From the author of the bestselling The Catcher Was a Spy comes an exhilarating exploration of the performers, places, and experiences which form country music--a genre which is uniquely and authentically American. 40 photos.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
So, maybe you think you don't like country music now, but after reading Nicholas Dawidoff's In the Country of Country, you might just change your tune. Dawidoff strips this singularly American art form of its sequined jumpsuits and big hair and takes the reader back to country music's bedrock: the hardscrabble coal mining towns and dustbowl farms that served as midwives to the music of artists such as Doc Watson, The Carter Family, Ralph Stanley, Patsy Cline, and many more. In recounting the story of country music, Nicholas Dawidoff actually traverses the continent, visiting the backroads and small towns from which his music heroes emerged.
If Nicholas Dawidoff loves the country music of Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, he is less entranced by modern trends such as Hot Country, a pop/rock hybrid exemplified by the music of Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus, singers to whom the author refers as "hat acts." Not for Dawidoff are the slick, pre-fab sentiments of young men in tight jeans and Stetsons; he prefers his heartache real. In the Country of Country shows you why.
From Publishers Weekly
In this collection of biographical essays, New Yorker (and New Yorker writer) Dawidoff strikes out for the heartland of his heroes, those singers and songwriters who refined country music into the wittiest popular song form since Tin Pan Alley's heyday and the most expressive since the death of the Delta blues. His profiles sketch many of the greatest living country stars (among them Kitty Wells, Harlan Howard, Doc Watson, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash) and predecessors Jimmy Rodgers, the Carter Family and Ira Louvin. Dawidoff brings to his interviews a balance of reverence and skepticism, but he's at his best as a critic of the music. Of the late Patsy Cline, he writes: "When Cline sang 'I've got your memory or has it got me,' in Hank Cochran's 'She's Got You,' she called attention to the revelation by slurring the 'or.' Cline handled sudden turns in the melody as an expansive sedan does a veer in the road?with such consummate control that you don't really notice the difficulty." And when Dawidoff compares the writers and singers of hillbilly, bluegrass and honky-tonk music with the uninventive, 10-gallon-wearing "hats" who dominate the charts today, country finds an elegist and champion worthy of its golden age. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Especially for, but not just for, country music fans,
By The author has a clear respect for this music, and to understand it better, spent much time with some of its legends and traveled to their childhood homes to talk with friends and neighbors. Young fans of modern Country might not even recognize some of these legends: Harlan Howard (the great songwriter); Bill Monroe; Ralph Stanley; Earl Scruggs; Buck Owens; Emmylou Harris (one of my ten Deserted Island Music favorites); Doc Watson; Iris Dement; and others. Not a scholarly reference, it's only until you get to the Notes at the end of the book to realize how deeply the author seeped himself in his subject. His sources list many books, articles and videos, as well as many interviews. Remarkably, this young man, in his early 30s, a Harvard grad and raised in Connecticut (yeah, maybe southern Connecticut) was made welcome by so many who were so different. Maybe even more remarkable is that not until almost the book's end does he offhandedly say, in describing how one musician led him to another, "I met Emmylou Harris at Harlan's birthday party. Emmylou then took me along to Bill Monroe's birthday party. And so it went." To have Emmylou Harris take you to a party and not tell anybody about it until page 315 ... now, that's class. As well as to have interviewed Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, and we learn it deep in the Notes, not on the cover. My only complaint (and why rated 4 stars, not 5) is in the artists the author chose to include and those he chose not to. I've never been a fan of George Jones the singer, and after reading about George Jones the person, think even less of him. I wish many more pages had been given to Emmylou Harris, and that Ricky Skaggs and Willie Nelson had been profiled, not just interviewed. In truth, country music has so many legends, it's hard to know where to begin in listing omissions. There's another book here waiting to be written. I started the book knowing what it was about but not knowing which artists would be profiled. After starting it, I couldn't wait to get to bed at night, not knowing who would be next ("Will he do Emmylou? YES!), but knowing this book would be waiting by the reading lamp for a brief time into another place.
2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not great, picture of the stars of country,
By A Customer
This review is from: In the Country of Country: People and Places in American Music (Hardcover)
Interesting, at times well written account of the current real names in country music. Honest and truthful description of some well-known heroes: Monroe, Stanley (I didn't know Carter drank himself to death!), Cash and Haggard.
Although, the map on the overleaf is incorrect which makes me wonder if some of the text isn't as well (Rosine is southwest of Louisville, not southeast).
Also, he doesn't talk about Bob Wills or any of the Western Swing genre, except for a quick (sensational) reference to Spade Cooleys murderin' his wife (although I thought he stabbed her, not kicked her to death, as the author indicates).
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