Relying on facts, opinions and personal testimonies from the artists themselves, this book takes a detailed look at the huge impact that Mexican music and culture has had - and continues to have - on Country music in its various forms. Although this very American cultural expression has changed significantly over the last few years, Mexico - with its border towns, beaches, colonial architecture and ancient ruins conjuring up a range of powerful images - has remained an influential presence in Nashville, Texas, and even places like Australia and South Africa. Featuring contributions from Merle Haggard, Jimmy Buffett, Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, Jessi Colter, Johnny Rodriguez and Flaco Jimenez, this book lifts the lid on the unique and largely undocumented relationship between "America's Music" and Mexico.

In the nearly eight decades since his death at age thirty-five, singer-songwriter Jimmie Rodgers has been an inspiration for numerous top performers-from Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Hank Williams to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Beck. How did this Mississippi-born vaudevillian, a former railroad worker who performed so briefly so long ago, come to be the model for how American roots music stars could become popular heroes? In Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, the first book to explore the legacy of "The Singing Brakeman" from a twenty-first century perspective, Barry Mazor offers a lively look at Rodgers' career, tracing his rise from working-class obscurity to the pinnacle of renown that came with such hits as "Blue Yodel" and "In the Jailhouse Now." As Mazor shows, Rodgers brought emotional clarity and a unique sense of narrative drama to every song he performed, whether tough or sentimental, comic or sad. But more than anything else, Mazor suggests, it was Rodgers' shape-shifting ability to assume many public personas that connected him to such a broad public and set the stage for the stars who followed him.

(Instrumental Folio). 15 favorites from this Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, including: Back to December * Change * Fearless * Fifteen * Love Story * Mine * Our Song * Picture to Burn * Should've Said No * Sparks Fly * Speak Now * Teardrops on My Guitar * Today Was a Fairytale * White Horse * You Belong with Me.

Graced by more than 200 illustrations, many of them seldom seen and some never before published, this sparkling volume offers vivid portraits of the men and women who created country music, the artists whose lives and songs formed the rich tradition from which so many others have drawn inspiration. Included here are not only such major figures as Jimmie Rodgers, The Carter Family, Fiddlin' John Carson, Charlie Poole, and Gene Autry, who put country music on America's cultural map, but many fascinating lesser-known figures as well, such as Carson Robison, Otto Gray, Chris Bouchillon, Emry Arthur and dozens more, many of whose stories are told here for the first time. To map some of the winding, untraveled roads that connect today's music to its ancestors, Tony Russell draws upon new research and rare source material, such as contemporary newspaper reports and magazine articles, internet genealogy sites, and his own interviews with the musicians or their families. The result is a lively mix of colorful tales and anecdotes, priceless contemporary accounts of performances, illuminating social and historical context, and well-grounded critical judgment. The illustrations include artist photographs, record labels, song sheets, newspaper clippings, cartoons, and magazine covers, recreating the look and feel of the entire culture of country music. Each essay includes as well a playlist of recommended and currently available recordings for each artist. Finally, the paperback edition now features an extensive index.

In this ethnography of Navajo (Dine) popular music culture, Kristina M. Jacobsen examines questions of Indigenous identity and performance by focusing on the surprising and vibrant Navajo country music scene. Through multiple first-person accounts, Jacobsen illuminates country music's connections to the Indigenous politics of language and belonging, examining through the lens of music both the politics of difference and many internal distinctions Dine make among themselves and their fellow Navajo citizens. As the second largest tribe in the United States, the Navajo have often been portrayed as a singular and monolithic entity. Using her experience as a singer, lap steel player, and Navajo language learner, Jacobsen challenges this notion, showing the ways Navajos distinguish themselves from one another through musical taste, linguistic abilities, geographic location, physical appearance, degree of Navajo or Indian blood, and class affiliations. By linking cultural anthropology to ethnomusicology, linguistic anthropology, and critical Indigenous studies, Jacobsen shows how Navajo poetics and politics offer important insights into the politics of Indigeneity in Native North America, highlighting the complex ways that identities are negotiated in multiple, often contradictory, spheres.

The music today known as "classic country" originated in the South in the 1920s. Influenced by blues and folk music, instrumentation was typically guitar, fiddle, bass, steel guitar, and later drums, with lyrics and arrangements rooted in tradition. This book covers some of the genre's legendary artists, from its heyday in the 1940s to its decline in the early 1970s. Revivalists keeping the traditions alive in the 21st century are also explored. Drawing on original interviews with artists and their associates, biographical profiles chronicle their lives on the road and in the studio, as well as the stories behind popular songs. Thirty-six performers are profiled, including Ernest Tubb, Ray Price, Loretta Lynn, Bill Anderson, Faron Young, Mickey Gilley, Freddie Hart, Jerry Reed, Charley Pride, David Frizzell, The Cactus Blossoms, The Secret Sisters, and Pokey LaFarge.

