Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity - Softcover

Peterson, Richard A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226662853 ISBN 13: 9780226662855

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1999

Synopsis

In Creating Country Music, Richard Peterson traces the development of country music and its institutionalization from Fiddlin' John Carson's pioneering recordings in Atlanta in 1923 to the posthumous success of Hank Williams. Peterson captures the free-wheeling entrepreneurial spirit of the era, detailing the activities of the key promoters who sculpted the emerging country music scene. More than just a history of the music and its performers, this book is the first to explore what it means to be authentic within popular culture.

"[Peterson] restores to the music a sense of fun and diversity and possibility that more naive fans (and performers) miss. Like Buck Owens, Peterson knows there is no greater adventure or challenge than to 'act naturally.'"—Ken Emerson, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A triumphal history and theory of the country music industry between 1920 and 1953."—Robert Crowley, International Journal of Comparative Sociology

"One of the most important books ever written about a popular music form."—Timothy White, Billboard Magazine

About this title

About the Author

Richard A. Peterson (1932-2010) was emeritus professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University. He was the founding chairman of the American Sociological Association's culture section. He was best known as a scholar of popular music, especially country-western music. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity has had a substantial influence on subsequent scholarship.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226662853
• ISBN 13: 9780226662855
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320