Contrary to popular belief, the roots of American country music do
not lie solely on southern farms or in mountain hollows. Rather,
much of this music recorded before World War II emerged from the
bustling cities and towns of the Piedmont South. No group
contributed more to the commercialization of early country music
than southern factory workers. In
Linthead Stomp, Patrick
Huber explores the origins and development of this music in the
Piedmont's mill villages.
Huber offers vivid portraits of a colorful cast of Piedmont
millhand musicians, including Fiddlin' John Carson, Charlie Poole,
Dave McCarn, and the Dixon Brothers, and considers the impact that
urban living, industrial work, and mass culture had on their lives
and music. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including rare
78-rpm recordings and unpublished interviews, Huber reveals how the
country music recorded between 1922 and 1942 was just as modern as
the jazz music of the same era.
Linthead Stomp celebrates
the Piedmont millhand fiddlers, guitarists, and banjo pickers who
combined the collective memories of the rural countryside with the
upheavals of urban-industrial life to create a distinctive American
music that spoke to the changing realities of the twentieth-century
South.