Country-Western Music and the Urban Hillbilly
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2824949 |
|---|---|
| Authors | D K Wilgus (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1970 |
| Volume | 83 |
| Issue | 328 |
| Pages | 157 |
| Publication date | 1970-04-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American Folklore (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8715 • E-ISSN: 1535-1882 |
| Publisher | University of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/539105 |
| OpenAlex | W2326880801 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
COUNTRY-WESTERN MUSIC is currently one of the most important facets of the entertainment industry. It owes its status and respect largely to financial success, like most of the popular arts of America. Indeed, to call country-western music simply one form of American popular music is to make but one of the myriad and apparently contradictory statements that have been made about its origins, development, function, and significance. The history of this music and our attitudes toward it reflect the contradictions in the American character; that is, in the character of the country-western audience, the hillbilly. The dichotomy in the term urban expresses both the polarization of city and country and the accommodation of values represented in the hybridization of country-western music. I use the word hillbilly in all of its connotations-including Appalachian, southern, and backwoods or country-for they represent but degrees of the same concept and culture, and the different shades of meaning account for much that seems contradictory about the music and its history. Thus my topic cannot be narrowly concerned with migrants from the southern mountains to the northern metropolis; and, while it deals largely with the industrialization and urbanization of the southern regions, it is concerned ultimately with the urbanization of the United States. The South in general and the Appalachians and Ozarks in particular entered the game late, after their frontier folkways had developed and solidified for a longer period than elsewhere in the country. The shock of urbanization, therefore, was greater and the reaction more extreme
Country · Economics · Geography · History · Music History and Culture
| Citations per year | 0.19 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1979 - 2022 (44) |
| Highly cited | No |