Playing Beccy Cole: authenticity, performance and characters in Australian country music

Abstract

This article explores the performance practices of Australian country music artist Beccy Cole, specifically the development of stage personas or characters as a way of situating herself within various cultural fields. Building on Erving Goffman’s work on performance and everyday life (1959), Judith Butler’s concept of ‘performativity’ and Bourdieu’s practices and habitus, my analysis reveals the practices that produce the public personas or characters. Critiquing the expectation, or even requirement, of honesty in country music, this article argues that characters of Beccy Cole work to disrupt notions of authenticity in performance in the Australian country music community. The ‘literal staginess’ of Beccy’s characters provides an entry point for critiquing the ways in which the ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ are privileged in country music.

Keywords:

• Beccy Cole
• Australian country music
• performance
• character
• persona

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Kate Rossmanith for her helpful feedback on various drafts of this article. An early version of this paper was presented at the 2013 International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Australia/New Zealand conference where invaluable feedback was provided by attendees. In particular, I would like to thank Liz Giuffre and Ian Collinson for feedback on that version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Australian slang term for woman, used her to evoke a particular image of Australian femininity – something akin to a male larrikin noted for his mischievousness and cheekiness.

2. This is correctly quoted, Smith uses ‘Australian’ as the descriptor for the imagined identity or experience each musical style is attempting to represent.

3. Country not rural.

4. There are some exceptions to this mode, such as Amber Lawrence, Jasmine Rae and Jayne Denham.