Travis Stimeling, Ph.D. 2007

Advisor: Jocelyn Neal

Dissertation Title: Space, place, and protest: Austin’s progressive country music scene and the negotiation of Texan identities, 1968-1978

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Dissertation Abstract:

The Austin, Texas, progressive country scene of the 1970s, with its extensive network of clubs that regularly featured a community of local rock and roll bands, singer-songwriters, and folk singers, has been characterized by music critic Rick Koster as “mellow to the third power.” In the wake of the turmoil of the late 1960s, such a low-pressure cooperative environment was seen by many Austin musicians as an opportunity for them to break free from what they perceived to be the oppressive music industry regimes of Nashville, Los Angeles, and New York. Austin’s maverick rhetoric failed, however, to fully represent the relevance of Texas’ cultural history, the existence of a struggling music industry in Austin, and the complex relationships musicians held with Nashville and the other major musical centers they publicly disavowed. 

This dissertation seeks to characterize Austin as both a site of tensions between mainstream and quasi-independent country artists and as a place where Texans – both native and adopted – used country music to articulate their anxieties and affirm or redefine their cultural identities. It is the central assumption of this work that perceptions and projections of Austin as a unique countercultural place had a direct impact upon both the composition and reception of Austin’s progressive country music. The reality of Austin music in the 1970s was, therefore, much more heterogeneous than the rhetoric of the Austin scene might indicate. The physical space of Austin provided the infrastructure within which the work of singer-songwriters, rock and roll bands, and Nashville recording artists could exist, while romantic visions of Austin’s cosmic cowboys’ provided metaphoric space within which important cultural and social issues could be addressed. This study will combine the music made during this time, the business practices of the venues where these artists performed, and the social histories as recounted through interviews and historical documents to offer a more representative understanding of the scene and its role in popular culture. Through an exploration of Austin’s physical, musical, and social spaces, this research will demonstrate that Austin was much more than a site for inveterate rebel cowboys to perpetuate derogatory Texan stereotypes in anti-commercial music. Instead, these stereotypes were employed as tools to construct Texan-ness and to broadcast it to a national audience.

Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award

Travis Stimeling was Associate Professor of Musicology, West Virginia University until his untimely passing in 2023. After publishing his first book Cosmic Cowboys and New Hicks: The Countercultural Sounds of Austin’s Progressive Country Music Scene, which drew on his dissertation research, Dr. Stimeling was extremely productive, having published a further four books, including The Oxford Handbook of Country Music.