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Sounds and the City pp 19–37Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Heart of the Country? The Construction of Nashville as the Capital of Country Music

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Part of the Leisure Studies in a Global Era book series (LSGE)

Abstract

On his 2013 album Two Lanes of Freedom, Tim McGraw offered a wistful paean to the enduring impact country music has had on the city of Nashville. Without country, he sang, Nashville ‘would be just another river town, streets would have a different sound, there’d be no honky tonks with whiskey rounds, no dreamers chasin’ dreams down, no tourists takin’ in the sights, no Stetsons under Broadway lights’. In other words, Nashville without country music wouldn’t be Nashville. But the reverse is said to be equally true. Although country music emerged as a set of vernacular styles and then a commercial genre well before Nashville dominated its production, the city is understood to have played an indispensable role in the development of country music.

Keywords

  • Commercial Success
  • Music Industry
  • Rhetorical Strategy
  • Recording Industry
  • Class Mobility

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Authors
  1. Diane Pecknold
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Carnegie Faculty, Senior Lecturer, Carnegie Faculty, Professor of Leisure Studies, Carnegie Faculty, Professor, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK

    Brett Lashua, Karl Spracklen & Stephen Wagg,  & 

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© 2014 Diane Pecknold

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Pecknold, D. (2014). Heart of the Country? The Construction of Nashville as the Capital of Country Music. In: Lashua, B., Spracklen, K., Wagg, S. (eds) Sounds and the City. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283115_2

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