Graeme Smith's history of Australian folk and country music can be read within a variety of contexts: as part of the history of Australian popular culture, an examination of Australian national identity, or a case study of ‘local’ music-making and music industry. While these are important realms for comparison and critique (and I will address them below), I read his book with a more specific context at the forefront of my mind. My current research project concerns the present-day performance of bluegrass (a country music subgenre) in the Czech Republic. I was eager to hear about another ‘marginal’ world locale where country music was part of a negotiation of the ‘global’ and the ‘local’. I was not disappointed, either in the information that Smith provides, nor in the way that he shapes the stories he tells.
For a reader (such as myself) almost entirely ignorant of Australian history, this book serves as an informative sketch of major events and trends as they pertain to popular culture and music-making. Smith provides a wealth of detail in his historical narratives, such as in his linking of performance venues and the nature of folk-revival performance practice. While he mentions his involvement as a performer and member of the communities he discusses in the book, Smith does not cite or otherwise mention the insider experiences that inform his writing. Although this book is a history, it is in many ways a richly personal and critical account and the moments where Smith opines or generalises would be stronger with a more overt articulation of his personal experiential authority.
The tone of the book as a whole does provide a sense of Smith's personal voice and positionality. The writing is engaging and clear, jargon is rare and the thread of Smith's thought is easily followed through the volume. Smith succeeded in keeping my interest as he balanced historical detail (such as the succession of ruling parties in the last decades of Australian government) and historiographic summary, including case study specifics as well as large-scale surveys that cover Australia's history and the background of Australian music-making.
In light of recent research into music ‘scenes’ and ‘milieux’, Smith's emphasis on the notion and substance of ‘community’ is notable. Smith draws from Benedict Anderson's well worn phrase the idea of ‘imagined community’, posing folk and country as modes of imagination for Australian music-makers. Smith wrestles with the intercultural/international dynamics intrinsic to non-US country (and folk), finding that ‘… these musical genres provide people with frameworks to think about the various tensions in contemporary Australian experience – between past and present, between country and city, between indigenous and settler claims to the land, between Anglo-Australians and non-British immigrants, between a shared national culture and multicultural diversity, between local national experience and global and international obligations’ (p. 196).
This quote provides a list of the major issues that Smith deals with through this volume. His treatment of folk and country with regard to the international ‘folk’ movement, class and indigeneity provides information and analysis useful not only for those interested in Australia. Smith's elegant presentation of Australian folk and country is an exemplar for a study of ‘local music’ and how this activity fits into larger networks of music and people, and places.
