Customer Reviews

Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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If you read one book about country music, this is the one you should read. Fox's brilliant analysis sidesteps the whole Nashville-Dollywood-Branson commericial thing to explore how working class people in rural Texas and Illinois use country music to express their senses of self and their aesthetic and cultural values. The way he writes about the singing voice and the way he incorporates the character of the people he studied with into his presentation is about the best I've seen. Why only four stars, you ask? Well.....It can get a little dense sometimes - he has a theoretical point to make about music and culture, and he is after all a scholar (teaches in the music department at Columbia University). But bear with that and you'll be very happy you did. If you love country music, read this book.

This is first of all a scholarly work. Since I have no college background in the social sciences, it took some dictionary work to get through the more densely-written anthropological prose, but part of the charm of this book is that the subjects Fox studied are blue-collar Texans who love county music. There is a lively alternation between his use of the $10 dollar words they abhor, their own speech, and the language it takes to analyze it. Aaron Fox looks at the way they talk to each other and the way country music fits into their lives and outlook. The author's personal involvement in playing music in honkytonks doesn't hurt matters. His analysis of how George Jones sings "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is worth the cover charge.