Time's the revelator: revival and resurgence in alt.country and modern old-time American music

This thesis investigates the relationship between the modern old-time and alt.country movements through the comparison of four different female musicians: Abigail Washburn, Rayna Gellert, Gillian Welch, and Neko Case. These four women often pull from the same wellspring of old-time songs/structures/sounds, but their instincts come from exceptionally different places. The disparity between the ways they approach their music, reveals how the push toward modern capitalist industrialism has affected how different artists and communities access and transmit those old-world icons and sounds. Furthermore, their engagement specifically with the topic of gender exposes key tactical differences. Old-time musicians, Washburn and Gellert, work within the strictures of tradition so as to remain in dialogue with their community. Welch and Case play into the experimental bent of alt.country to emotionally affect listeners in order to create discreet, personal connections between themselves and their audience