Re My Best Friend' a Consideration of Country Music, Sounds, Scenes
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‘You’re My Best Friend’ A Consideration of Country Music, Sounds, Scenes and Communities in Liverpool. Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy by Susan Elizabeth Hedges. November 2014 0 Hedges, S.E. ‘You’re My Best Friend’ A Consideration of Country Music, Sounds, Scenes and Communities in Liverpool. Abstract This research thesis is a study of the Country music scene on Merseyside, carried out within a popular music studies framework. This Country scene was once considered by some to be the largest such scene in Europe, but after well over half a century, it now appears to be in terminal decline. This research examines the relationship between the music, the participants and the processes of the scene in order to understand how it developed, how it was sustained, and what might have been the circumstances, which contributed to its eventual decline. The research covers a wide variety of inter-disciplinary areas such as oral history, document research, genre analysis, structural and semiotic analysis, considerations of scenes, ‘thirdspace’ and localities, cultural geography, etc, all in an attempt to understand how and why this particular music genre, thrived and then declined on Merseyside. The origins and pathways of the global flow of music into the city of Liverpool were considered by this researcher, as was the importance of key individuals, venues and physical cultural places in the construction and maintenance of the scene. This research also covers areas that could be regarded as holding great significance, both positive and negative, regarding this scene. These include issues related to translocal and virtual Country music scenes, the Cowboy image, the line-dance phenomenon, originality and pastiche and authenticity (or lack thereof) of certain artists and bands. The demise of what now remains of the local scene involved research in situ over a fifteen- month period at one of the last local Country music communities in Liverpool at The Melrose Abbey Public House, Liverpool. This research displays how this community had adopted, developed and displayed rituals and practices of immense significance that not only prolonged the scene’s survival but also left an indelible mark on the local community. 1 CONTENTS Chapter Page No 1. Introduction, Rationale, Aims and Methodologies 3 2. Literature Review 16 3. A Brief Narrative of ‘The Narrative That is Country Music’ in the USA 46 4. Origins of and Pathways for the Country Music Scene on Merseyside 73 5. The Growth of the Local Scene and its Significant Cultural Spaces. 115 6. Local Bands and Repertoires: Authenticity, Recording and Covering. 158 7. Authenticity or Pastiche? A Structural and Semiotic Analysis of The Hillsiders Recorded Output 1964-75 192 8. Authenticity or Pastiche? A Structural and Semiotic Analysis of The Hillsiders Recorded Output 1975-1989 238 9. British Country Music and the Line-dance Phenomenon 267 10. An Oral History of the Country and Western Community based at The Melrose Abbey Public House. Liverpool. 306 11. Concluding Commentary: Liverpool, Country Music and Translocal & Virtual Scenes. 336 Bibliography 375 Discography 391 Appendix 1. List of Informants 397 Appendix 2. List of Liverpool Country Bands, mid-1950s to mid-1970s 410 2 Chapter 1. Introduction: Rationale, Aims and Methodologies This research thesis is a study of the Country music scene on Merseyside carried out within a popular music studies framework, which is an interdisciplinary area of study that includes historical and context-based cultural studies, communication theory and semiotics, and social anthropological methods such as ethnography and autoethnography. This is a study of a scene that has existed for over 50 years and was once considered by some to be the largest Country music scene in Europe, e.g, Bill Harry’s website Merseybeat The Birth of Merseybeat 2.1 Harry, because of this success described the scene as ‘The Nashville of the North’ and McManus (1994)2 used this as the title for his book on the Liverpool Country music scene. Now though, it is a scene, which appears to be in terminal decline. Despite the important part that the scene played in the history of popular music in Liverpool, very little has been written about it academically. [See literature review, Chapter 2] What has been written, although important, is small, limited and much of which is old research and needs updating. This research project aims to provide a comprehensive study of the scene expanded to cover many aspects of the scene not researched in any depth, or in some cases, not at all. New areas of research not previously covered include the effect that the translocal scene and national attitudes, events and practices had on the local scene. Another new area of research is the line- dance phenomenon, which was the last occasion when any reasonable number of new members entered the British Country music scene. It will be argued that this was a transitional point: one which Straw (2001)3 describes as being crucial for any scene’s stability. 