Johnny Cash is bigger than life, surrounded by myths and legends, a notoriously hard-drinking, hard-drugging man who sings searing songs of death, loss, God, and work. Since his debut in 1955, he has come to embody country music as well as the spirit of defiance and rebellion that drives rock, and has garnered an immense audience along the way, selling more than fifty million albums and winning ten Grammy awards. He is universally acknowledged as one of the musical giants of the century.In "Ring of Fire," some of our best music writers consider Cash decade by decade in a collection of thirty-two classic articles and essays. They follow him from his birth in 1932 to his meteoric rise to fame in the late '60s and early '70s, through his two-decade slump and his musical resurgence in the 1990s, through the phenomenal new albums he has made in the face of his recently diagnosed nerve disease. "Ring of Fire" takes the Reader format and transforms it into the best kind of biography: complex, insightful, and multifaceted.

Here is Nat Hentoff's deeply felt exploration of jazz, blues, country, and gospel--and the musicians who bring the music to life. Hentoff has not only loved music all his life, he has lived it by being friends with many of the musicians he writes about in this collection. Hentoff poignantly describes the early days of Roy Eldridge and the last years of Billie Holiday and Bird. He tells amazing stories of the Count, Duke, and Dizzy. "Full of insightful behind-the-scenes encounters" ("San Francisco Chronicle"), "Listen to the Stories" covers new recordings and old legends, remarkable lives and unforgettable music.

In 1927, nineteen bands gathered for a recording session in Bristol, on the Tennessee-Virginia border, including some of the most influential names in American music - the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and more. Organized by Ralph Peer for Victor records to capitalize on the popularity of ""hillbilly"" music, the Bristol Sessions were a key moment in country music's evolution. The musicians played a variety of styles largely endemic to the mountain region. Rather than traditional sounds, Peer sought a combination of their elements, an amalgam that would form the backbone of modern country music. The reverberations of the Bristol Sessions are still felt today, yet their influence is widely misunderstood, and popular accounts of the event are more legend than history. These 19 essays offer an examination and reevaluation of the Bristol Sessions - from their germination, to the actual sessions, to their place in history and continuing influence. The first section discusses technological advances that resulted in the unmatched quality of the Bristol recordings. The second examines the people and bands involved, including Peer, responsible for many of the mistruths long attached to the event. The third gives first-hand accounts of the Bristol Sessions, while the fourth presents musicological studies of two of the prominent acts. The final section details subsequent recording sessions in Bristol and nearby Johnson City, and explores the lasting local musical legacy.

From Queen Latifah to Count Basie, Madonna to Monk, "Hole in our soul: the loss of beauty and meaning in American popular music" traces popular music back to its roots in jazz, blues, country, and gospel through the rise in rock'n'roll and the emergence of heavy metal, punk, and rap. Yet despite the vigour and balance of these musical origins, Martha Bayles argues, something has gone seriously wrong, both with the sound of popular music and the sensibility it expresses. Bayles defended the tough, affirmative spirit of Afro-American music against the strain of artistic modernism she calls"perverse". She describes how perverse modernism was grafted onto popular music in the late 1960s, and argues that the result has been a cult of brutality and obscenity that is profoundly anti-musical. Unlike other recent critics of popular music, Bayles does not blame the problem on commerce. She argues that culture shapes the market and not the other way around. Finding censorship of popular music "both a practical and a constitutional impossibility", Bayles insists that "an informed shift in public tastes may be our only hope of reversing the current malignant moods".

This book is the first study of "hard" country music as well as the first comprehensive application of contemporary cultural theory to country music. The author compares hard country music to mainstream country music and to "high" culture, arguing that hard country deliberately focuses on its low position in the American cultural hierachy, comically singing of failures to live up to American standards of affluence, while mainstream country music focuses on nostalgia, romance, and patriotism of regular folk, buying into the standards of "higher" culture.

