Where I come from, it’s cornbread and chicken… This line from Alan Jackson’s country hit defines the genre as the music of the American South. All its ambiguity set aside, the South stands proudly for its hospitality, politeness, sense of place and community. Family and religion are traditionally more important down there than in the rest of the country. As Southern culture becomes more and more americanized and the music of the small town Southern man (another Jackson song) is adapted for a mainstream audience, the original rustic identity that defines the true American genre loses its charm. Modern country music has become slick and professionalized and sounds more and more like common pop music to make it more profitable. This study focuses on the authentic country music identity and how it is threatened by increasing commercialization. It defines said identity and the working class culture from which it springs. It traces the history of country music and its different genres from the 19th and early 20th century cowboy music over Western Swing and Honky-Tonk of the 1930s and 1940s, the progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s up to today’s mainstream Country Pop, and shows how its target audience has changed over time and how the opposition tries to preserve traditional sounds. Authentic Texas Country is set in contrast to the commercial Nashville recording industry and both are compared in their respective developments over the years. In the face of terrorism, which poses a threat to the American National identity, country music with its representative American values has become increasingly popular and enforces a strong collective identity on a national level. However, in doing so, it also dilutes the original identity that was once restricted to life in a small town community rather than the country as a whole. What sets country music as a genre apart is its narrative structure. Every song has a story to tell: Be it about ‘The Cold Hard Facts of Life’, a prayer finally answered, or the first kiss on a Saturday night.

Textprobe: Chapter V, History of Country Music: Blending of Cultures vs. Preservation of Identity: How did country music evolve over the years? In this chapter I will trace the history of country music and show how different cultures blend to form new musical styles while traditionalists try to preserve their regional or ethnic identity. The early folk music of the South is British at its core but intermingled with many cultural strains (Malone 2002a: 4). Despite strict social segregation in the South, country music borrowed heavily from black musical styles like spirituals, blues, ragtime, jazz, as well as major instrumental techniques (5). Traveling shows like the Christy Minstrels brought music from Northern cities to the rural areas of the South (6). These shows performed often in black face and served as an ‘early commercial outlet for country musicians’. 1, Cowboy Music: The first unofficial western music were the cowboy songs of the 19th century. Jack Thorp was the first to record cowboy songs in 1889/1890 in eastern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle (Carr and Munde 9), however, they were not properly documented. The first scholarly collection was conducted by John Avery Lomax and published as ‘Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads’ in 1910 (10). Cowboy music was not yet commercial Cowboys sang to entertain one another or simply to pass time during a lonely and boring job. It is also said that they sang to calm the cattle, although this was not common practice. Not all cowboy songs were proper for general circulation because they contained inappropriate language or themes that were not supposed to be talked about (11). In the 19th century, all cowboy songs were passed on orally. Guy Logsdon’s ‘The Whorehouse Bells’, for instance, was published as late as 1989. Cowboys were often single men without a home, who were working on cattle ranches. The first permanent white settlement in West Texas was established in the 1800s. In the later part of the century, dances were the most important social events (12). Among the most popular dance styles were the schottische, polka, square dance and the quadrille (Shaw). The schottische is a round dance similar to the polka. The dancers stand side by side, 3 steps and one hop. The Quadrille is the most sociable dance because the frequent interchange of partners allows for pleasant conversation (Routledge). Since only a hand full of women attended the dances, men had to wait for their turn to dance. Some men would retreat to dancing with other men who were marked with a handkerchief as substitute dancers, also known as ‘heifer branded’ or ‘lady fair’ (Carr and Munde 13). The image of the guitar-playing cowboy was not created until the emergence of Hollywood western movies in the 1930s and 1940s. Among the favorite musical instruments of early folk and cowboy music were the harmonica, banjos, and fiddles (14). Fiddles were easy to carry around and were requisites for square dances. Although fiddle music as such was highly prized, the fiddler himself was ‘often characterized as lazy, hard drinking, and generally worthless’ (15). Fiddle contests are still prominent today (18). One of the most radiant fiddle players is Johnny Gimble, who used to play with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Johnny Gimble & Band, whose members are for the most part his own family, are regulars at Guero’s Taco Bar in Austin on every last Thursday of the month. His son Richard plays the bass and his granddaughter Emily plays piano and shines with her beautiful mezzo-soprano in the style of Norah Jones. Fiddle playing is not the same everywhere you go it varies from state to state, and sometimes even from region to region. The most common styles are North Georgian, Mississippian, and Texan (Carr and Munde 23), which influence one another and form musical hybrids (24). Some fiddle players accompany themselves, others stick to the melody while other members of the band are improvising. One of Texas’ first fiddling legends was Eck Robertson (Peterson 59). In Christian folk tradition the fiddle was the instrument of the devil. Yet, its popularity was an indicator for the controversies between religion and music in the rural American South (Malone 2002a: 17 Carr and Munde 15). J.R. Craddock, observes the controversies of Texas folk life:

• Authentic Country Music Identity

• Working Class Culture

• Commercialization

• National Expansion

• History of Country Music

Stephanie Schäfer was born in Braunschweig in 1984. After her graduation in 2004 and two years of law school, she received a BA degree in International Communication and Translation from the University of Hildesheim specializing in Business Translations of English and Spanish. Ever since her High School Year in 2001, the author has formed a special bond with the culture and history of the United States, and the state of Texas in particular. In accordance with that special interest she chose to write her BA-thesis about the impact of Mexican culture on U.S. border states. In the course of her MA degree program North American Studies at the Philipps University of Marburg, Stephanie Schäfer focused mainly on the academic field of cultural studies. At the end of her studies, she returned to Texas to do some in-field research for her work on the authentic Texas country music identity.