For the past half century, Ralph Emery's incredibly popular radio and television programs have allowed millions to tune into the newest hits and savor their old favorites. Now Ralph combines his unique perspective with an encyclopedic wealth of country lore as he examines the changing face of the music he loves. From Hank Williams, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, and Johnny Cash to Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, and the Dixie Chicks, he chronicles the lives and careers of the stars, many of them his close friends. He shows how country music has changed over the years, but also reveals how its eternal themes and timeless melodies have kept this quintessentially American genre alive and well for fans of all ages.

Characterized by fast-paced, highly danceable rhythms, Chutney is a fusion of traditional and contemporary Indian and Caribbean influences. With its roots in the OutsHindi folk songs performed at birth and wedding ceremonies, Chutney has recently emerged in contemporary Indian-Caribbean life and has gone largely unrecognized in the body of scholarly literature.

In this volume Tina K. Ramnarine explores the evolution of Chutney and introduces the emerging Indian-Caribbean genre into the arena of scholarly discourse about music. Through analysis of the music, Ramnarine provides insights into social processes, effects of the diasporic settlements, and ways the music operates as a symbol of Indian-Caribbean identity. Some of the Indian elements in Chutney are not traditional, rather they are new ideas incorporated into the construction of the Indian-Caribbean identity. This introduction of new cultural elements is a common occurrence among people who have been transplanted to an unfamiliar geographical and cultural environment.

" It is said that Bascom Lamar Lunsford would "cross hell on a rotten rail to get a folk song" -- his Southern highlands folk-song compilations now constitute one of the largest collections of its kind in the Library of Congress -- but he did much more than acquire songs. He preserved and promoted the Appalachian mountain tradition for generations of people, founding in 1928 the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, an annual event that has shaped America's festival movement. Loyal Jones pens a lively biography of a man considered to be Appalachian music royalty. He also includes a "Lunsford Sampler" of ballads, songs, hymns, tales, and anecdotes, plus a discography of his recordings.

White-winged schooners once dominated commerce and culture on the Great Lakes, and songs relieved the hours on board, but that way of life and its music ended when steam-driven mechanical boats swept schooners from the inland seas. Ivan H. Walton, late professor of English in the School of Engineering at the University of Michigan, restored the music once heard on schooners of the Great Lakes in Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors. Edited by Joe Grimm, this book gives a firsthand musical picture of how sailors once lived aboard these ships.

Recognizing in the late 1930s, almost too late, that this rich oral tradition was going to the grave along with the last generation of schoonermen, Walton undertook a quest to save the songs of the Great Lakes sailors. Racing time and its ravages, he searched out ancient mariners in lakefront hospitals, hangouts, and watering holes. Walton reconstructed songs from one of the most colorful periods in American history, discovering melodies and lyrics to more than a hundred songs. These songs lightened sailors' labors, bringing them together while they worked hard on deck and filling their idle hours off watch. They sang as they hoisted sails, pumped out the hold, or tramped around the capstan to weigh anchor. They created songs about food, life aboard the ship, the Old Man, and the girls they left behind. They poked fun at other vessels as well as their own. They sang laments to ghost ships lost in the night or ships torn to pieces in the teeth of a gale.

With its stories, lyrics, musical scores by folksinger/historian Lee Murdock, and accompanying CD, Windjammers ensures that sailing chanteys that have not been heard for over one hundredyears can be heard again and again far into the future.

Tumbling Tumbleweeds and Cool Water are only a couple of the hundreds of songs created by the Sons of the Pioneers, the most famous singing group in the history of Western music. Charter members Roy Rogers (Len Slye), Bob Nolan, Tim Spencer, and brothers Hugh and Karl Farr (two gifted instrumentalists from Texas) developed a unique style of vocal control and harmony that became the group's trademark. During the 1930s and 1940s, the prolific Nolan, along with other members of the Pioneers, composed hundreds of songs, primarily for film appearances. Although Roy Rogers left the group for movie stardom, the Pioneers appeared with the King of the Cowboys in forty-two films. There were one hundred movies appearances in all, including Rio Grande and The Searchers with John Wayne. Alumni of the Pioneers include Pat Brady, Lloyd Perryman, and Ken Curtis Festus of TV's Gunsmoke), and today the Sons of the Pioneers carry on the long tradition of their group in Branson, Missouri.

