Well friends, my first semester of teaching is officially
in the books and I can honestly say that I absolutely loved it. There was
certainly a learning curve involved with the job (particularly in terms of how much time
goes in to preparing and executing a brand new course), but the semester was
filled with incredible guest speakers and interesting student papers and I
still can’t believe that I got paid to teach about country music around the
world. It’s been a sweet gig and I am happy to announce that I have been invited me
back to teach the same course again this spring!
I’d like to take just a moment to sincerely thank both
Indiana University and the Global Village Living-Learning Center for providing me
with this opportunity. Specifically, I’d like to thank Dr. Jeff Holdeman,
director of the Global Village, for his tireless work promoting the course to
new students and student-advisors, his always creative pedagogy tips, and for
sharing his wisdom and experience to help make this course be the best that it
can be. Similarly, I’d like to thank Dr. James Akenson and Dr. David McDonald for
their encouraging and thoughtful feedback during the early stages of the course
design.
Despite my nervousness about returning from Finland
just days before the semester began, it all seemed to come together in the end.
Our course met twice a week, focusing on country music in the United States one
day, then looking at international influences and global permutations of
country music (in the broadest sense of the word) the next. This structure made
for some excellent in-class discussions and we even had a chance to talk with
our primary text’s author, Dr. Jocelyn Neal. As fortune would have it, she was
a visiting scholar at IU's Jacobs School of Music for one week this semester
and I was overjoyed when she accepted my invitation to come and meet with our
class to discuss her chapter on bluegrass music. Thank you again Professor
Neal. Your teaching style is incredibly inspirational and I took a lot of great
tips from that lecture and our after-class milkshake!
Country Music & the World students with Patterson Hood
From a guest speaker standpoint, it really was a magical
semester. I’m indebted to so many friends who took time out of their busy
schedules to come and talk with our class about their craft and country music. In
addition to Professor Neal’s surprise lecture, we had the opportunity to Skype
with world-class Finnish bluegrass musician Jussi Syren and discuss many of the
differences between bluegrass music in the United States and bluegrass music in
Finland. Then we watched the 2003 Grammy-nominated documentary, ‘Welcome to the
Club: The Women of Rockabilly,’ and followed it up with a fun Q&A with the
film’s producer and director, Beth Harrington (who is also a fantastic singer and former member of one of my all-time favorite bands—Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers). We
were then joined in the classroom by Indiana rockabilly legend (and all-around
fantastic person) Art Adams to talk about all things rockabilly, rebellion, and
European revival. Shortly thereafter we were joined in class by Patterson Hood
of the Drive-By Truckers, who was passing through town on a busy tour schedule.
In between the bus arriving and the band’s soundcheck, Patterson took time out
of his day to talk with us about all things southern rock (and Southern Rock Opera), alt-country, socially
conscious songwriting, country-soul music, as well as just plain ol’ rock and
roll. Then finally we capped off our movie series watching Dr. Lee Bidgood’s Banjo Romantika, a really great film
about bluegrass music in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). Words don’t
seem to do justice in expressing my gratitude to these fine folks, but Professor
Neal, Jussi, Beth, Art, Patterson, and Lee: Thank you kindly from the bottom of
my heart!
Art Adams lecturing in the classroom
Last but not least I’d like to thank the fifteen
brave student souls who enrolled in my class. I greatly appreciate all the energy
and thought they put into our discussions and readings and I am mighty proud of
their work, especially on their final research papers which addressed different
aspects of country music in various countries. Those papers were phenomenal and
I loved reading about their country music discoveries in Vietnam, Australia,
Italy, Mexico, Korea, England, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Finland, South Africa,
Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and Japan.
These kinds of courses don’t happen without the help
and encouragement from a lot of different people and I’ve been extremely
fortunate throughout my academic career to have people in my corner rooting for
me along the way. I’m excited now to finally be making the switch to teaching my
own classes where I can now be in a position to help students by being that
person in their corner. And in that spirit, if any of my students ever need any
recommendations or seek advice about future projects or classes, please do drop me a line and
say, ‘Howdy!’ And to the University: Bring on round two!
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