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

Intro -- Contents -- Introduction: Learning the hard way -- 1 "Country 'til I die": Contemporary hard country and the incurable unease of class distinction -- 2 The Possum, the Hag, and the Rhinestone Cowboy: The burlesque abjection of the white male -- 3 The hard act to follow: Hank Williams and the legacy of hard country stardom -- 4 Drawing hard lines: Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, and the Bakersfield Sound -- 5 Dying hard: Hard country at the finish line? -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.

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 Americanculture, 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.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.