Tamworth was the most successful in this regard, building on the success of the annual country festival in a way that strengthened the city's image in the music industry and created more permanent markers of place linked to the music style. In line with such goals, various levels of government have incorporated special events into cultural planning, emphasizing their potential for location and capacity building, as well as economic benefit (Dowling, 1997; see also Australia Council, 1998; Department of Communications, Information Technology). Almost by definition it represented rural life, although not without doubts and insecurities or an inability to admit that the land was blameless. Country music came to Australia mainly through radio broadcasts, music distribution. , 1998; Gibson, 2002); Gibson and Connell, 200
). , atvaudeville shows, "montbilly" sheet music copies (playing and singing at home were still popular) and in theaters that showed singing cowboy films, such as those starring GeneAutry, against the iconic visual backdrop: desert landscapes. suggests that it is seen as country music "defined in opposition to metropolitan norms" (Smith, 199
, p. From the 1930s to the 1950s, these styles of music—bluegrass, hillbilly music, cowboy songs, and folk—began to be more widely marketed using new technologies—recording studios, electric instruments—and at a time when the production and transmission infrastructure was centralized. during the second war because of its communist meanings' (Hemphill, 1970) which has since remained a term used in connection with specific forms of acoustic music apparently related to left-wing politics
PRESS
C . Davidson / Journal of Rural Studies 20 (200
) 387–
0
391
Country music was an arena in which stories about rural life and national identity were constructed not only in America but also in other countries where the genre gained public support .
