Table Of ContentLiving in the Rock N Roll Mystery :
title:
Reading Context, Self, and Others As Clues
author: Goodall, H. Lloyd.
publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
isbn10 | asin:
print isbn13: 9780809316106
ebook isbn13: 9780585107226
language: English
Communication and culture--United States,
Rock music--Social aspects--United States,
subject
Ethnology--Methodology, Goodall, H.
Lloyd, Popular culture--United States.
publication date: 1991
lcc: P91.G65 1991eb
ddc: 306.4/84
Communication and culture--United States,
Rock music--Social aspects--United States,
subject:
Ethnology--Methodology, Goodall, H.
Lloyd, Popular culture--United States.
Page iii
Living in the Rock n Roll Mystery
Reading Context, Self, and Others as Clues
H. L. Goodall, Jr.
Southern Illinois University Press
Carbondale and Edwardsville
Page iv
Copyright © 1991 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Edited by Dan Gunter
Designed by David Ford
Production supervised by Natalia Nadraga
94 93 92 91 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goodall, H. Lloyd.
Living in the rock n roll mystery: reading context, self, and
others as clues / H.L. Goodall, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Communication and cultureUnited States. 2. Rock music
Social aspectsUnited States. 3. EthnologyMethodology.
4. Goodall, H. Lloyd. 5. United StatesPopular culture.
I. Title. II. Title: Living in the rock and roll mystery.
P91.G65 1991
306.4'84 dc20 90-36646
ISBN 0-8093-1610-2 CIP
"Red House" by Jimi Hendrix copyright 1967 Bella Godiva Music,
Inc. Worldwide administration Don Williams Music Group, Inc. Used
by permission.
"Free Fallin" by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne copyright © 1989 Gone
Gator Music (ASCAP)/EMI Blackwood Music, Inc. International
copyright secured. Made in USA. All rights reserved.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984.
Page v
For Sandra
Page vi
If human beings are, indeed, organisms with selves, and if their action is,
indeed, an outcome of a process of self-interaction, schemes that purport to
study and explain social action should respect and accommodate these
features. To do so, current schemes in sociology and social psychology would
have to undergo radical revision. They would have to shift from a
preoccupation with initiating factor and terminal result to a preoccupation
with a process of formation. They would have to view action as something
constructed by the actor instead of something evoked from him. They would
have to depict the milieu of action in terms of how the milieu appears to the
actor in place of how it appears to the outside student. They would have to
incorporate the interpretive process which at present they scarcely deign to
touch.
Herbert Blumer
Any truly creative text is always to some extent a free revelation of the
personality, not predetermined by empirical necessity.
Mikhail Bakhtin
The artist is always an evangelist. . . . He wants others to feel as he does.
Kenneth Burke
Page vii
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Part OneThe Detective's Metaphor: A Personal Introduction
to the Mysteries of Context, Self, and Other
1. The Fool, the King, Louie, Louie, and I: Mystery, 3
Ethnography, and Rock n Roll in Cultural Studies
2. Trouble at the Border: The Mysterious Disappearance of 22
Context, Self, and Other from Communication Scholarship
Part TwoListening for the Weave of Clues: The Three
Voices of Context
3. The Consultant as Organizational Detective: A Tale Told 49
in a Voice of Mystery
4. Learning to Read the Descriptive Rhetorics of 63
Organizational Culture: A Tale Told in a Voyeur's Voice
5. The Case of "Meaningful Orders of Persons and Things" 79
in an Organization's Culture: A Tale Told in a Participant's
Voice
Page viii
Part ThreeWriting the Autobiographical Mystery: The
Detection and Manifestations of Self
6. Autobiography, Style, and Dialogic Authenticity: The 111
Detective's Mystery as Mystery of Self
7. The Truth of My Experience 133
8. Free Fallin' Through the Streets of Thirteen Dreams 170
Part FourTouring Culture: Participating in the Mystery
While Observing the Other
9. Observing Otherness 209
10. Knowing Your Audience, Knowing Yourself: What Is 227
This Thing Called Rock n Roll, Huh?
Part FiveCoda
11. Putting It All Together: Mystery Is the Detective's 259
Metaphor
References 279
Page ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This has been a difficult and astonishing project in part because my
life has been difficult and astonishing while completing it. I want to
acknowledge here my debt to those who stood by me when standing
by me was all that could be done and was exactly what I needed: my
wife Sandra, to whom this book is dedicated and for whom it was
written; Drew Thompson, musician, pal, brother I never had; the
WHITEDOG band, including Drew Thompson, Mike Fairbanks, I. B.
Alexander, Mitch Rigel, Rob Malone, Mark Sanford, Michael French,
the Hankster, Mark Puckett, and Roadie Dave; Michael J. Foley, Ben
Poole, Sandy and her mom, Rita and David Whillock, Tom Addington
and his happy family, the Stewdog of Ithaca, the folks at A. B.
Stephens Music in Huntsville, Alabama, and Butch McGhee,
Executive Director of Muscle Shoals Sound; to the participants in the
1989 Alta Conference on Interpretive Approaches to the Study of
Organizations, especially Eric Eisenberg, Larry Browning, and Len
and Michelle Hawes; to my new colleagues at the University of Utah,
for spurring me on and reading drafts of various essays, particularly
Mark Neumann, Bryan Taylor, Mary Strine, Steve May, Bob Tiemens,
Dave Eason, Doug Birkhead, Dante Orazzi, and Jim Anderson; to
Gerald M. Phillips, for sponsoring and at times mentoring this
volume; to the "anonymous" reviewers who provided questions,
insight, and poems for me to read and think about; to the good people
at Southern Illinois University Press for their hard work and belief in
this project, particularly Dan Gunter, who added much to the mix of
this word music, Susan Wilson, who saw it through and gave me some
room with the title and tunes, and Kenney Withers, who has
consistently encouraged a new vision for scholarly writing and who
has helped me to achieve it; and, as always, to Barry Hannah for
