Title Information
Title
New England Country & Western Music: Self-Reliance, Community Expression, and Regional Resistance on the New England Frontier
Name: Personal
Name Part
Murphy, Clifford R.
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Origin Information
Copyright Date (keyDate="yes", encoding="w3cdtf")
2008
Physical Description
Extent
xi, 453 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Brown University (2008)
Name: Personal
Name Part
Titon, Jeff
Role
Role Term: Text
director
Name: Personal
Name Part
Post, Jennifer
Role
Role Term: Text
reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Buhle, Paul
Role
Role Term: Text
reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Subotnik, Rose
Role
Role Term: Text
reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Music. Ethnomusicology
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
This work examines New England Country & Western music as a series of frontiers that construct and reinforce regional working-class community and identity in a multi-ethnic region. Accepting that identity ? racial, ethnic, class, regional, and national/global ? are socially constructed phenomena, this work explores how New Englanders utilize frontier motifs of Country & Western music to establish multi-ethnic sociability, community, and identity in the midst of demographic, economic, industrial, and technological changes. To provide a framework for the discussion of New England Country & Western music, the work begins with a history of the music in New England, from its origins in hillbilly orchestras and old-time fiddle competitions of the 1920s, through the barnstorming era (1935-1955) and national chart success of New England's most prominent singer and song (Dick Curless' "A Tombstone Every Mile" in 1965), and the disappearance of local Country & Western music from local/regional radio in the 1970s with the onset of automated radio. Subsequent chapters examine the New England Country & Western Event ?the pairing of a show and a dance ? as a generative site for social and economic capital, and multi-ethnic sociability and community. The professional life of the barnstorming Country & Western musician is explored as existing along a frontier between individualism and communitarianism, and generative of tensions between personal problems and solutions. The final two chapters examine the New England Country & Western dialectic ? tensions between self-reliance and communitarianism ? in Maine truck driving songs and songs about self-sufficient cowboys and farmers. The archetypal figures of New England Country & Western ? the Maine truck driver and the old cowboy living in changing times ? can be understood as the embodiment of a longing for an imagined age of self-sufficiency, an identity marker of working class community, and a critique of a national/global culture that appears to value financial capital over social capital.
Subject (Local)
Topic
Country & Western
Subject (Local)
Topic
Dick Curless
Subject (Local)
Topic
Yodeling Slim Clark
Subject (Local)
Topic
Tombstone Every Mile
Subject (Local)
Topic
frontier
Subject (Local)
Topic
working-class
Subject (Local)
Topic
truck driving music
Subject (Local)
Topic
Hal Lone Pine
Subject (Local)
Topic
Betty Cody
Subject (Local)
Topic
community
Subject (Local)
Topic
hillbilly
Subject (Local)
Topic
Maritime Canada
Subject (Local)
Topic
social capital
Subject (Local)
Topic
minstrelsy
Subject (Local)
Topic
Franco-American music
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/881424")
Topic
Country music
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1723579")
Topic
Borderlands
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1180418")
Topic
Working class
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1122281")
Topic
Social capital (Sociology)
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1111915")
Topic
Self-reliance
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/308962")
Name
Name Part
Curless, Dick
Name Part: Date
1932-1995
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1797803")
Name
Name Part
Clark, Slim
Name Part: Date
1917-2000
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1525693")
Name
Name Part
Lone Pine, Hal
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1204270")
Geographic
Maine
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1204318")
Geographic
New Hampshire
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1204305")
Geographic
Vermont
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1205688")
Geographic
Connecticut
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1204599")
Geographic
Rhode Island
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1204307")
Geographic
Massachusetts
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20091218
Language
Language Term: Code (ISO639-2B)
eng
Language Term: Text
English
Identifier: DOI
10.7301/Z0D21VWV
Access Condition: rights statement (href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
In Copyright
Access Condition: restriction on access
Collection is open for research.
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations