This week’s book was Real Country: Music and Language in Working Class Culture by Aaron Fox, an anthropological and ethnomusical analysis of the country music culture and its associated patterns of language and their impacts on everyday life in Lockhart Texas.
The author Aaron A Fox, the Associate Professor of Music (Ethnomusicology) at Columbia University, earned a BA in music from Harvard University and a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Texas. Fox's work focuses on a variety of topics, including the relationship between language and music, working-class and popular culture, music and social identity, and ethnographic methodology. Other than the work in the “country” culture in Texas Fox’s other work includes work in various Native American tribes on music restoration projects, much like the work seen throughout this book.…show more content… The book consist of specific examples followed by detailed Fox’s explanations and analysis of the language and lifestyle in the working class country culture, specifically in the form of music, in order to divulge the complexities that are not known to those outside of the culture.
Fox’s target audience throughout this book is the general public in the United States. He is targeting this group to try and create a better understanding of what actually goes into the making of country music and the culture behind it. The language he uses supports this because he uses what he refers to as “ten-dollar words” to make most of his arguments which show that he is reaching out to the world outside of the culture he is