Wrong's What I Do Best Hard Country Music and Contemporary Culture

by Ching, Barbara

• ISBN13: 9780195169423
• ISBN10: 0195169425
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This is the first study of "hard" country music as well as the first comprehensive application of contemporary cultural theory to country music. Barbara Ching begins by defining the features that make certain country songs and artists "hard." She compares hard country music to "high" American culture, arguing that hard country deliberately focuses on its low position in the American cultural hierarchy, comically singing of failures to live up to American standards of affluence, while mainstream country music focuses on nostalgia, romance, and patriotism of regular folk. With chapters on Hank Williams Sr. and Jr., Merle Haggard, George Jones, David Allan Coe, Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, and the Outlaw Movement, this book is written in a jargon-free, engaging style that will interest both academic as well as general readers.

Author Biography

Barbara Ching is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Memphis. She co-edited Knowing Your Place: Rural Identity and Cultural Hierarchy (1997).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Learning the hard way	3	(5)
``Country `til I die''
Contemporary hard country and the incurable unease of class distinction	8	(18)
The Possum, the Hag, and the Rhinestone Cowboy
The burlesque abjection of the white male	26	(21)
The hard act to follow
Hank Williams and the legacy of hard country stardom	47	(42)
Drawing hard lines
Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, and the Bakersfield Sound	89	(30)
Dying hard
Hard country at the finish line?	119	(16)
Notes	135	(26)
Works Cited	161	(10)
Index	171