Customer Reviews

All Music Guide to Country: The Experts' Guide to the Best Country Recordings

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been listening to country music for more than four decades, plus recently brushing up on music history while researching Faron Young's life. This book contains much good information, but I wonder how the writers define "country." In spite of all their hits, the Wilburn Brothers rate a two-inch column and David Houston gets three inches. Yet many, many performers I've never heard of (and non-country ones I have heard of) get a page or more. How often has Grateful Dead ever been played on a country station? Faron Young--a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame--is allotted one page, but Neil Young gets six. How many times did he appear on the country charts? None that I recall. Even the historical Carter Family is limited to two pages. There would have been room to give more information about more performers if the book had fulfilled the promise of its title.

I'm a big fan of this series, which is prized among buffs for its reliable and informative album ratings. This volume gets big points for unusually inclusive coverage, which makes sense for the "big tent" that is country music. We get everything from rockabilly to country-oriented rock acts to straight-up honky tonk. Also, you get good coverage of some fairly obscure artists (finally, Michael Hurley in a reference book!).

Complaints? I've got a few. The editing in this volume is not up to the series' usual standards. Some of the biographical sketches are sloppily written and some artists seem to have been left out unintentially (for example, Area Code 615 is mentioned many times in the text, but doesn't get an entry). Also, as long as I'm complaining, some of the decisions about who to include are a little loopy -- the Greatful Dead but not John Prine? And music reference books go stale fast -- the latest entries in this one are from mid 1996, so a new edition is called for.

With all that said, I spent half the night reading through this one, promising myself that I'd go to sleep after I read just one more entry... If you're anything more than the most casual country fan, you need this book.

I have collected all the books on country music I can find and there are not that many really good ones. This is a good one, in particular if you are shopping for CDs or building a collection. Lots of extras too, like maps, history of country music, etc. A keeper.

Books like this make know-it-alls like me shudder: now everyone can have decades worth of hard-won musical knowledge at their fingertips, for just a few bucks. Hardly seems fair. Highly recommended.

Not a bad book, but many key country artists of today are missing from its pages. Photos are lame, too. Can't bigtime publishers find something besides cheesy publicity shots?