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Southern Spaces
A journal about real and imagined spaces and places of the US South and their global connections

Country Music Scholar

Tulane University
Published January 20, 2006

Overview

Distinguished historian of country music Bill Malone is interviewed by Southern Spaces editorial board member Charles Reagan Wilson at the University of Mississippi in October 2005. Malone offers a brief perspective on the beginnings of his career and discusses themes in his work. Videography by Joe York, University of Mississippi.

Video

Part 2Malone discusses enrolling at the University of Texas, the Austin folk revival, and his dissertation, Country Music USA

Part 3Malone discusses variation in country music style, contrasting the honky tonk of the oil boom with older Appalachian music

Part 4Malone discusses the commercialization of rural southern music first as “hillbilly” and later as “country”

Part 5Malone discusses relationships between “southern” and “American” music, addressing questions of authenticity and fusion

Part 6Malone discusses tensions between themes of rambling and rootedness in country music

Part 7Malone explores how contemporary country music represents the concerns of its largely nine-to-five audience

Part 8Malone discusses county music as an area of academic inquiry

About Bill Malone

Bill Malone is Professor Emeritus of History at Tulane University. His books include Country Music, U.S.A.; Southern Music/American Music; Southern Culture and the Roots of Country Music; and Don't Get Above Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern Working Class.

https://doi.org/10.18737/M76886