative styles of country music. In every period in country music’s his-
tory, contrasting musical styles have existed, and fans have debated their perceived
authenticity. Think again about the signifiers we just listed that help define country
music. For each of those, there are contradictions, exceptions, and controversies: fans
sometimes reject as inauthentic a performance or recording that has many of those
xx Introduction

signifiers; in other instances, fans embrace a performance, singer, or recording as

country even if it lacks any of those common signifiers. For our purposes, we are not
going to concern ourselves with what is or is not “real” country music, even though
that is a debate into which music fans often enter. Frankly, asking whether or not a
particular artist or song is “real country” is a question that leaves us dead in the water
and teaches us nothing. Our task, as students and historians, is instead to study how
and why these differences of opinion occur, what they mean in the larger history of
the music, and how they help us interpret culture and meaning.

Goals and Themes

Our study of country music focuses on two main goals:
1. to understand the music’s history.
2. to identify country’s major musical styles and trace their development by ear.
The history of country music includes its important singers, songwriters, busi-
ness practices, cultural institutions, and songs, all within social and cultural contexts.
Most of our study will focus on those contexts as they occur in American history,
although we will also examine the export, import, and influence of country music
in foreign locations. Country music is a useful window through which to revisit the
cultural history of the past century. The Great Depression, World War II, the Korean
and Vietnam wars, the Cold War, conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, periods of eco-
nomic upheaval, the changing face of American life, technological advances, new
media, new forms of entertainment and communications, the civil rights movement,
the women’s liberation movement, and countless other global events and cultural
milestones are reflected through the lens of country music. Similarly, country music
has acted as a voice for different marginalized populations throughout the past cen-
tury, offering those groups a chance to be heard. To that end, this study of country
music is really a study of history viewed through country music.
Our second goal, which is to be able to identify country’s major musical styles by
ear and trace their development, requires that you immerse yourself in the sounds
of country music rather than merely reading about it. Each concept and idea in this
book should be reinforced by constant and careful listening to relevant recordings.
At the end of this study, you should be able to listen to just about any country music
recording and identify the general musical style, the time period, and the historical
or social context in which it was made.
This book is constructed around three primary themes:
1. Cultural identity
2. Authenticity
3. The “otherness” of country
These themes provide a framework through which to interpret the information
we have about country music. Think of them as a lens that you can use to exam-
ine the music and its cultural context. The question is never whether these themes
can be applied to country music of a particular style, era, or artist (they are always
 Introduction xxi

applicable), but rather how you can use these lenses to make sense of the details and
musical specifics of that style, era, or artist.

Cultural Identity
Both performers and fans have used country music to express who they are and
to give a voice to their frustrations, goals, passions, concerns, and fears. Country
music’s content and meaning are often linked to its performers’ and listeners’ eco-
nomic and social status, class, race, ethnicity, gender, political beliefs, religious be-
liefs, fields of employment, and family status. The fans and performers represent the
full range and diversity of identities within any of these categories. That explains,
for instance, how one performance can take on very different and even contradic-
tory meanings for different listeners. Identity, namely who is making and listening
to the music, the circumstances and major concerns in their lives, and the social,
economic, political, religious, and historical contexts through which they are con-
necting to country music, will be a major focus of our investigation.

Authenticity
Scholars, fans, and performers alike have focused on authenticity as the most im-
portant value that listeners ascribe to country music. What it means, however, varies
from one listener to the next, and from one moment or song to the next. We will see
how the genre depends on fans and performers at any given time agreeing on what
seems “authentic,” whether it is a revival of an old style or—totally different—an
emphasis on new songs written by the singer, or something else altogether. Com-
peting definitions of authenticity also explain different scenes, movements, or styles
within country music, why one group of fans heads to a bluegrass festival and claim
that is authentic, while another group of fans heads to a stadium to hear a concert
headliner sing songs that they feel they “relate to.” Sometimes authenticity means
abandoning or at least hiding any desire to achieve commercial success. Consider
that in the minds of some fans, being an authentic artist and wanting to sell records
are incompatible ideas. At the heart of this paradox, country music came into ex-
istence as a commercial music, but has always cultivated the notion that it eschews
commercial success.
The best way to study how authenticity functions within country music is to
discard entirely any urge you have to label some music as authentic and some other
music as inauthentic. Rather than declaring what you think is or is not authentic, ask
yourself how and why a group of fans relate in a particular way to an artist or song.

The “Otherness” of Country

Through a variety of ways, country music continuously differentiates itself from
other genres, most significantly pop music. In order to maintain its distinction
from pop, country music has to be noticeably different from the mainstream. At
the same time, many forces within the country music industry push the genre
toward mainstream acceptability and larger audiences, which simultaneously in-
crease country’s popularity and decrease its distinctive identity. Therein lies the
problem: if country music gets too popular and acceptable to the mainstream
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