Southern History Remixed

How popular music reveals deep histories of racial tensions

in southern culture



Southern History Remixed

spotlights the key role of popular music in the shaping of the United States South

from the late nineteenth century to the era of rock 'n' roll in the 1940s,

'50s, and '60s. While musical activities are often sidelined in historical

narratives of the region, Michael Bertrand shows that they can reveal much about

social history and culture change as he connects the rise of rock 'n' roll to

the civil rights movement for racial equality.

In this book, Bertrand traces a long-term

culture war in which white southerners struggled over the region's cultural

complexion with music serving as an engine that both sustained and challenged

white supremacy. He shows how rock 'n' roll emerged as a working-class genre with

biracial sources that stoked white racial anxieties and engaged the region's

color and culture lines. This book discusses the conflict over southern identity

that played out in responses to jazz, barn dance radio, Pentecostal and gospel

music, Black radio programming, and rhythm and blues, concluding with a close

look at the popularity of Elvis Presley within a racially segregated society.

Southern

History Remixed suggests that both Black and white

southerners have used music as a tool to resist or negotiate a rigid regional hierarchy. Urging

readers and scholars to take the study of popular music seriously, Bertrand

argues that what occurs in the music world affects and reflects what happens in

politics and history.



A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and

Randall M. Miller