Unit 4 Paper

After over three decades of broadcasting from the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry, a live country radio program, moved about nine miles out of the city to Opryland U.S.A. A few months following the move, hostess Carolyn Holloran said “Country music is wherever the soul of a Country music fan is!”1 This quote was spoken in reference to the relocation of the Grand Ole Opry. Nevertheless, it can transcend this context to further describe the genre of Country music. From its roots in the Appalachians, to its commercialization and crossovers, Country music has come to represent the culture of the Southern United States. Through this music people have formed a collective identity which respects the past and hails the future. It is a genre that has grown and changed with its people. In the 1940’s, top songs included Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!” by Tex Williams, and Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues.”2 These songs share similarities with today’s hot country songs, such as Luke Bryan’s “Drink a Beer,” “Carolina” by Parmalee, and Cassadee Pope’s “Wasting All These Tears.”3 We find we can draw common themes over the seven decades of music, such as leisure activities, southern states, and heartbreak. Further research conducted by Kakde, Ghanekar, and Sindhu of Kavi Associates to test their text reader program was performed using Billboard’s top 20 Country songs from the years 1985 to 2010. Their findings confirmed the themes of heartbreak and country life as well as identifying others such as family, religion, and memories. In an analysis of the frequency of these themes, country life was sung about most often, followed by heartbreak and family. The states most often sung about include Texas, Alabama and Tennessee; with many other southern states maintaining multiple lyrical mentions of their own.4 This data confirms