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Thanks to Emily Toth for being the first penguin off the ice flow. I think the whole issue of authenticity is an extremely interesting and important concept. At least in the domain of country music, authenticity is highly significant as a concept for scholars, for artists and others in the business, and for fans. I personally find three books to be very helpful. Joli Jensen's The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization, and Country Music," Richard Peterson's Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity," as well as Charles Wolfe's discussion of the Grand Ole Opry early years "Good Natured Riot..." all provide fascinating, helpful insight into authenticity and how it functions. Peterson points out that authenticity is continually being negotiated. I find it intriguing how Classic Country stations play most anything a few days off the charts (just a tad of exaggeration here) including hard core country diva Shania Twain. Here is a revisionist style prediction: Sometime (and it may already have been done but I missed it) there will be serious scholarship identifying how Shania found ways to be authentically country while reaching out to a younger demographic which ordinarily wouldn't have listened to a country performer. Best wishes, James Akenson Tennessee Technological University.
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