Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 8 - Country Music: Australianising an American Tradition?

  • from Part II - Encounters
  • Edited by Amanda Harris, University of Sydney, Clint Bracknell, University of Western Australia
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Music in Australia
    Published online:
    14 November 2024
    Print publication:
    14 November 2024, pp 130-147

  • 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.