Re My Best Friend' a Consideration of Country Music, Sounds, Scenes
‘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.
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