From Library Journal
There's no denying that Oermann knows country music. The beauty of his expertise is that he can make it entertaining to boot. As the editor of Country Music magazine, the country music writer for the Nashville Tennessean, an award-winning author (he won the Deems Taylor Award in 1994 for Finding Her Voice: The Saga of Women in Country Music), and screenwriter of the TBS documentary America's Music: The Roots of Country, Oermann is well grounded to provide a timely history that focuses on country music in the 20th century. Based on a recent TNN 13-part documentary, this history pinpoints significant time periods and singles out unique characters who combined to create and broaden the many facets of the country music genre as we know it today. This chronicle, with its added focus on the century, is a splendid complement to The Illustrated History of Country Music (Times Bks., 1996) and is recommended for public and academic libraries.AKathleen Sparkman, Baylor Univ., Waco, TX
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Take out the steel guitars and fringed clothes, and modern country is all but indistinguishable from '70s MOR rock. Once, however, country was unmistakable. Oermann surveys it from 1900, when the word hillbilly first appeared in print (as "Hill-Billie") in the New York Journal. Hillbilly music, direct forerunner of country, evolved from rural fiddle music and gospel--which is, of course, a simplification of the process Oermann details. His tone is light and conversational, so that mentally uploading his matter is nearly painless. The resulting overview of country music history is a natural for readers who are aware that that history appreciably predates the Dixie Chicks and even Tanya Tucker and want to learn the truth about the singers of all those "songs about cheatin', margaritas and drivin' trucks," as the band Eclectricity once put it. This is a fine primer, not incidentally also a nice viewer's guide to the TNN series bearing the same title. Mike Tribby