1 Harry, W. Merseybeat Ltd. The Birth of Mersey Beat 2. [Online] <http://mersey-beat.com> (accessed 7/5/2010) 2 McManus, K. (1994) Nashville of the North. Liverpool: Institute of Popular Music. University of Liverpool. 3 Straw, W. (2001) ‘Consumption’ in Frith, S., Straw, W & Street, T. S. (eds). The Cambridge Companion to Rock and Pop. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 253-256 3 The research also includes a structural and semiotic analysis of the Liverpool Country music band, The Hillsiders’, recorded work from the 1960s to the 1990s. This analysis has helped to identify genre influences on the music itself, e.g. via style indicators and/or synecdoches from American Country music, Irish music, Folk music, Merseybeat, etc. It will aim to resolve conflicting statements such as whether local Country music has its own distinct Liverpool style or is just a copy of American Country music of that era. This study includes what will probably be, because of the terminal decline of the scene, the last study of a Country music community in Liverpool. This is a study carried out over 15 months of the Country music community based at The Melrose Abbey public house in Kirkdale, Liverpool. This research also examines the relationship between the music, the participants and processes of the scene in order to understand how the scene developed, was sustained and eventually declined. Therefore, this research will also have to pose the important question: ‘what does or does not constitute a popular music scene?’ To achieve some kind of answer to this significant question, a consideration of the academic texts and discussions in popular music studies on scene was required. This researcher’s use of the word ‘scene’ in this study therefore draws from much of the critical work on the subject, however, not necessarily uncritically for it became obvious during periods of research that at times what was being discovered did, and at other times, did not necessarily fall into line with academic discourse concerning scenes. The definition of what does or does not constitute a scene is not an easy one. Straw (2002)4 states that ‘A decade of writing in popular music studies has sought to refine the notion of scene but the slipperiness remains’ and that ‘scene is the most flexible term in a social 4 Straw, W. (2002)’ Scenes and Sensibility’ in Straw, W and Marchessault, I. (eds) Public .Vol 22/23. York: York University Press. pp. 243-257 4 morphology’. Previous to Straw’s statement, Cohen (1999)5 had explained that, for her: ‘Scene is a familiar term in popular music studies but it has generally been used uncritically or interchangeably with terms like subculture or community’. Peterson and Bennett (2004)6 also stated that: ‘As scenes ebb and flow with time, there is no hard line between what is and what is not a scene, consequently it is not useful to try to draw a hard line between scenes and non-scenes’. Despite this possible haziness, popular music academics have continued to define and re-define the term ‘scene’. Peterson and Bennett in Music Scenes, Local, Translocal and Virtual (2004)7 explain how (to paraphrase) primarily journalists originally used the concept of a music scene in the 1940s to characterize the marginal and Bohemian ways of life of those associated with the Jazz world. As Cohen (1999)8 also discusses: ‘The term is commonly and loosely used by musicians, music fans, music writers and researchers to refer to a group or groups of people who have a shared musical activity or taste, but it was when scene was associated with place and referring to scene activity within specific geographical areas that it became a focus for research within Popular music studies’. It was Shank (1988),9 who first presented the idea of scene as the relationship between different music practices unfolding within a given geographical space. In his publication Dissonant Identities; The Rock and Roll Scene in Austin, Texas (1994)10 Shank suggests that a scene was ‘An overpowering signifying community’, also, that this community, while being 5 Cohen, S. (1999) ’Scenes’ in Horner, B and Swiss, T. (eds) Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. Oxford: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd. pp. 239-249 6 Peterson, R.A. and Bennett, A. (2004) ‘Introducing Music Scenes’ in Bennett, A and Peterson, R.A. (eds). Music Scenes, Local, Translocal and Virtual. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 1 -15 7 Peterson, R.A. and Bennett, A. (2004) ‘Introducing Music Scenes’ in Bennett, A and Peterson, R.A. (eds) Music Scenes, Local, Translocal and Virtual. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.