A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music

by Diane Pecknold, Kristine M. McCusker

Overview

From the smiling, sentimental mothers portrayed in 1930s radio barn dance posters, to the sexual shockwaves generated by Elvis Presley, to the female superstars redefining contemporary country music, gender roles and imagery have profoundly influenced the ways country music is made and enjoyed. Proper male and female roles have influenced the kinds of sounds and images that could be included in country music; preconceptions of gender have helped to determine the songs and artists audiences would buy or reject; and gender has shaped the identities listeners made for themselves in relation to the music they revered.

This interdisciplinary collection of essays is the first book-length effort to examine how gender conventions, both masculine and feminine, have structured the creation and marketing of country music. The essays explore the uses of gender in creating the personas of stars as diverse as Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, and Shania Twain. The authors also examine how deeply conventions have influenced the institutions and everyday experiences that give country music its image: the popular and fan press, the country music industry in Nashville, and the line dance crazes that created the dance hall boom of the 1990s.

From Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life" to Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue," from Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man" to Loretta Lynn's ode to birth control, "The Pill," A Boy Named Sue demonstrates the role gender played in the development of country music and its current prominence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781578066780
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	11/02/2004
Series:	American Made Music Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Diane Pecknold is an associate professor of women's and gender studies at the University of Louisville. Kristine M. McCusker is a professor of history at Middle Tennessee State University. Together they edited Country Boys and Redneck Women: New Essays in Gender and Country Music, published by University Press of Mississippi.

Table of Contents

	Foreword: Muddying the Clear Water The Dubious Transparency of Country Music	vii
	Acknowledgments	xvii
	Introduction	xix
	Bibliography and Further Reading	xxiv
	"Bury Me Beneath the Willow" Linda Parker and Definitions of Tradition on the National Barn Dance, 1932-1935	3
	"Spade Doesn't Look Exactly Starved" Country Music and the Negotiation of Women's Domesticity in Cold War Los Angeles	24
	Charline Arthur: The (Un)Making of a Honky-Tonk Star	44
	I Don't Think Hank Done It That Way: Elvis, Country Music, and the Reconstruction of Southern Masculinity	59
	"I Wanna Play House" Configurations of Masculinity in the Nashville Sound Era	86
	Patsy Cline's Crossovers: Celebrity, Reputation, and Feminine Identity	107
	Dancing Together: The Rhythms of Gender in the Country Dance Hall	132
	Between Riot Grrrl and Quiet Girl: The New Women's Movement in Country Music	155
	Going Back to the Old Mainstream: No Depression, Robbie Fulks, and Alt. Country's Muddied Waters	178
	Postlude	196
	Notes	199
	Contributors	224
	Index	227