"'Smile when you call me hillbilly' : the modernization of country music and the struggle for respectability, 1939-1954"

This study parallels changes occurring within country music and southern society in the years between 1939 and 1954. In doing so, it demonstrates how the period wimessed the modernization of country music, its evolution from a regional folk art form aimed at an audience composed primarily of white rural southerners to a nationwide phenomenon seeking to expand its audience and gain respectability on both a regional and national level. This transformation occurred within the context of changes in audience demographics and listeners' preferences initiated by social and cultural developments. An investigation of changing performance styles demonstrates the process of acculturation into the American mainstream undergone by country music and its audience in the 1940s and early 1950s, while an examination of changes in the genre's lyrical subject matter reveals southerners' ambivalent feelings towards nationalization and the modernization of the South. While many embraced the economic benefits of modernization, others begrudged the social and economic consequences. Dividing country music into six sub-genres (Progressive Country, Western Swing, Post-War Traditional, Honky Tonk, Country-Pop and Country-Blues) provides the means for discussing these varying viewpoints as well as explaining country music's expanding appeal.

Analyzing over five thousand sound recordings from the era, this dissertation provides an understanding of the characteristics of the sub-genres and offers insights into reasons for fluctuations in their popularity. Additionally, this study presents the first in-depth examination of changes occurring within country music in the 1940s and early 1950s and explains why the modernization of the genre took place in the decade after World War II.