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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Country & western
Inspired by the Hank Williams and Leadbelly recordings he heard
as a teenager growing up outside of Boston, Jim Rooney began a
musical journey that intersected with some of the biggest names in
American music including Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Bill Monroe,
Muddy Waters, and Alison Krauss. "In It for the Long Run: A Musical
Odyssey" is Rooney's kaleidoscopic first-hand account of more than
five decades of success as a performer, concert promoter,
songwriter, music publisher, engineer, and record producer.
As witness to and participant in over a half century of music
history, Rooney provides a sophisticated window into American
vernacular music. Following his stint as a "Hayloft Jamboree"
hillbilly singer in the mid-1950s, Rooney managed Cambridge's Club
47, a catalyst of the '60's folk music boom. He soon moved to the
Newport Folk Festival as talent coordinator and director where he
had a front row seat to Dylan "going electric."
In the 1970s Rooney's odyssey continued in Nashville where he began
engineering and producing records. His work helped alternative
country music gain a foothold in Music City and culminated in
Grammy nominations for singer-songwriters John Prine, Iris Dement,
and Nanci Griffith. Later in his career he was a key link
connecting Nashville to Ireland's folk music scene.
Writing songs or writing his memoir, Jim Rooney is the consummate
storyteller. "In It for the Long Run: A Musical Odyssey" is his
singular chronicle from the heart of Americana.
(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Songbook). This essential compendium of country
tunes includes: Abilene * Always on My Mind * Are You Lonesome
Tonight? * Blue Bayou * Breathe * Butterfly Kisses * Can the Circle
Be Unbroken * Cold, Cold Heart * Desperado * The Devil Went Down to
Georgia * Flowers on the Wall * For the Good Times * Galveston *
The Gambler * God Bless the U.S.A. * I Swear * Jolene * The Keeper
of the Stars * On the Road Again * Rocky Top * Smoky Mountain Rain
* Stand by Your Man * When Will I Be Loved * You Don't Know Me *
Your Cheatin' Heart * and scores more 400 pages of music
Thriller, Born in the USA, Brothers in Arms, Faith, The Joshua
Tree, Graceland - the 80s saw some great albums both from recording
artists who had been around since the 60s, such as Paul Simon and
Tina Turner, and also new acts, such as U2, George Michael and
Tracey Chapman. Combining information from both the US and UK
charts provided by the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) and British Phonographic Industry (BPI), 100 Best Selling
Albums of the 80s features chart-topping work from Bruce
Springsteen, Dire Straits, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston,
Madonna, Fleetwood Mac, Bryan Adams and Prince. Each album entry is
accompanied by the original sleeve artwork - front and back - and
is packed full of facts and recording information, including a
complete track listing, musician and production credits, and an
authoritative commentary on the record and its place in cultural
history. With vinyl sales at their highest in 25 years, 100 Best
Selling Albums of the 80s is an expert celebration of popular music
from Billy Joel to Guns'n'Roses, from Lionel Richie to Phil Collins
to Neil Diamond.
A star par excellence, Dolly Parton is one of country music's most
likable personalities. Even a hard-rocking punk or orchestral
aesthete can't help cracking a smile or singing along with songs
like "Jolene" and "9 to 5." More than a mere singer or actress,
Parton is a true cultural phenomenon, immediately recognizable and
beloved for her talent, tinkling laugh, and steel magnolia spirit.
She is also the only female star to have her own themed amusement
park: Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Every year thousands of
fans flock to Dollywood to celebrate the icon, and Helen Morales is
one of those fans.
In "Pilgrimage to Dollywood," Morales sets out to discover
Parton's Tennessee. Her travels begin at the top celebrity
pilgrimage site of Elvis Presley's Graceland, then take her to
Loretta Lynn's ranch in Hurricane Mills; the Country Music Hall of
Fame and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville; to Sevierville,
Gatlinburg, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park; and
finally to Pigeon Forge, home of the "Dolly Homecoming Parade,"
featuring the star herself as grand marshall. Morales's adventure
allows her to compare the imaginary Tennessee of Parton's lyrics
with the real Tennessee where the singer grew up, looking at
essential connections between country music, the land, and a way of
life. It's also a personal pilgrimage for Morales. Accompanied by
her partner, Tony, and their nine-year-old daughter, Athena (who
respectively prefer Mozart and Miley Cyrus), Morales, a recent
transplant from England, seeks to understand America and American
values through the celebrity sites and attractions of Tennessee.
This celebration of Dolly and Americana is for anyone with an old
country soul who relies on music to help understand the world, and
it is guaranteed to make a Dolly Parton fan of anyone who has not
yet fallen for her music or charisma.
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.
Today, country music enjoys a national fan base that transcends
both economic and social boundaries. Sixty years ago, however, it
was primarily the music of rural, working-class whites living in
the South and was perceived by many Americans as hillbilly music.
In Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly, Jeffrey J. Lange examines
the 1940s and early 1950s as the most crucial period in country
music s transformation from a rural, southern folk art form to a
national phenomenon. In his meticulous analysis of changing
performance styles and alterations in the lifestyles of listeners,
Lange illuminates the acculturation of country music and its
audience into the American mainstream. Dividing country music into
six subgenres (progressive country, western swing, postwar
traditional, honky-tonk, country pop, and country blues), Lange
discusses the music s expanding appeal. As he analyzes the
recordings and comments of each of the subgenre s most significant
artists, including Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe, Hank
Williams, and Red Foley, he traces the many paths the musical form
took on its road to respectability. Lange shows how along the way
the music and its audience became more sophisticated, how the
subgenres blended with one another and with American popular music,
and how Nashville emerged as the country music hub. By 1954, the
transformation from hillbilly music to country music was complete,
precipitated by the modernizing forces of World War II and realized
by the efforts of promoters, producers, and performers.
Other people locked themselves away and hid from their demons.
Townes flung open his door and said 'Come on in.' So writes Harold
Eggers Townes Van Zandt's longtime road manager and producer in EMy
Years with Townes Van Zandt: Music Genius and RageE a a gripping
memoir revealing the inner core of an enigmatic troubadour whose
deeply poetic music was a source of inspiration and healing for
millions but was for himself a torment struggling for dominance
among myriad personal demons.THTownes Van Zandt often stated that
his main musical mission was to write the perfect song that would
save someone's life. However his life was a work in progress he was
constantly struggling to shape and comprehend. Eggers says of his
close friend and business partner that like the master song
craftsman he was he was never truly satisfied with the final
product but always kept giving it one more shot one extra tweak one
last effort. THA vivid firsthand account exploring the source of
the singer's prodigious talent widespread influence and relentless
path toward self-destruction EMy Years with Townes Van ZandtE
presents the truth of that all-consuming artistic journey told by a
close friend watching it unfold.
This book explores the formation and continuance of Nashville,
Tennessee as a music place, the importance of the fans (tourists)
in creating Nashville's multifaceted musical identity, and the
music and city's influence on the formation and performance of the
individual and collective identities of the country-music fan. More
importantly, the author discusses the larger issue of country music
as a signifier of tradition suggesting that for many visitors, the
music serves as a soundtrack, while Nashville serves as a
performative space that permits the creation, performance, and
remembrance of not only the country-music tradition, but also
various individual and collective traditions and an idealized
American identity. Through the theatrics of tourism, Nashville and
its connection to country music are performed daily, reinforced
through the sound and landscape of country music. Performing
Nashville will be of interest to students and scholars across a
range of disciplines, including tourism studies, leisure studies,
ethnomusicology, sociology, folklore and anthropology.
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