Rock it Come Over describes the music and lore of slavery from the early sixteenth century through emancipation in 1838 to the mid twentieth century. Lewin explores the role of music in the lives of the slaves as a method of communication, as a form of resistance and subversion, as a repository of oral history and beliefs, and, ultimately, as a means of survival.

The work is based on decades of research into the music sung and played by the working people of Jamaica. Lewin relates the music to traditions that preserve an African way of life, such as Revivalism and its strong heritage of faith and worship. She has a special interest in the Kumina cult and describes in detail the life and beliefs of Kumina queen, Imogene 'Queenie' Kennedy.

Rock it Come Over is the most extensive study of Jamaican folk music yet published. It is also an examination of the roots of that music and a record of the folk heritage that is, in spite of many efforts, rapidly retreating before the pressures of life today.

Based on extensive fieldwork and documentary research in China, this book is a chronicle of the musical history of Lijiang County in China's southern Yunnan Province. It focuses on Dongjing music, repertoire borrowed from China's Han ethnic majority by the indigenous Naxi inhabitants of Lijiang County. Used in Confucian worship as well as in secular entertainment, Dongjing music played a key role the Naxi minority's assimilation of Han culture over the last 200 years. Prized for its complexity and elegance, which set it apart from "rough" or "simpler" indigenous Naxi music, Dongjing played an important role in defining social relationships, since proficiency in the music and membership in the Dongjing associations signified high social status and cultural refinement. In addition, there is a strong political component in its examination of the role of indigenous music in the relation of a socialist state to its ethnic minorities.

Celtic music means many things to many people. To some it recalls the Irish rebel songs of the Clancy Brothers, to others the ensemble playing of the Chieftains or Enya's ethereal vocals. Yet Celtic music is much more than reels, jigs, and sentimental ballads. It is also unaccompanied singing, feverish fiddle tunes, the sweet strains of the Irish uileann pipes. It comes not just from Ireland and Scotland but from Wales, Brittany, the Isle of Man, and Cornwall. It informs the musical roots of Van Morrison and U2, the performances of Riverdance, and the scores for such films as Braveheart and Titanic. Celtic Music explores all aspects of this music-from its roots to the exciting developments on the contemporary scene. Sawyers profiles hundreds of artists, and compiles suggestions for recommended listening as well as the one hundred essential Celtic recordings. Lists of Celtic festivals and publications are also included, together with record outlets, record labels, and music schools, making this book essential for all lovers of the music.

" A legend in the folk music community, John Jacob Niles enjoyed a lengthy career as a balladeer, folk collector, and songwriter. Ever close to his Kentucky roots, he spent much of his adulthood searching for the most well-loved songs of the southern Appalachia. The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles brings together a wealth of songs with the stories that inspired them, arranged by a gifted performer. This new edition includes all of the melodies, text, commentary, and illustrations of the 1961 original and features a new introduction by Ron Pen, director of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky."

'Mashindano' - from Kiswahili, Kushindana (to compete) - is a generic term for any organised competitive event. Here it relates to popular entertainment activities within which cultural groups competing for recognition by their communities, as leaders in their fields. Nineteen leading scholars contribute new studies on this little researched area, making a long overdue contribution to musical scholarship in East Africa, with a focus on Tanzania. The authors address key questions: What are the various roles played by competitive pratices in musical contexts? How do music competitions act as mechanisms of innovation? How do music competitions act as mechanisms of innovation? How do they serve their communities in identity formation? And what, specifically, do competitive music practices communicate, and to whom? Local dance contests, choir competitions, popular entertainment, song duels, and sporting events are all described. Work is drawn from ethnomusicology, history, musicology, anthropology, folklore, and literary, post-colonial, and performance studies.

