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Offers biographical sketches with pictures of over 200 major figures in Country and Western music.
A comprehensive reference source on the history, impact, and current state of country music, offering portraits of figures in the country music world.
A gorgeously illustrated and hugely entertaining story of America's most popular music and the singers and songwriters who captivated, entertained, and consoled listeners throughout the twentieth century—based on the eight-part film series. This fascinating history begins where country music itself emerged: the American South, where people sang to themselves and to their families at home and in church, and where they danced to fiddle tunes on Saturday nights. With the birth of radio in the 1920s, the songs moved from small towns, mountain hollers, and the wide-open West to become the music of an entire nation--a diverse range of sounds and styles from honky tonk to gospel to bluegrass to rockabilly, leading up through the decades to the music's massive commercial success today. But above all, Country Music is the story of the musicians. Here is Hank Williams's tragic honky tonk life, Dolly Parton rising to fame from a dirt-poor childhood, and Loretta Lynn turning her experiences into songs that spoke to women everywhere. Here too are interviews with the genre's biggest stars, including the likes of Merle Haggard to Garth Brooks to Rosanne Cash. Rife with rare photographs and endlessly fascinating anecdotes, the stories in this sweeping yet intimate history will captivate longtime country fans and introduce new listeners to an extraordinary body of music that lies at the very center of the American experience.
Country music has come of age. It has a rich history in American culture, and its story is well told in this definitive encyclopedia, written with verve and insight by the editors of America's leading and most popular country music magazine. The background of all the major -- and minor -- performers in country music, their greatest hits, fascinating anecdotes about their childhoods, their rise to (or fall from) fame, the truth behind publicity releases and general rumor -- it's all here, from Roy Acuff and Billy Ray Cyrus to Patsy Cline and Reba McEntire. The Comprehensive Country Music Encyclopedia offers a fresh, absorbing portrait of country music from its folkloric origins to its present status as the popular music of choice for 42 percent of the adult population, according to industry estimates. Indeed, in the past decade, the country music audience has tripled. Between 1988 and 1990, sales of country records jumped 56 percent as sales of rock-'n'-roll records slumped 5 percent. Combining more than six hundred short descriptive entries with longer evaluative articles, the encyclopedia is informative, engaging, and a pleasure to read. The critical events and individuals that have shaped country music are all here in one indispensable volume. More than a reference book to be consulted simply for the dates or details of a particular artist's hits or career, the encyclopedia offers a virtual social history of country music. It distinguishes itself not only by the unassailable authority of its contributors -- the most knowledgeable and gifted writers in this field -- but by its in-depth portraits of country music's pioneers and contemporary stars. Individual entries are placedwithin a larger historical and musical context. Linking discrete facts, dates, and events through what amount to interpretive essays, The Comprehensive Country Music Encyclopedia presents the overarching themes and musical ideas that have animated the landscape of country music. An additional feature of the encyclopedia is the more than six hundred photographs, many rarely seen. These superb photographs convey the social and cultural spirit of the artists depicted. Together with the compelling text, the encyclopedia is certain to engage the curiosity, interests, and passions of every reader, and of every fan.
Contains biographies of folk and country personalities, definitions of terms, and an analysis of major classes and styles.
Includes essays tracing Country's growth from hand-me-down folk to a major American industry; concise biographies; critical album reviews, from the earliest commercial recordings of the 1920s through the mulitplatinum artists of today; and vintage album jackets and previously unpublished photographs.
New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 1: Religion
Covers the important figures, trends, and forms of country music throughout its history--from the Carter Family of the 1920s to Taylor Swift and Keith Urban today.
In Creating Country Music, Richard Peterson traces the development of country music and its institutionalization from Fiddlin' John Carson's pioneering recordings in Atlanta in 1923 to the posthumous success of Hank Williams. Peterson captures the free-wheeling entrepreneurial spirit of the era, detailing the activities of the key promoters who sculpted the emerging country music scene. More than just a history of the music and its performers, this book is the first to explore what it means to be authentic within popular culture. "[Peterson] restores to the music a sense of fun and diversity and possibility that more naive fans (and performers) miss. Like Buck Owens, Peterson knows there is no greater adventure or challenge than to 'act naturally.'"—Ken Emerson, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A triumphal history and theory of the country music industry between 1920 and 1953."—Robert Crowley, International Journal of Comparative Sociology "One of the most important books ever written about a popular music form."—Timothy White, Billboard Magazine
Offers a fresh, inclusive, at times provocative way of listening to country music--one that champions innovation and tradition even as it challenges many of the genre's prevailing assumptions.