|
View the H-Southern-Music Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in H-Southern-Music's November 2009 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in H-Southern-Music's November 2009 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the H-Southern-Music home page.
Appalachia *does* extend to Northeast Mississippi--and for that matter the Alabama Black Belt--by the definition of the Appalachian Regional Council--which also, BTW, extends it into the Piedmont [My home town of Spartanburg is "Appalachian" by this definition]. A lot of that, though was simple political log-rolling [According to the ARC, the Shenandoah Valley isn't "Appalachian," because Harry Byrd didn't want it to be included]. The deeper problem is that "Appalachia" is, as Appalachian scholars have been arguing for a generation, an "invented" region; it has no firm political boundaries, since except for West Virginia it consists of bits and pieces of states. Its definition has thus varied widely, depending on the criteria used to draw the lines. Culturally, the concept has depended on defining the Appalachian population as "peculiar" and as isolated--which, given the migrations of the last two and a half centuries, and the enormous amount of well-documented [by people on this list] cultural interchange, has been pretty well demolished. I believe that Pat's real target isn't the notion that country music had Appalachian origins so much as the notion that it's somehow "premodern" music. Whether it came from the mill villages or the coal camps, whether recorded in Charlotte or Bristol, it's clearly a product of modern culture. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David L. Carlton Associate Professor of History Vanderbilt University VU Sta. B, #351523, Nashville, TN 37235-1523 Ph. 615.322.3326 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
|