{"id":7666,"date":"2023-09-27T22:33:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T03:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=7666"},"modified":"2023-10-01T15:31:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-01T20:31:45","slug":"diverse-roots-of-country-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2023\/09\/27\/diverse-roots-of-country-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Diverse Roots of Country Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Country music has been typically shown to be stemming from white artists throughout history, but is that really true? While modern scholars have picked this stereotype apart,1<\/sup><\/a> <\/span> these types of cultural and ethnic separations have made making a living and gaining popularity hard for certain performers and composers. Browsing for primary sources, I first found what many would call a \u2018stereotypical\u2019 country band, named the Stoney and Wilma Lee Cooper Band. What made this even more traditional and supposedly characteristic of this type of music was that this was a married couple. Many artists at this time had some sort of family aspect to them like the Cooper Band. 2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> In addition to advertising for the \u2018Women in Country Music Series,\u2019 this mid-1970s Smithsonian announcement made it clear that they wanted to showcase country music talent from women. I found that very interesting, and i<\/span>t\u2019s possible that country music was patriarchal like many facets of society in the mid-1900s. This, however, is a separate research topic.<\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast, I came across a Washington Post article about Cleveland Francis, a black man, who, in addition to being a cardiologist 3<\/sup><\/a>,<\/span> was also a country music musician. In this 1996 article, Francis is described to have overcome barriers that made it harder for him to enter the country music scene, saying \u201cMaybe the next African American coming along will not have to justify his position in country music.\u201d 4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Francis, describing his experience as a black man in country music, clarifies and supports the writings of Jefferey Manuel\u2019s \u201cThe Sound of Plain White Folk? 5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u201d and Rhiannon Giddens\u2019 \u201cCommunity and Connection\u201d Keynote Speech 6<\/sup><\/a>.<\/span> Manuel\u2019s position that commercialization of this genre led to a much more homogenous, \u2018white\u2019 view of this music led to Francis having a harder time getting into the genre and being successful. In addition, the fact that \"\"Giddens’ calls for diversifying country and folk music speaks indirectly to the fact that this type of music is very homogenous. While other factors may be at play, it’s clear to see that Francis would have a hard time doing well in the country music genre. Despite this, he succeeded.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Manuel, Jeffery T., \u201cThe Sound of Plain White Folk?\u201d <\/span>Popular Music and Society, Vol 1<\/span><\/i>, Oct 2008.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. \u201cHattie Stoneman: Raising her Children in Music.\u201d The Birthplace of Country Music, 28 September 2017 https:\/\/birthplaceofcountrymusic.org\/hattie-stoneman-raising-children-music\/<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Yahr, Emily. Cleve Francis\u2019s Unsung Story. 7July 2022. <\/span>https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/arts-entertainment\/2022\/07\/07\/cleve-francis-country-music-black-opry\/<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Harrington, Richard. \u201cCleve Francis\u201d <\/span>The Washington Post<\/span><\/i>, 14 April 1996. <\/span>https:\/\/www.proquest.com\/docview\/307971804\/fulltext\/77A5129B774F4C3FPQ\/113?accountid=351<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. \u00a0Manuel, Jeffery T., \u201cThe Sound of Plain White Folk?\u201d <\/span>Popular Music and Society, Vol 1<\/span><\/i>, Oct 2008.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Povelones, Robert. Rhiannon Giddens Keynote Address. 11 February 2018. https:\/\/ibma.org\/rhiannon-giddens-keynote-address-2017\/<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Country music has been typically shown to be stemming from white artists throughout history, but is that really true? While modern scholars have picked this stereotype apart,1 these types of cultural and ethnic separations have made making a living and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1397],"tags":[1005,1427],"class_list":["post-7666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2023-mus-345-b","tag-country-music","tag-diversity-in-white-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-1ZE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7666"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7736,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666\/revisions\/7736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}