| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly: Country Music's Struggle for Respectability, 1939–1954. By Jeffrey J. Lange. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004. xii, 313 pp. Cloth, $54.95, ISBN 0-8203-2622-4. Paper, $25.95, ISBN 0-8203-2623-2.)
When did country music cease catering to a regional audience and become a national treasure? Jeffrey J. Lange argues that World War II served as the catalyst that broadened country music's appeal and commercial viability, and he describes the evolution of six musical subgenres in order to document those changes. His argument is a new spin on an old methodology, and, while it proffers some intriguing insights into the nationalization of the country music industry, his study is hampered by limits intrinsic to his method.	1
For the country music novice, Lange provides a detailed summary of the music's commercial beginnings as well as an evaluation of the six subgenres that encapsulated the transition from regional to national fare. Lange ties the changes to southerners moving to industrial plants in the North and West to work. Listening to country music in the military via Armed Forces Radio or jukeboxes also sold audiences. Finally, the consolidation of the country music industry in Los Angeles and Nashville allowed new promoters and businessmen to target audiences that might not otherwise have heard the new commercial fare.	. . .

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