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Religion and Country Music
Author(s) -
Hayes John
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
religion compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.113
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1749-8171
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00209.x
Subject(s) - protestantism , working class , popular music , country , nationalism , folk music , history , white (mutation) , music history , gender studies , art , religious studies , literature , sociology , music education , visual arts , political science , musical , law , acoustics , philosophy , politics , biochemistry , physics , chemistry , gene
Country music as a commercial genre began in a society where religion exerted considerable cultural influence – the U.S. South of the 1920s. Musicians of the white working‐class recorded songs for national record companies, who codified their oeuvres into a form they called “hillbilly” music, or what we know as the first country music. Hillbilly music bore the clear imprint of working‐class religion, a folk form of Protestantism that took shape in the late nineteenth century. Over the music’s subsequent history, folk Protestantism receded as an influence as the white working‐class went through drastic economic change and dislocation. Country music after the mid‐1950s sang less of longings defined by religion and more of secular working‐class life. In the 1970s, a newer, national Protestant movement – evangelicalism – made some inroads, primarily in the personal lives of country musicians. More recently, the quasi‐religion of U.S. nationalism has informed popular country music songs, even as a distinct regional or working‐class character has faded from the music, in fan base, image, or personal background of musicians.