Event Title
Dixie Lullaby: Songs of the South From Tin Pan Alley
Time/Date
11-13-2009 10:00 AM
Abstract
Dr. Cox's paper focuses on popular music about the American South, tracing its development from the minstrel tunes of Stephen Foster and Daniel Decatur Emmett to the "coon songs" of the late nineteenth-century, and finally, the "back-to-Dixie" songs of Tin Pan Alley. Cox shows how popular music, over several decades, helped perpetuate a nostalgic image of the South as a pre-industrial American paradise where life was easy and less hectic than the urban North, and African Americans like the beloved "mammy" were idealized as happy servants.
Dixie Lullaby: Songs of the South From Tin Pan Alley
Dr. Cox's paper focuses on popular music about the American South, tracing its development from the minstrel tunes of Stephen Foster and Daniel Decatur Emmett to the "coon songs" of the late nineteenth-century, and finally, the "back-to-Dixie" songs of Tin Pan Alley. Cox shows how popular music, over several decades, helped perpetuate a nostalgic image of the South as a pre-industrial American paradise where life was easy and less hectic than the urban North, and African Americans like the beloved "mammy" were idealized as happy servants.
Comments
*Full text for this paper is not available.
Presented in the First Plenary Session: American Popular Music and the South