Cold War Country - (Studies in United States Culture) by Joseph M Thompson (Paperback)

About the Book

Country music maintains a special, decades-long relationship to American military life, but these ties didn't just happen. This readable history reveals how country music's Nashville-based business leaders on Music Row created partnerships with the Pentagon to sell their audiences on military service while selling the music to servicemembers.

Book Synopsis

Country music maintains a special, decades-long relationship to American military life, but these ties didn't just happen. This readable history reveals how country music's Nashville-based business leaders on Music Row created partnerships with the Pentagon to sell their audiences on military service while selling the music to servicemembers. Beginning in the 1950s, the military flooded armed forces airwaves with the music, hosted tour dates at bases around the world, and drew on artists from Johnny Cash to Lee Greenwood to support recruitment programs. Over the last half of the twentieth century, the close connections between the Defense Department and Music Row gave an economic boost to the white-dominated sounds of country while marginalizing Black artists and fueling divisions over the meaning of patriotism.

This story is filled with familiar stars like Roy Acuff, Elvis Presley, and George Strait, as well as lesser-known figures: industry executives who worked the halls of Congress, country artists who dissented from the stereotypically patriotic trappings of the genre, and more. Joseph M. Thompson argues convincingly that the relationship between Music Row and the Pentagon helped shape not only the evolution of popular music but also race relations, partisanship, and images of the United States abroad.

Review Quotes

"Essential. . . . Written in clear, engaging prose, Cold War Country is a delight to read, and would work very well in an undergraduate classroom. . . . Any scholar of the US military, popular music, and the wider cultural paradoxes of the modern United States will learn a tremendous deal from Thompson's eye-opening book."--Diplomatic History

"Cold War Country provides a thorough documentation and analysis of the process by which Country music and the U.S. military became entwined. . . . Thompson's excellent Cold War discussion will be a go-to resource for understanding the relationship and actions of Music Row and the Pentagon regarding Country music during, and even after, the Cold War."--James E. Akenson, Louisiana History

"Cold War Country follows the money to explain in rich, shocking detail the genesis of a phenomenon--the marriage of country music and the military--that even experts usually take for granted." --Natalie Weiner, writer and cofounder of Don't Rock the Inbox

"Essential reading . . . Thompson's exploration of the longstanding ties between the US military and country music doesn't just help you rethink country music, but the ways in which America uses popular music to its own ends. Thompson's immaculately researched book upends expectations while diving deep into the previously unreported ties . . . between the army and Music Row."--Rolling Stone, Best Music Books of 2024

"Joseph Thompson tells the fascinating and forgotten story of how the Pentagon and Music Row encouraged and reinforced each other. . . . [and] reveals why this happened."--Boston Globe

"Numerous scholars have connected country music to patriotic American themes. Joseph M. Thompson's Cold War Country makes the linkage more distinct. . . . Thompson's well-written book uses a variety of primary and secondary sources, making it accessible to students and scholars interested in the intersection of culture, economics, and the military."--Journal of American History

"Thompson digs deep into the nuanced history of the mutually beneficial relationship between the Pentagon and Nashville's Music Row. . . . Cold War Country significantly contributes to American music and political historiography and would make an engaging and useful reading for a graduate seminar or upper-division undergraduate course."--North Carolina Historical Review

"Thompson's Cold War Country will not only transform scholarly discussions around country music, but it will make a crucial contribution to larger conversations about popular culture, the political history of the South, and the United States in the twentieth century. It is a model for the kind of scholarship that anyone who wants to work on music or pop culture can benefit from."--Charles Hughes, author of Country Soul: Making Music and Race in the American South

"Thompson's book convincingly documents the close association of country music with the U.S. military while also providing lesser-known narratives about the careers of some famous country performers."--Something Else!

"Through an engagingly written narrative . . . Thompson makes a persuasive case that the association of country music with militarized patriotism is attributable not to something latent in the culture of the working-class white South, but rather to industry positioning and savvy self-interest."--Journal of Southern History