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An investigation of the album Okie from Muskogee with special attention to the song Okie, and the controversy and conversations surrounding the song.

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Every now and then, a song inspires a cultural conversation that ends up looking like a brawl. Merle Haggard´s Okie from Muskogee, released in 1969, is a prime example of that important role of popular music. Okie immediately helped to frame an ongoing discussion about region and class, pride and politics, culture and counterculture. But the conversation around the song, useful as it was, drowned out the song itself, not to mention the other songs on the live album-named for Okie and performed in Muskogee-that Haggard has carefully chosen to frame what has turned out to be his most famous song. What are the internal clues for gleaning the intended meaning of Okie? What is the pay-off of the anti-fandom that Okie sparked (and continues to spark) in some quarters? How has the song come to be a shorthand for expressing all manner of anti-working class attitudes? What was Haggard´s artistic path to that stage in Oklahoma, and how did he come to shape the industry so profoundly at the moment when urban country singers were playing a major role on the American social and political landscape?

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1. Introduction; or, Hag as Historian
2. The Bakersfield Sound; or, Hag Gets Hard
3. Singing a Group Autobiography; or, Hag as Hero
4. Misreading "Okie"; or, Hag Gets Hit
5. Country Music and Labor; or, Hag´s Two Hands
6. Good-bye, Merle: Hag Heads Home

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Rachel Lee Rubin is Professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA, and Director of the Center for the Study of Humanities, Culture, and Society. She has published and taught extensively on popular music, popular culture, and culture of the American left. Rubin is a regular media commentator on popular culture and public affairs.

Rachel Rubin is Professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA where she directs the Center for the Study of Humanities, Culture, and Society. She has authored and edited numerous books on American popular culture including Well Met: Renaissance Faires and the American Counterculture (NYU Press), American Identities: An Introductory Textbook (Blackwell), and American Popular Music: New Approaches to the Twentieth Century (University of Massachusetts Press). She is a regular commentator on public radio and frequently quoted as a popular culture expert in the mainstream media.

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