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Gone Country: How Nashville Transformed a Music Genre into a Lifestyle Brand

Gone Country historicizes the country music business from the late 1960s to 9/11, centering experiences of artists and fans of color who were purposefully excluded by the industry. Drawing from industry archives and artist and fan testimonials, it shows how major figures in the Nashville-based country music business crafted the myth of a purely white subculture while intentionally ignoring Black and Latinx country artists and fans. This talk will cover how country music operated as a tool of white grievance alongside the early rise of country’s first Black star, Charley Pride, in a post-Rodney King America.

Our Mission: Creative and ethical leadership for the 21st-century.

Our Values: Respect, Courage, Collaboration for Mutual Benefit.

Our Curriculum: Contemporary, innovative, inclusive, and global. An extraordinary range of courses informed by cutting-edge theoretical perspectives, teaching and research methods, and vehicles for reporting and representing knowledge. And we do so in search of the myriad answers to a question that is perennial in its timeliness:  What is America?

Department of American Studies • 204 Greenlaw Hall CB#3520 • UNC-CH • Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520
phone: (919) 962-5481 • fax: (919) 962-3520 • © 2013-2014 by The Department of American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.