Texas-Mexican music, or musica tejana, is not one single music but several musical and musico-literary genres, ensembles, and their styles, encompassing the corrido, cancion, and what author Manuel Pena calls the cancion-corrido. Musica tejana also includes two major regional ensembles and their styles-the conjunto and the Texas-Mexican version of the orquesta. A more recent crop of synthesizer-driven ensembles and their styles, known since the mid-eighties as "Tejano," is another representative of musica tejana. Despite their diversity, these various ensembles, genres, and styles share two fundamental characteristics: they are all homegrown, and they all speak after their own fashion to fundamental social processes shaping Texas-Mexican society. As Pena persuasively argues, they represent a transforming cultural economy and its effects on Texas-Mexicans. Pena traces the history of musica tejana from the fandangos and bailes of the nineteenth century through the cancion ranchera and the politically informed corrido to the most recent forms of Tejano music. In the beginning, he argues, musicmaking was a function of "use-value"-its symbolic power linked to the social processes of which it was an organic part. As musica tejana was swept into the commercial market, it added a second, less culturally grounded dimension-"exchange-value"-whereby it came under the culturally weakening influence of the commercial market. Since the 1940s, the music has oscillated between the extremes of use- and exchange-value, though it has never lost its power to speak to issues of identity, difference, and social change. Musica Tejana thus gives not only a detailed overview of musica tejana but also analyzes the social and economic implications of the music. The breadth, depth, and clarity with which Pena has treated this subject make this a most useful text for those interested in ethnomusicology, folklore, ethnic studies, and Mexican American culture. Manuel Pena, who received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and folklore from the University of Texas, has been a professor of anthropology and music at the University of Texas at Austin and California State University, Fresno. He is the author of The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music and The Mexican American Orquesta: Music, Culture, and the Dialectic of Conflict.

Hard Rain ranges over thirty years of Bob Dylan's recordings, films, and concerts to deliver astute insights into-and sometimes heretical judgements of-his prodigious corpus of work. This updated edition includes a new epilogue that examines Dylan's thirtieth anniversary celebration in 1992; his albums Good As I Been to You, World Gone Wrong, and Time Out of Mind; his 1997 performance before the Pope; and his 1998 Grammy Award comeback. The result is unparalleled rock criticism.

Samba is Brazil's ""national rhythm"", the symbol of its culture and nationhood. It symbolizes the racial and cultural mixture that, since the 1930s, most Brazilians have come to believe defines their unique national identity. But how did Brazil become ""the Kingdom of Samba"" only a few decades after abolishing slavery in 1888? The author of this book shows that the nationalization of samba actually rested on a long history of relations between different social groups, often working at cross-purposes to one another.

From Kumina to Mento, Ska to Rocksteady, Reggae to Dancehall, Roots to Ragga - this is the authentic story of Jamaican popular music, told for the first time by Jamaicans. In Jamaica, Reggae is more than music - it is the nation's main collective emotional outlet and its chief cultural contribution to the world. Reggae Routes examines the ways in which this uniquely popular music expresses the dreams, desires and realities of the Jamaican people, capturing the `glad to be alive' spirit which makes Jamaican music so popular worldwide. Jamaican music can be roughly divided into four eras, each with a distinctive beat - ska, rocksteady, reggae and dancehall. Ska dates from about 1960 to mid-1966, rocksteady from 1966 to 1968, while from 1969 to 1983 reggae was the popular beat. The reggae era had two phases, `early reggae' up to 1974 and `roots reggae' up to 1983. Since 1983, dancehall has been the prevalent sound. The authors describe each stage in the development of the music, identifying the most popular songs and artists, highlighting the significant social, political and economic issues as they affected the musical scene. While they write from a Jamaican perspective, the intended audience is `any person, local or foreign, interested in a intelligent discussion of reggae music and Jamaica.' A unique feature of this book is the inclusion of historical radio charts from 1960 to 1966 and a provocative reggae all-time top 100 chart. Copiously illustrated with period photos, record jackets and a variety of music memorabilia, this is the best book ever written on reggae.

