Abstract
On his 2013 album Two Lanes of Freedom, Tim McGraw offered a wistful paean to the enduring impact country music has had on the city of Nashville. Without country, he sang, Nashville ‘would be just another river town, streets would have a different sound, there’d be no honky tonks with whiskey rounds, no dreamers chasin’ dreams down, no tourists takin’ in the sights, no Stetsons under Broadway lights’. In other words, Nashville without country music wouldn’t be Nashville. But the reverse is said to be equally true. Although country music emerged as a set of vernacular styles and then a commercial genre well before Nashville dominated its production, the city is understood to have played an indispensable role in the development of country music.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Asbell, B. (1962) ‘Simple Songs of Sex, Sin, and Salvation’, Show: The Magazine of the Performing Arts, 2:2, 91.
Bart, T. (1970) Inside Music City, U.S.A. (Nashville: Aurora).
Beny, C. (2000) Southern Migrants, Northern Exiles (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
Broven, J. (2009) Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock’n’Roll Pioneers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
Ching, B. (2001) Wrong’s What I Do Best: Hard Country Music and Contemporary Culture (New York: Oxford University Press).
Connell, J. and Gibson, C. (2003) Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place (New York: Routledge).
Ellison, C. (1995) Country Music Culture: From Hard Times to Heaven (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi).
Feiler, B. (1998) Dreaming Out Loud (New York: Perennial).
Florida, R. (2013) ‘Thanks, Taylor Swift: Nashville Has America’s Most Robust Music Economy’, The Atlantic Cities, 29 July 2013, http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/07/thanks-taylor-swift-nashville-has-americas-most-robust-music-economy/6051/, date accessed 2 August 2013.
Fox, P. (2009) Natural Acts: Gender, Race and Rusticity in Country Music (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).
Green, D. B. and Ivey, W. (1979) ‘The Nashville Sound’, in P. Carr (ed.) The Illustrated History of County Music (New York: Doubleday).
Grundy, P. (1995) ‘“We Always Tried to Be Good People”: Respectability, Crazy Water Crystals, and Hillbilly Music on the Air, 1933–1935’, Journal of American History, 81:4, 1591–1620.
Hackett, V. (2011) ‘New Statistics about Country Music Fans Revealed at Billboard Country Summit’, Billboard, 8 June 2011, http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/country/1177554/new-statistics-about-country-music-fans-revealed-at-billboard-country, date accessed 29 July 2013.
Harper, G., Cotton, C., and Benefield, Z. (2013) Nashville Music Industry: Impact, Contribution and Cluster Analysis, Nashville Mayor’s Office, https://nashville.gov/Mayors-Office/Priorities/Economic-Development/Programs-and-Services/ Music-City-Music-Council.aspx, date accessed 30 October 2013.
Havighurst, C. (2007) Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
Hemphill, P. (1970) The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music (New York: Simon and Schuster).
Hemphill, P. (1975) ‘Nashville — Where It All Started’, Saturday Evening Post. 247(3), 44–86.
Hill, J. (2011) Out of the Barn and into a Home: Country Music’s Cultural Journey from Rustic to Suburban, 1943–1974, PhD dissertation (Washington, DC: George Washington University).
Huber, P. (2008) Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press).
Ivey, B. (1998) ‘The Nashville Sound’, in P. Kingsbury (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Country Music (New York: Oxford).
Jensen, J. (1998) The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialism and Country Music (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press).
Kosser, M. (2006) How Nashville Became Music City, U.S.A.: Fifty Years of Music Row (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard).
Lloyd, R. (2012) ‘The Surreal Evolution of Nashville in Pop Culture, from Altman to ABC’, The Atlantic Cities, 31 October 2012, http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2012/lO/surreal-evolution-nashville-pop-culture-altman-abc/3763/, date accessed 2 August 2013.
Lomax, J. (1998) ‘The Center of Music City: Nashville’s Music Row’, in P. Kingsbury (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Country Music (New York: Oxford), 386–387.
Malone, B. C. (2002) Don’t Get above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
McCusker, K. M. (1998) ‘“Dear Radio Friend”: Listener Mail and the National Barn Dance, 1931–1941’, American Studies, 39(2), 173–195.
McCusker, K. M. (2008) Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky-Tonk Angels: The Women of Barn Dance Radio (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
Nash, A. (1988) ‘Home Is Where the Gig Is: Life on and off the Road’, in P. Kingsbury and A. Axelrod (eds) Country: The Music and the Musicians (New York: Abbeville Press).
Neal, J. R. (forthcoming) ‘Why “Ladies Love Country Boys”: Gender, Class, and Economics in Contemporary Country Music’, in D. Pecknold and K. M. McCusker (eds) A Boy Named Sue, Too: New Essays in Gender and Country Music (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi).
Negus, K. (1999) Music Genres and Corporate Cultures (New York: Routledge).
Nixon, R. (1974) ‘Remarks at the Grand Ole Opry House, Nashville, Tennessee’, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=4389, date accessed 19 July 2013.
Pecknold, D. (2007) The Selling Sound: The Rise of the Country Music Industry (Durham: Duke University Press).
Portis, C. (1966) ‘That New Sound from Nashville’, Saturday Evening Post, 239(4), 30–38.
Sanjek, D. (1995) ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky Rising over the Mystery Train: The Complex Construction of Country Music’, in C. Tichi (ed.) Readin’ Country Music: Steel Guitars, Opry Stars, and Honky Tonk Bars (Durham: Duke University Press), 22–44.
Schulman, B. C. (2002) The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (New York: Da Capo).
Severson, K. (2013) ‘Nashville Takes Its Turn in the Spotlight’, New York Times, 8 January 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/nashville-takes-its-turn-in-the-spotlight.html, date accessed 2 August 2013.
Sholes, S. (1963) ‘A Big New Sound Blows Out of Nashville’, Broadcasting, 28 January 1963, 78.
Soelberg, P. W. (1998) ‘ACE’, in P. Kingsbury (ed.) The Encyclopedia of County Music (New York: Oxford University Press).
Stapp, J. (1958) ‘Country Music Association Sales and Marketing Programs’ (typescript speech, p. 4; microfiche: fiche 2 of 3), Country Music Association Papers (Country Music Hall of Fame Library).
Stimeling, T. D. (2011) Cosmic Cowboys and New Hicks: The Countercultural Sounds of Austin’s Progressive Country Music Scene (New York: Oxford University Press).
Williamson, J. W. (1995) Hillbillyland: What the Movies Did to the Mountains and What the Mountains Did to the Movies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press).
Wolfe, C. K. (1999) A Good Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Diane Pecknold
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pecknold, D. (2014). Heart of the Country? The Construction of Nashville as the Capital of Country Music. In: Lashua, B., Spracklen, K., Wagg, S. (eds) Sounds and the City. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283115_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283115_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44890-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-28311-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)