Southern History Remixed

How popular music reveals deep histories of racial tensionsin southern culture  

Southern History Remixedspotlights the key role of popular music in the shaping of the United States Southfrom the late nineteenth century to the era of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1940s,’50s, and ’60s. While musical activities are often sidelined in historicalnarratives of the region, Michael Bertrand shows that they can reveal much aboutsocial history and culture change as he connects the rise of rock ‘n’ roll tothe civil rights movement for racial equality.

In this book, Bertrand traces a long-termculture war in which white southerners struggled over the region’s culturalcomplexion with music serving as an engine that both sustained and challengedwhite supremacy. He shows how rock ‘n’ roll emerged as a working-class genre withbiracial sources that stoked white racial anxieties and engaged the region’scolor and culture lines. This book discusses the conflict over southern identitythat played out in responses to jazz, barn dance radio, Pentecostal and gospelmusic, Black radio programming, and rhythm and blues, concluding with a closelook at the popularity of Elvis Presley within a racially segregated society.

SouthernHistory Remixed suggests that both Black and whitesoutherners have used music as a tool to resist or negotiate a rigid regional hierarchy. Urgingreaders and scholars to take the study of popular music seriously, Bertrandargues that what occurs in the music world affects and reflects what happens inpolitics and history.

A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold andRandall M. Miller