Winner of the Belmont University Prize for Best Book on Country Western Music. Alan Munde and Joe Carr are the best known as superb bluegrass musicians. In this book they demonstrate that they are also good historians, and that they understand the full range of styles generally associated with country music. And better than anyone else so far, they have described and explained the vital contributions made by West Texas musicians to the music of America and the world. Ever since the Amarillo fiddler Eck Robertson inaugurated country music's commercial history with his first recordings in 1922, West Texas musicians have played major innovative roles in the shaping and popularization of the nation's popular music forms. The Beatles emerged from the gritty industrial world of Liverpool, but their musical roots run directly to Buddy Holly and the Texas plains. People who have wondered how such remarkable music talent could emerge from the vast seemingly empty landscape of West Texas need look no farther than this important and compelling book. --Bill C. Malone West Texas music, like the West Texas wind, is hard to describe, but once it blows by, it's hard to forget. This book is a powerful historical documentation of that music and the musicians who brought it to life. I love it --Sonny Curtis It's a wonderful book, and the title says it all. When you grow up with country music, you never stray far from it because a Texan is a Texan is a Texan. --Waylon Jennings. Picker/teachers Joe Carr and Alan Munde have written a wholly delightful, informative book.... --Billboard Magazine

This volume provides coverage of musical styles from around the world, from Havana, Port-au-Prince, Kingston, Budapest, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles to Tokyo. It explores the fusion of immigrant and mainstream cultures displayed in world music, including: rap, jazz, reggae, zouk, bhangra, juju, swamp pop and Puerto Rican Bugalu and Chicano punk.

Duncan McLean traveled from Orkney, Scotland, to Texas in search of the extraordinary mix of jazz, blues, country, and mariachi that is Western Swing. This account of his travels takes in barbed-wire museums, onion festivals, hoe-downs, ghost towns, dead dogs, and ten thousand miles of driving through the Lone Star State. A constant soundtrack of vintage music from bands like the Texas Top Hands, The Lightcrust Doughboys, and the Modern Mountaineers cheers McLean as he tries, with great difficulty, to track down any trace of his greatest heroes: Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

"I am immensely impressed by the scholarship and painstakingly detailed analysis." George Jellinek

Song by song, this comprehensive study addresses the works of Faure, Chausson, Duparc, and Debussy, four composers who brought to the magnificent poetry of their contemporaries the delicacy, sensitivity, and voluptuousness that characterize French music from 1865 to 1914."

Last Night’s Fun is a sparkling celebration of music and life that is itself a literary performance of the highest order. Ciaran Carson’s inspired jumble of recording history, poetry, tall tales, and polemic captures the sound and vigor of a ruthlessly unsentimental music. Last Night’s Fun is remarkable for its liveliness, honesty, scholarship, and spontaneous joy; certainly there has never been a book about Irish music like this one, and few books ever written anywhere about the experience of music can compare with it..

This collection of German songs contains two strains of tradition: the political song and the folk song. It is not always clear where the distinction between the two can be drawn, since many political songs become folk songs due to their popularity, and many folk songs have a clear, emancipatory - and thus political - dimension. But the main criterion for inclusion in this anthology is the popularity a song has enjoyed, either down through the centuries or more recently, in German-speaking or non-German-speaking countries. The addition of scores is another plus, offering an opportunity to recognize the songs musically.

Having pursued a conventional enough path through school and university, Jason Webster was all set to enter the world of academe as a profession. But when his aloof Florentine girlfriend of some years dumped him unceremoniously, he found himself at a crossroads. Abandoning the world of libraries and the future he had always imagined for himself, he headed off instead for Spain in search of duende, the intense emotional state part ecstasy, part desperation so intrinsic to flamenco "Duende" is an account of his years spent in Spain feeding his obsessive interest in flamenco: he subjects himself to the tyranny of his guitar teacher, practising for hours on end until his fingers bleed; he becomes involved in a passionate affair with Lola, a flamenco dancer (and older woman) married to the gun-toting Vicente, only to flee Alicante in fear of his life; and in Madrid, he falls in with Gypsies and meets the imperious Jess. Joining their dislocated, cocaine-fuelled world, stealing cars by night and sleeping away the days in tawdry rooms, he finds himself spiralling self-destructively downwards. It is only when he arrives in Granada bruised and battered, after two years total immersion in t

