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E-book Tracks on the Trail : Popular Music, Race, and the US Presidency

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Penilaian

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On June 3, 1992, presidential hopeful Bill Clinton performed a saxo-phone rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” on The Arsenio Hall Show.1 In doing so, he aligned himself with perhaps the most recogniz-able music celebrity of all time—a cultural icon whom rock critic Greil Marcus described as “the country’s most extreme embodiment of possi-bility and disruption, of renewal and defeat.”2 The young Democrat from Hope, Arkansas, never concealed his fandom, referring to Elvis as “the major cultural figure of [his] childhood,” and the press frequently alluded to affinities between musician and politician.3 While Clinton invoked young Elvis in his interviews and rally playlist, his Arsenio performance, complete with shaded glasses (indoors) and bland but hokey improvisa-tions, actually revealed just as many affinities with late Elvis—that is, the neutered, ballad-singing, safe, sequined Elvis who entered the Las Vegas arena to the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra.4In this moment of musical engagement, Bill Clinton was constructing not merely his presidential identity, but the identity of the American pres-idency as well. On the surface, such musicking (to use Christopher Small’s term) would seem to crystallize the candidate’s cool quotient, hip dad character, or “man of the people” persona.5 On a less explicit level, such moments of musical engagement operate as aural articulations of race and racial identity that tether the candidate to specific values, insights, commu-nities, histories, and embodied knowledge. How might the gendered and racialized discourses that surround Elvis’s music and persona be mapped onto Clinton as their identities become enmeshed in this iconic moment? Novelist Toni Morrison tapped Clinton as the “first Black president,” cit-ing his saxophone chops as one such indicator of this identity. While his upbringing undergirded this assertion, indeed Clinton’s music tastes and dispositions completed the package by providing an apt aural counter-point. Thus, Bill Clinton’s star turn on Arsenio represents a moment where music and race coalesced in the formation of his presidential identity. If we are to consider the American presidency as both a symbol and an index of American masculinity, and by extension whiteness, how might music serve as a vehicle for performing identities both within and outside of this “standard,” and what value might these articulations offer candidates and the constituencies with which they wish to communicate?

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

324.6 GOR t

Penerbit

USA : University of Michigan Press., 2023

Deskripsi Fisik

227 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780472903504

Klasifikasi

324.6

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Election System

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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