Performing Nashville: Music Tourism and Country Music's Main Street (Leisure Studies in a Global Era)

This book explores the formation and continuance of Nashville, Tennessee as a music place, the importance of the fans (tourists) in creating Nashville’s multifaceted musical identity, and the music and city’s influence on the formation and performance of the individual and collective identities of the country-music fan. More importantly, the author discusses the larger issue of country music as a signifier of tradition suggesting that for many visitors, the music serves as a soundtrack, while Nashville serves as a performative space that permits the creation, performance, and remembrance of not only the country-music tradition, but also various individual and collective traditions and an idealized American identity. Through the theatrics of tourism, Nashville and its connection to country music are performed daily, reinforced through the sound and landscape of country music. __Performing Nashville__ will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including tourism studies, leisure studies, ethnomusicology, sociology, folklore and anthropology. Acknowledgments 7 Contents 9 List of Figures 10 1: Class on Tour: An Experiential Approach to Teaching and Researching Popular Music 11 Touring the Field 15 The King Biscuit Festival 16 Teaching Popular Music in Nashville 18 Music City Museums and Memorabilia 20 References 24 2: Performing the South 25 Authenticity and the Preservation of Culture 29 Touristic Authenticity 32 Minstrelsy and Performances of the Imagined South 37 Race and Hillbilly 42 Nashville and the Nationalization of Country Music 57 References 60 3: Performing Nashville 64 Music City as a Performative Space 64 Going to the Country 65 Performing the Imagined 69 Sing Me Back Home 71 Homecoming 76 Pilgrimage to Nashville 79 References 82 4: Performing the Backstage 85 Observations of the Opry 89 Country Music’s Main Street 92 The District: A Living History of an Imagined Past 98 Performing the Soundscape 101 Performances of Locality 103 Backstage Gaze 105 Performing the Imagined Nashville 109 Sound Barriers and the Confined Soundscape of Music City 113 References 117 5: Country Music and the Sonic Artifact 119 The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum 122 Musicians Hall of Fame 132 Musicians on Display 134 Johnny Cash Museum 135 George Jones Museum 137 Willie Nelson Museum and Gift Shop 139 Places of Production and Performance 143 RCA Studio B 143 The Ryman Auditorium 147 Places for Tourists to Perform 155 Robert’s Western World 158 Conclusion 159 References 160 6: CMA Festival: The Ultimate Fan Experience 162 Exploring the Festival Soundscape 168 “It’s Nashville”: Performing the Imagined City 174 Entering the Festival: A Performance in Liminality 176 Concert Regalia and the Country-Music Ritual 179 Being in the Know: Festival Experiences as Tourist Capital 184 Waiting Is Performing 187 Festival Philanthropy as Performance 194 References 199 7: The New Nashville: Reimagined, Revised, Retold 202 What’s Left Out? 203 What’s Been Added: Nashville as Seen on TV 207 Nashville in the Streets of Nashville 213 Conclusion 218 References 219 Index 221 Front Matter....Pages i-xi Class on Tour: An Experiential Approach to Teaching and Researching Popular Music....Pages 1-14 Performing the South....Pages 15-53 Performing Nashville....Pages 55-75 Performing the Backstage....Pages 77-110 Country Music and the Sonic Artifact....Pages 111-153 CMA Festival: The Ultimate Fan Experience....Pages 155-194 The New Nashville: Reimagined, Revised, Retold....Pages 195-213 Back Matter....Pages 215-223