The Downhome Sound: Diversity and Politics in Americana Music

American music embraces country, bluegrass, blues, folk, gospel, cowpunk, jazz, rock and roll, rockabilly, southern rock, and emphasizes narrative. Bailey (political science, Valdosta State Univ.) examines American music to see how it reflects the country’s attitudes about race and gender identity and whether it affects listeners’ perceptions of inclusion and diversity. She looks at nominations for the Americana Music Association awards—not the same as the AMAs—for performers, recordings and songs and compares them to how they’re distributed among white, BIPOC, heterosexual, and LGBTQIA+ performers. She analyzes audience responses to songs’ themes to gauge whether listening to them produces a change in attitude about the performers, the musical genre, or the topic. The academic author’s first book reads like a dissertation: thesis, testing, statistical analysis, conclusion. But when she relates her own experiences growing up in the South, it’s appealing.