These never-before-published poems by Johnny Cash make the perfect gifts for music lovers and fans alike. Edited and introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon with a foreword by John Carter Cash, this poetry collection is illustrated with facsimile reproductions of Cash's own handwritten pages. Now an album with music by Rosanne Cash, Brad Paisley, Willie Nelson, Kacey Musgraves, Elvis Costello, and more. Since his first recordings in 1955, Johnny Cash has been an icon in the music world. In this collection of poems and song lyrics that have never been published before, we see the world through his eyes and view his reflection on his own interior reality, his frailties and his strengths alike. In his hallmark voice, he pens verses about love, pain, freedom, and mortality, and expresses insights on culture, his family, his fame, even Christmas. Forever Words confirms Johnny Cash as a brilliant and singular American literary figure. His music is a part of our collective history, and here the depth of his artistry and talent become even more evident.

After he died in the back seat of a Cadillac at the age of twenty-nine, Hank Williams-a frail, flawed man who had become country music's first real star-instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr. Having hit the heights with simple songs of despair, depression and tainted love, he would become in death a template for the rock generation to follow. Mark Ribowsky weaves together the first fully realised biography of Williams in a generation. Examining his music while re-creating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, he traces the rise of this legend-from the dirt roads of Alabama to the immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry and to a lonely end on New Year's Day, 1953. This original work uncovers the real Hank beneath the myths that have long enshrouded his legacy.

You may be the next Hank Williams, Mozart, and Bob Dylan all rolled up into one. But if you don't get the right people to hear the songs you've written, then the best you can hope for is to be an undiscovered genius.

"If You've Got a Dream, I've Got a Plan" is written by one of Country Music's most successful songwriters. In this informative guide, aspiring songwriters will learn: What is a demo? And do I need a demo?What is a single song contract?How do royalty rates work?What is ASCAP? BMI?How much money can I make if my song hits number one on the charts?How do I get the right people to hear my songs?"If You've Got a Dream, I've Got a Plan" will not guarantee that you will become a successful songwriter. But it does arm aspiring songwriters with the information they need to enter a highly competitive world, one that is potentially rewarding both financially and artistically sense. It tells what to do, and maybe more importantly, what not to do.

Kelley Lovelace is an award-winning songwriter who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the co-author with Brad Paisley of the book and the song "He Didn't Have to Be." He is also the songwriter of the hits "Wrapped Around," "Two People Fell in Love," "The Impossible," and "I Just Wanna Be Mad."

(Book). One of the most bizarre stories in all of popular music is the history of "Orange Blossom Special," arguably the century's best-known fiddle tune. The man credited with its ownership, Ervin T. Rouse, endured tragedy, alcoholism and mental illness. He spent his last years fiddling for tips in isolated taverns at the edge of the Florida Everglades, and died all but unknown. The man who claimed co-ownership, Chubby Wise, achieved fame as the seminal fiddler of the bluegrass genre, but struggled to overcome personal demons and to heal the scars of childhood abandonment and abuse. This fascinating book uncovers how their legacies are forever linked with the legendary diesel streamliner which inspired the tune six decades ago, as it roared through American history, bringing wonder and hope to every stop. Includes a Collector's CD of rare, unreleased original recordings of "Orange Blossom Special" by Bluegrass Etc., Byron Berline, Dennis Caplinger, Buddy Emmons, John Henry Gates, The Hellcasters, Gary Morse, Benny Martin and Mike Stevens. Also features the original Rouse Brothers recording from 1939, a live performance by Chubby Wise, and six vintage bonus tracks. Randy Noles is a publisher of city/regional magazines in Florida. During his 25-year career, he has won awards for investigative reporting, feature writing and commentary. Born in Tuscaloosa, AL, he has lived in Orlando since 1967. He is married and has two children. "If you go back and listen to Ervin and Gordon Rouse's original 1939 recording, it's easy to hear 'Orange Blossom Special''s beauty, elegance and power. It bonds the romance of rambling around on trains with the mystique of a far-away land known as Florida. It is pure country music; it is pure Americana." from the foreword by Marty Stuart

(Guitar Method). This book uses real country songs to teach you the basics of rhythm and lead country guitar in the style of Chet Atkins, James Burton, Albert Lee, Merle Travis, and many others. Lessons include: Chords, Scales and Licks * Common Progressions and Riffs * Carter Style and Travis Picking * Steel Licks, String Bending and Vibrato * Standard Notation and Tablature * and much more Songs include: Could I Have This Dance * Green Green Grass of Home * I Fall to Pieces * Satin Sheets * Yakety Sax * and more.

"Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?" is the first major biography of the Carter Family, the musical pioneers who almost single-handedly created the sounds and traditions that grew into modern folk, country, and bluegrass music. Meticulously researched and lovingly written, it is a look at a world and a culture that, rather than passing, has continued to exist in the music that is the legacy of the Carters -- songs that have shaped and influenced generations of artists who have followed them.
Brilliant in insight and execution, "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?" is also an in-depth study of A.P., Sara, and Maybelle Carter, and their bittersweet story of love and fulfillment, sadness and loss. The result is more than just a biography of a family; it is also a journey into another time, almost another world, and theirs is a story that resonates today and lives on in the timeless music they created.

For thirty years, Leftover Salmon has blended musical styles from rock and bluegrass to zydeco and Cajun into an undeniably original sound and forever influenced generations of bands from across the musical spectrum. Emerging from the progressive bluegrass world and coming of age as one the original jam bands, Leftover Salmon rose to become architects of what has become known as Jamgrass-a style in which bluegrass can break free through nontraditional instrumentation and stylistic experimentation. In this book, Tim Newby presents an intimate portrait of Leftover Salmon through its band members, family, friends, former bandmates, managers, and countless musicians. Leftover Salmon was born from the heart and soul of America itself, playing music that reflects the sounds emanating from the Appalachian hills, the streets of New Orleans, the clubs of Chicago, the plains of Texas, and the mountains in their home state of Colorado. Newby reveals Leftover Salmon's story as one that is crucialto American music and needs to be told now.

For more than half a century, Kenny Rogers has been recording some of the most revered and beloved music in America and around the world. In that time, he has become a living legend by combining everything from R and B to country and gospel to folk in his unique voice to create a sound that's both wholly original and instantly recognizable. Now, in his first-ever memoir, Kenny details his lifelong journey to becoming one of American music's elder statesmen-a rare talent who's created hit records for decades while staying true to his values as a performer and a person. Exploring the struggles of his long road, his story begins simply: growing up in Depression-era Texas, living in the projects, surviving in poverty, and listening to his mother, who always had just the right piece of wisdom. Recounting his early years, first as a jazz bassist and later as a member of the pioneering folk group the New Christy Minstrels, Kenny charts how he came into his own as an artist with the First Edition, only to have the band's breakup in the 1970s raise questions about his musical future. Yet, as Kenny explains, it was precisely this soul-searching that led him to a new direction on his own in Nashville. Telling the stories that have become legends in a town that's seen many of them, he recalls the making of his career in country music and his most memorable songs, including Lucille, The Gambler, Lady, and Islands in the Stream. Along the way, he shares the friendships, both big and small, that have meant the most to him, describing the good times he's had with Dottie West, Lionel Richie, and, of course, Dolly Parton, and how through it all he continues to make music with the passion that has defined him from the start. Staring across the decades, Kenny writes a story seemingly straight from one of his songs. The end result is a rollicking ride through fifty years of music history, which offers a heartwarming testament to a time when country music wasn't just a brand but a way of life.

There are many biographies and histories of early country music and its creators, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the actual songs at the heart of these narratives. In this groundbreaking book, music historian Tony Russell turns the spotlight on seventy-eight original 78rpm discs of songs and tunes from the 1920s and 1930s, uncovering the hidden stories of how they came to be recorded, the musicians who sang and played them, the record companies that marketed them, and the listeners who absorbed them. In these essays, based upon new research, contemporary newspaper accounts, and previously unpublished interviews, and copiously illustrated with rare images, readers will find songs about home and family, love and courtship, crime and punishment, farms and floods, chain gangs and chain stores, journeys and memories, and many other aspects of life in the period. Rural Rhythm not only charts the tempos and styles of rural and small-town music-making and the origins of present-day country music, but also traces the larger rhythms of life in the American South, Southwest, and Midwest. What emerges is a narrative that ingeniously blends the musical and social history of the era.

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the booming popularity of country music threw a spotlight on a new generation of innovative women artists. These individuals blazed trails as singers, musicians, and performers even as the industry hemmed in their potential popularity with labels like woman hillbilly, singing cowgirl, and honky-tonk angel.Stephanie Vander Wel looks at the careers of artists like Patsy Montana, Rose Maddox, and Kitty Wells against the backdrop of country music's golden age. Analyzing recordings and appearances on radio, film, and television, she connects performances to real and imagined places and examines how the music sparked new ways for women listeners to imagine the open range, the honky-tonk, and the home. The music also captured the tensions felt by women facing geographic disruption and economic uncertainty. While classic songs and heartfelt performances might ease anxieties, the subject matter underlined women's ambivalent relationships to industrialism, middle-class security, and established notions of femininity.