ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: “IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF LONG AGO”: ECHOES OF VAUDEVILLE AND MINSTRELSY IN THE MUSIC OF UNCLE DAVE MACON Eric Neil Hermann, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Dissertation directed by: Associate Professor, Patrick Warfield, Musicology Uncle Dave Macon provided an essential link between nineteenth-century, urban popular stage music (especially the minstrel show and vaudeville) and commercialized country music of the 1920s. He preserved through his recordings a large body of songs and banjo techniques that had their origins in urban-based, nineteenth-century vaudeville and minstrelsy. Like the minstrel and vaudeville performers of the nineteenth century, Macon told jokes and stories, employed attention-grabbing stage gimmicks, marketed himself with boastful or outrageous slogans, and dressed with individual flair. At the same time, Macon incorporated many features from the rural-based folk music of Middle Tennessee. Overall, Macon’s repertoire, musical style, and stage persona (which included elements of the rube, country gentleman, and old man) demonstrated his deep absorption, and subsequent reinterpretation, of nineteenth-century musical traditions. Macon’s career offers a case study in how nineteenth-century performance styles, repertoire, and stage practices became a part of country music in the 1920s. As an artist steeped in two separate, but overlapping, types of nineteenth-century music—stage and folk—Macon was well-positioned to influence the development of the new commercial genre. He brought together several strains of nineteenth-century music to form a modern, twentieth-century musical product ideally suited to the new mass media of records, radio, and film. By tracing Macon’s career and studying his music, we can observe how the cross-currents of rural and popular entertainment during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries interacted to form the commercial genre we now know as country music. iii “IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF LONG AGO”: ECHOES OF VAUDEVILLE AND MINSTRELSY IN THE MUSIC OF UNCLE DAVE MACON by Eric Neil Hermann Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Advisory Committee: Patrick Warfield, Chair Richard King Barry Pearson Fernando Rios Jocelyn Neal © Copyright by Eric Neil Hermann 2016 Acknowledgements My dissertation was made possible by a Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Maryland for the 2014–15 academic year. I would like to thank several individuals who helped me throughout the process. Patrick Warfield, my Adviser and Committee Chair, worked with me through several drafts. Along the way, he shared with me his tremendous knowledge of American music and offered me numerous creative ideas on organization, presentation, and storytelling. Richard King, who has inspired me over the years with his teaching and advising, provided extremely helpful edits on the final version of the dissertation. Barry Pearson and Fernando Rios provided valuable commentary and advice in informal conversations, and at the defense. Finally, Jocelyn Neal generously donated her time at several points during the process and pushed me to deepen and sharpen my thinking about country music and Uncle Dave Macon. I would also like to thank all of the archivists and librarians at the institutions where I did research, including John Rumble at the Country Music Hall of Fame; Dale Cockrell, Lucinda Cockrell, Greg Reish, and John Fabke at the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University; and Steve Henry at the University of Maryland. I also wish to thank Stephen Wade, Leroy Troy, Jeremy Stephens, Robert Montgomery, Michael Doubler, David Macon III, Tony Russell, Nick Tochka, and Robert Provine for their comments, advice, and encouragement; as well as Lisa Munro for her excellent editing assistance. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my family—Virginia, Gary, Peter, Meredith, Lesley, Hazel, and Alice—who supported me and never wavered in their ii belief that I would finish the project successfully, even if it took a bit longer than expected. Your love and encouragement means everything to me. In particular, I want to express my gratitude and thanks to my Dad, Gary Hermann, who read and commented on my work throughout, counseled me, and inspired me to finish. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii List of Musical Examples ................................................................................................ viii List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... x Note on Terminology ......................................................................................................... xi Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Organization .................................................................................................................... 5 Literature Review............................................................................................................ 9 Uncle Dave Macon: Primary Sources ......................................................................... 9 Uncle Dave Macon: Secondary Sources ................................................................... 12 Secondary Sources: Early Country Music ................................................................ 14 Country Music as “Popular” Music .......................................................................... 17 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 1: Biography ........................................................................................................ 22 Macon’s Early Years..................................................................................................... 25 Farmer, Small Businessman, and Amateur Musician ................................................... 34 Professional Musician ................................................................................................... 38 Conclusion: Macon and Fiddlin’ John Carson as Parallel Artists ................................ 46 Chapter 2: The Macon Persona: Retaining the Nineteenth-Century Stage ....................... 49 The “Hillbilly Music” Industry ..................................................................................... 50 The Minstrel Show’s Influence on Early Country Music ............................................. 52 Vaudeville’s Influence on Early Country Music .......................................................... 59 Macon’s Performance Persona ..................................................................................... 62 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 3: “Minstrel of the Countryside”: Macon as a Pre-Country Songster ................. 74 Macon as a Songster ..................................................................................................... 75 Traditional Venues ........................................................................................................ 78 Macon’s Political Songwriting and Social Commentary .............................................. 85 Anti-Modernism ........................................................................................................ 89 iv Prohibition................................................................................................................. 91 Local Politics ............................................................................................................ 94 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 96 Chapter 4: From Songster to Commercial Country Musician: Macon on Tour in the 1920s and 1930s .......................................................................................................................... 98 New Venues .................................................................................................................. 99 Rural Schoolhouses ................................................................................................. 101 Vaudeville ............................................................................................................... 105 The Bijou and Sam McGee ..................................................................................... 110 Loew Southern Tour ............................................................................................... 115 Transportation, Booking, and Advertising.................................................................. 116 Conclusion .................................................................................................................