). Country music has also been closely tied to American national identity, seen as "our peculiar art, [whose] inspiration comes from the heart of the nation" (Peterson, 1997, p. , 1998; Gibson, 2002); Gibson and Connell, 200
). Such estimates of music venues reflect, to some extent, the accumulation of production infrastructures, the raw number of active musicians, and the continuous recording of a relatively dense cast; in other cases, such associations are created as part of media campaigns and local marketing strategies, "invented traditions" (Hobsbawm, 1983) that have become central to the tourism industry and the music economy (Atkinson, 1997; Cohen, 1997; Gibson and Connell 200
) . suggests that it is seen as country music "defined in opposition to metropolitan norms" (Smith, 199
, p. Sometimes visual and audio texts combine to represent places in a particular way, such as in music videos and film soundtracks – or in festivals where music is combined with stage performances, dance, room design and decoration, and other visual elements. metropolitan and international media (Peterson, 1997; Jensen, 1998). In some cases, the connections between music and place coalesce into a definable "sound", such as the output of the music industry at different times in New Orleans, Seattle, Liverpool, Detroit and San Francisco. gramophone records. Gibson, D.