[Harp-L] Authentic Pronunciation and the Boston accent - Musical Accents

["Bill Kumpe" <bkumpe@xxxxxxx>]

My uncles were semi pro country musicians in the 1930's and early 1940's.
Their spoken accent was southeastern Okie, a mix of the deep south Arkansas
river bottoms and an East Texas piney woods twang.  Very soft spoken and
slow.  ("The men of Oklahoma are soft spoken" - Ernie Pyle)  

However, their singing accent was Kentucky/Tennessee since they learned many
of their songs by listening to the Grand Ole Opry to find out what was
popular and then buying the records to learn to cover them.  They
phonetically mimicked artists like Bill Monroe, Roy Acuff, Jimmy Rodgers,
the Carter Family, etc.  It "homogenized" as our Gaelic friend observed into
a generic Kentucky/Tennessee twang when they performed.

I believe American music has lost a lot its regional character due to the
advent of radio.  While there are certainly local and regional sounds such
as the famous "Tulsa Sound," by and large our musical influences are so
varied that a local musician may phonetically mimic an artist from anywhere.

Bill Kumpe
Tulsa, OK