Locating the canon in Tamworth: Historical narratives, cultural memory and Australia's "Country Music Capital"

Abstract

This article concerns the regional city of Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia, a place that prides itself on its reputation as Australia's home of country music. We consider the ongoing memorialisation of country music in Tamworth, and how the processes associated with the project of articulating country music's past work to create and maintain something that can be recognised (and experienced) as a dominant narrative or an Australian country music 'canon'. Outlining a number of instances in which the canon is produced and experienced (including in performances, rolls of honour and monuments built around the city), the article explores the ways in which this narrativisation of Australia's country music history contributes to a certain kind of memory of the genre's past.