The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization, and Country Music (Hardcover)

by Joli Jensen (Author)
Key Phrases: authenticity markers, country music performance, country music genre, Patsy Cline, Music Row, Rose Bowl (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
What does it mean when we call a music genre like country "authentic" or "pure", or, in contrast, "commercial"? By examining the dramatic changes that occurred in country music in the 1950s and '60s, Joli Jensen explores why the concept of authenticity in country music is so crucial to so many of its fans. Anyone interested in the ways that popular culture has been shaped in response to changing times will find Jensen's incisive interpretations instructive. 20 illustrations.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: Country Music Foundation Press; 1st edition (June 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082651314X
• ISBN-13: 978-0826513144
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,473,646 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating look at cultural change, October 26, 2001

By	Mark J. Knickelbine (Mt. Horeb, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is not history, nor is it fan literature. If that's what you're looking for, you have many alternatives available to you.

Instead, Jensen delivers a scholarly analysis of the controversy that arose in the '50s and '60s, when producers like Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley abandoned twangy honky-tonk stylings and created the pop-influenced Nashville Sound. Opry-loving purists cried sellout; Music Row executives anxiously defended the new sound as "still country." Where did this anxiety come from, Jensen asks, and what does it tell us about what cultural genres mean to people?

Jensen spends most of the book puncturing two widely-accepted country music myths: Music Row destroyed pure country music by pandering to pop audiences for money (in fact, country had been a commercially-driven enterpise since the '20s); and country had to play to a wider audience to save itself from the onslaught of rock 'n' roll (yet both country and rock were responding to the same set of changing market demands). If these two explanations don't account for the Nashville Sound and the battle lines drawn around it, what does? Jensen situates the answer, not in economic or cultural "forces," but in the beliefs and values of perfomers, producers, and fans. She reinforces her point by sharing her own experience of cultural identification in a honky-tonk bar she worked at as a grad student.

In so doing, Jensen puts people back in cultural criticism, a field in which economic systems and discursive structures are often portrayed as mysteriously acting by themselves. If I have a criticism of the book, it's that it doesn't go quite far enough. If, as she demonstrates, country fans value the music's generic markers as reaffirming class identities, how does the music industry turn class alienation into a "product" -- the sale of which presumably reinforces the capitalist infrasturcture that class alienation arises from? And if the study of culture is to be based in the values of people, how does it keep from drifting off in a sea of subjectivity?

That said, Jensen offers a well-researched, thoughfully written exploration of a fascinating moment in the evolution of country music. If you agree that country music is worth thinking about, then you'll want to read this book.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A college research paper, January 22, 2000

By	Diane Diekman (Upper Marlboro, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I felt like a specimen in a research lab while reading this book--because I'm one of the fans the author analyzes. In truth, I don't care whether the music is authentic or commercial. Most of us are smart enough to realize music is a business and people are in it for the money. I listen to country music because I love the sound, and I especially like fiddles and steel. There's no reason we must give up those instruments as a sign of progress. There's plenty of room in the business for traditional and new music. As for the Coke analogy, Classic Cokes tastes better than new Coke--that's why people wanted to keep it, not because they didn't like change. The author says she kept the Rose Bowl and college lives separate. Well, country music is an integral part of my life. I guess that makes me authentic. I wanted to learn about the development of the Nashville Sound. Instead I got a lecture on the meaning of commercialization and I was told to grow up and accept the fact that life changes. I wasted my money in buying this book.

3 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Read: commercialization by publishers and authors, August 3, 1998

By A Customer

This book shows less than no research and little or no personal knowledge. Three years as a waitress in an Illinois honky tonk gives her knowledge of Country music fans, and being a Vanderbilt University professor gives her legitimacy. I don't think so.

The author says in 100 words what could be said in 10. She uses amateurish sentences like "I explain this better in chapter 6."

With her experience in an Illinois honky tonk, she tells us honky tonks are a Southern phenomenon. Then she says honky tonk music is dead.

Her premises, presentation, and conclusions are faulty. This is simply a bad book.