Unearthing American Roots
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Unearthing American Roots Discourses of Authenticity, Nostalgia and Race in American Roots Music and Literature Claudia Colombo A Thesis Presented to The Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages University of Oslo In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the MA Degree Spring 2017 II Unearthing American Roots Discourses of Authenticity, Nostalgia and Race in American Roots Music and Literature Claudia Colombo III © Claudia Colombo 2017 Unearthing American Roots: Discourses of Authenticity, Nostalgia and Race in American Roots Music and Literature Claudia Colombo http://www.duo.uio.no/ Print: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo IV Abstract In this thesis I aim to expose and explore the ubiquitous presence of discourses of authenticity and nostalgia in American literature, culture and music. For this purpose I outline the reasons and history lying behind America roots music community's fascination with discourses of authenticity and nostalgia, while contemplating similar patterns in literary works that deal with music from the American South. By sketching the history of the genre from its earliest commercial days, I intend to show how aesthetics of authenticity have been fabricated and romanticized in order to downplay the role of economic interest, a fact that has generated a problematic and whitewashed definition of American roots music, in spite of its great cultural cross-pollination. By exposing the ideologies hidden behind specific aesthetic and musical choices I point out the dangers inherent in discourses of authenticity, but I also stress its potential empowering aspects. Looking at several contemporary roots music acts, as a matter of fact, it is possible to identify how their use of retro and nostalgic aesthetics is directed to the fostering of community and the reevaluation of manual work and craftsmanship as a way of countering rampant capitalism. Moreover, in my examination of contemporary bands and authors engaged with Appalachian culture, I find a possible solution to the one-sided and unjustly romanticized image of American roots music. Such a solution consists in artists celebrating and engaging with past traditions in order to uncover the rich history of the music and the region, taking into account all ethnic groups and their contribution to the vibrant culture found in the South to this day. V “America has a song on the tip of its tongue that it’s afraid to sing.” – Ketch Secor, Old Crow Medicine Show VI Acknowledgements “Thank you for your precious time, forgive me if I start to cry” Tom T. Hall “That's How I got to Memphis” I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Bruce Barnhart, first of all for having inspired me to write about the connections between music and literature. His course “Jazz and African American Literature” provided me with crucial tools to think about the ways in which music and literature can be used in combination, in order to expose greater cultural tendencies and ideologies present in a given culture. I am deeply grateful that he supported my decision to write about the topic I love and to include music in a literary thesis and that he could guide me through the writing process. My gratefulness also goes to my good friend and PhD candidate Jeroen Rijnders for his supportive role both in casual discussions about my topic, in proofreading and commenting my chapters, as well as in joining me to numerous roots music concerts and sharing the same musical passion. Thank you to my parents Françoise and Francesco Colombo for always having supported my choice to follow my interests and passions in my academic path. Thank you to my good friend Soshia Samii for being in the same boat and sharing lunch breaks and the pleasures and despairs of writing. Thank you to Linn Kristine Kleppe for a final and much appreciated proofreading. Thank you to Abram Racin, socially aware multi-instrumentalist from West Virginia, for having patiently and passionately answered some questions and shared his experience about music communities in Appalachia and Nashville. VII VIII Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 1 Authenticity as a Handcrafted Identity: Roots Music’s Fascination with Craftsmanship, Tradition, Nostalgia and Community ................................................................................... 15 1.1 Agrarianism and the Focus on Meaningful and Artistic Labor ................................... 16 1.2 Craftsmen and Musicians as Community Makers ...................................................... 21 1.3 Authenticity: a Double-Edged Sword ......................................................................... 27 1.4 Roots Musicians and Hipsters .................................................................................... 34 2 Commercial and Ideological Forces and the Creation of Aesthetic Standards for Roots Music .......................................................................................................................................... 39 2.1 “Treasure Seekers, Beware: There is No Such Essence Here” ................................. 40 2.2 “All Right, Let's Keep it Close to the Ground Tonight, Boys” ................................... 45 2.3 “Music Confounds the Machines” ............................................................................. 53 2.4 “Betwixt and Between” ............................................................................................... 56 3 “As What Begins Anywhere/ Started Already Somewhere Else”: Race Awareness and the Recomposition of History in Contemporary Roots Music and Literature ............................ 67 3.1 The Revival of Shared Black and White Music ......................................................... 68 3.2 Old Crow Medicine Show's Nostalgia and Anti-Industrialism .................................... 74 3.3 Old Crow Medicine Show's Activism ......................................................................... 81 3.4 Dom Flemons and the Power of (His)Stories ............................................................ 82 3.5 Rewriting Appalachia through Race-Informed Poetry ................................................ 88 4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 95 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................. 99 IX Introduction References to the past along with rural, retro and old-fashioned aesthetics are a trademark of American roots music, be it country, folk, bluegrass or any other subgenre related to the music of the American South. Roots artists seem to be greatly concerned with creating personas that are honest and down-to-earth at the same time as they become almost mythical figures outside and beyond time, or better, characters coming from the past and surviving and renewing themselves in the present. In spite of the almost mythical aura surrounding many of those personas, the focus is also clearly set on geographical belonging and continuity within tradition. The focus of such cultural expressions can thus be said to fluctuate between past and present, the former understood as origins and tradition and the latter as position in geographical space. In American roots music, discourses of space and time as performed by artists often reveal an underlying scope of promoting a certain ideology or on the contrary, of trying to escape a straightforward ideology in favor of a sense of shared community. The ideological question of whether art can or should be openly political, or at least engaged in providing an insight into the workings of the world and its power relations seems to be a widely complex one when it comes to American roots music, since it is traditionally associated with conservative values and aesthetics. Music journalist Chris Willman, in his work on the politics of country music, describes the status of the genre in 2005 as: “...though hardly unilateral as a genre, [it] typically gravitates more toward expressing the fears, beliefs, and hopes of conservatives, who occupy a majority of the artist roster as well as fan base at this point in the music's evolution.” (Willman 3). Looking more deeply in to the matter, however, it does not take great effort to find all possible shades of political affiliations or even apoliticism among artists and their supporters. This does of course not coincide with the automatic associations and stereotypical images evoked when thinking or talking about American roots music, especially when using the term country music – its most well-known genre – which leave little space for progressive and liberal topics and agendas. Images of pickup trucks, cowboy boots and hats along with “Lonestar belt buckles and old faded Levis” - as Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson sing in “Mammas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys” - immediately come to mind. The stereotypes of country are tough guys and loners preaching and celebrating personal liberty and self- determination, almost incarnations of the American Dream and a self-made man with a guitar, leather boots, a hat and a good dose of alcohol. Although such stereotypes do not merely originate out of people's fantasy, and the former elements can actually be found in a lot of 1 country music acts both recent and old, it might prove more useful to analyze such characteristics