Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South - Softcover

Huber, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1469621916 ISBN 13: 9781469621913

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014

Synopsis

Contrary to popular belief, the roots of American country music do not lie solely on southern farms or in mountain hollows. Rather, much of this music recorded before World War II emerged from the bustling cities and towns of the Piedmont South. No group contributed more to the commercialization of early country music than southern factory workers. In Linthead Stomp, Patrick Huber explores the origins and development of this music in the Piedmont's mill villages.

Huber offers vivid portraits of a colorful cast of Piedmont millhand musicians, including Fiddlin' John Carson, Charlie Poole, Dave McCarn, and the Dixon Brothers, and considers the impact that urban living, industrial work, and mass culture had on their lives and music. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including rare 78-rpm recordings and unpublished interviews, Huber reveals how the country music recorded between 1922 and 1942 was just as modern as the jazz music of the same era. Linthead Stomp celebrates the Piedmont millhand fiddlers, guitarists, and banjo pickers who combined the collective memories of the rural countryside with the upheavals of urban-industrial life to create a distinctive American music that spoke to the changing realities of the twentieth-century South.

About this title

Book Description:

"Patrick Huber has uncovered a hitherto unexplored influence on the development of early country music: southern textile mill workers. He weaves the multiple threads of his research--in history, sociology, discography, and genealogy--into an absorbing narrative and a persuasive argument."--Tony Russell, author of Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost

About the Author:

Patrick Huber is professor of history at Missouri University of Science and Technology, and the author or editor of five books, including The Hank Williams Reader.

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1469621916
• ISBN 13: 9781469621913
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 440