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8 - Country Music: Australianising an American Tradition?

from Part II - Encounters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

Amanda Harris
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Clint Bracknell
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Summary

Country music is one of Australia’s oldest popular music forms, stretching from the 1920s (when it was known as hillbilly) to today. It also shows a remarkable continuity of tradition. Despite country music’s reputation as being politically conservative and white, in Australia country has often pursued a progressive agenda and has featured many Aboriginal and women artists. Songwriters have used country music’s robust musical forms to tell richly detailed and diverse stories about life in Australia, from rural labour, to urbanization, to sexual and racial double standards, to economic woes, to familial bonds, to the ravages of the climate. Despite this rich history, and the genre’s rootedness in place, there remain many anxieties surrounding country music to do with its perceived ‘Americanness’, itself symptomatic of larger anxieties around national identity. While hillbilly music originated in America, musically, lyrically and culturally it has developed in new and fascinating ways in Australia.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Beckett, J., ‘I Don’t Care Who Knows: The Songs of Dougie Young’, Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2 (1993), 34–8.Google Scholar
Carlson, B., ‘Striking the Right Chord: Indigenous People and the Love of Country’, AlterNative, 12(5) (2016), 498–512.Google Scholar
Jones, M. A., ‘Playing Bluegrass in Australia across Country and Folk Scenes’, Perfect Beat, 18(2) (2017), 131–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, T., Yodelling Boundary Riders: Country Music in Australia since the 1920s (Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Smith, G., Singing Australian: A History of Folk and Country Music (London: Pluto Press, 2005).Google Scholar
Walker, C., Buried Country: The Story of Aborginal Country Music (Sydney: Pluto Press, 2000).Google Scholar

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