Noontime Notions – Like Paris (France, not Tennessee) in the 1920s”: Nashville and the New Breed of Country Music

Alex Macauley will focus on a group of Nashville singer-songwriters from the mid 1960s and early 1970s who had an indelible but often overlooked impact on country music and its history.  Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall, Mickey Newbury, and John Hartford represented what many at the time considered a “New Breed” of country performers.  Their heyday marked a transitional period between the Nashville Sound and “The Outlaws,” building upon established country themes while broadening and diversifying the music’s audience, style, and substance.

Macauley is an Associate Professor of History at Western Carolina University.  A South Carolina native, he received his MA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and his BA from the Citdel.  He is currently working on a book about the post-World War II history of the Citadel and a biography of Kris Kristofferson.