Jewish Musical Traditions is the first English-language volume to consider oral music of Jewish communities in a sociocultural context. Amnon Shiloah, the world's leading authority on the Arab and Jewish musical traditions, tells a musical story voiced the world over by men and women in synagogues and homes, mirroring the life of an ancient people exiled from its land. The story began in Biblical times and encompasses two thousand years, during which a widely dispersed people have tried to preserve their cultural values in complex and horrific situations. Such an excursion into the world of sounds resonating from many traditions presents problems. Shiloah faced questions concerning the impact that long-term exposure to strange local musical cultures may have had on the preservation of ancient traditions the Jews took with them as they moved from place to place. The dearth of musical documentation on which to base definitive argumentation further complicates the picture. To cope with these diverse problems, the author considers the musical heritage as only one element in the value system informing an individual's world outlook and perception of the destiny of the Jewish people. Hence, he discusses the manner in which this musical heritage meshes with the complex web of Jewish history by way of central themes such as the relation of music to religion, music and the world of the Kabbalah, and music in communal life. Shiloah considers technical and theoretical approaches, as well as art music, folk music, and performance practices of poets, vocalists, instrumentalists, and dancers.

"Among the Indians, music envelopes like an atmosphere every religious, tribal, and social ceremony as well as every personal experience. There is not a phase of life that does not find expression in song," wrote Alice C. Fletcher. The famous anthropologist published "A Study of Omaha Indian Music in 1893." With the single exception of an 1882 dissertation, it was the first serious study ever made of American Indian music. And it was the largest collection of non-Occidental music published to date, ninety-two songs, all from a single tribe.

Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, her Omaha coworker and adopted son, divided the songs into three categories: religious ones, to be sung by a certain class either through initiation or inheritance; social ones, involving dances and games, always sung by a group; and ones to be sung singly, including dream songs, love songs, captive songs, prayer songs, death songs, sweat lodge songs, and songs of thanks. John Comfort Fillmore, a professional musician, added a "Report on the Structural Peculiarities of the Music."

Those interested in a vital aspect of Indian culture will want to own this book, which contains the musical scores as well as the native-language words for the songs.

One day Alice C. Fletcher realized that "unlike my Indian friends, I was an alien, a stranger in my native land." But while living with the Indians and pursuing her ethnological studies she felt that "the plants, the trees, the clouds and all things had become vocal with human hopes, fears, and supplications." This famous statement comes directly from the preface of this book and was later etched on her tombstone. "I have arranged these dances and games with native songs in order that our young people may recognize, enjoy and share in the spirit of the olden life upon this continent," she wrote.
"Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs" is a collection that conveys the pleasure and meaning of music and play and rhythmic movement for American Indians. Many of the activities here described are adapted from ceremonials and sports. Included is a "drama in five dances" celebrating the life of corn. "Calling the Flowers" is an appeal to spirits dwelling underground to join the dancers. Still another dramatic dance, with accompanying songs, petitions clouds to leave the sky. The Festival of Joy, an ancient Omaha ceremony, is centered on a sacred tree. In the second part Indian ball games and games of hazard and guessing are set forth, as well as the popular hoop and javelin game. Fletcher closes with a section on Indian names.

"Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?" presents an oral, musical, and photographic record of the venerable Gullah culture in modern times. With roots stretching back to their slave forebears, the Johns Islanders and their folk traditions are a vital link between black Americans and their African and Caribbean ancestors.

When first published in 1966, this book conveyed islanders' trepidation and jubilation upon the arrival of the civil rights movement to their isolated home. In this edition, which is updated through the late 1980s, the stories and songs of an older day blend with the voices of an empowered younger generation determined to fight the overdevelopment of their land by resort builders.