"Stars of Country Music" is a collection of original essays on many of country music's most important performers, from early greats such as Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family to more contemporary stars such as Johhny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard. Here the nation's leading authorities offer full and colourful portraits of the lives, careers and music of 19 of the best country singers and musicians. Together they weave an animated narrative, a history of country music.
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Don't let 'em cut the rug, Mamma,
By
This review is from: Stars of Country Music: Uncle Dave Macon to Johnny Rodriguez (Da Capo Paperback) (Paperback)
When this book was published in 1975, the editors claimed it was the first time that academics had taken country music seriously. Country musicians and their listeners didn't care, I'm sure. They were country when country wasn't cool, and country music has always gotten along fine without professors, poohbahs and government grants.
Still, the book was produced by enthusiasts, some of them in the trade, and remains valuable, both as a history, as profiles of several musicians and for its bibliographies and discographies. The discographies, of course, need to be matched with current issues, but they can help sort out the multiplicity of issues. As far as the authors are concerned, country music started with disc recordings. A sort of prequel chapter reviews some of the very earliest recorded musicians, like Eck Robertson, Fiddlin' John Carson and half of the Skillet Lickers: Riley Puckett (probably the first professional country musician), Gid Tanner and Clayton McMichen. Fate Norris is ignored, understandably because the recordings of his time didn't pick up his banjo among the ensemble, but unaccountably in the case of Lowe Stokes, who has some claim to be the greatest country fiddler who ever lived -- certainly the greatest one-armed country fiddler. Profiles are given to Macon, Vernon Dalhart, Bradley Kincaid, the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Gene Autry, Bob Wills, Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Charley Pride, Tom T. Hall and Johnny Rodriguez. The later choices offer some insight into where people thought country music was heading in the mid-'70s. As it happened, television and the chance to make big money ruined mainstream country music, just as it did NASCAR, pro wrestling and barbecue; but luckily, the huge expansion of music generally over the past 30 years left a residue of fans and performers of old-time music who, though only a corporal's guard compared with the millions of consumers of bland Nashville country music, are probably more numerous now than in the heyday of country, when it was something southerners kept to themselves. One cannot ask too much of a volume like this, and Cajun music is ignored, the interfertilization of black and white styles is only glancingly addressed and the tension between religious music and play-party music is merely alluded to. But if you can find it, "The Stars of Country Music" is worth having for anyone who likes the old ways. Just remember, as Gid Tanner admonished, roll up the carpet before you start dancing.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
Although the roots of country music extend well back into the formative years of our nation's history, the idiom experienced such a spurt of growth in 1922-24, when it was first captured in the grooves of phonograph records, that it is convenient - and not too misleading - to speak of the developments of those years as the beginnings of country music. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
little lady preacher, bluegrass entertainers, few country singers, jazz choruses, commercial country music, other country singers, country music audience, mainstream country music, country music history, mountain ballads, music kill, bluegrass performers, lovesick blues, blue yodel, country music industry, watermelon wine, country entertainers, recorded repertoire, brochure notes, bluegrass groups, string band music, tenor banjo, bluegrass music, bluegrass style, country fiddler Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Uncle Dave, Carter Family, New York, Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Grand Ole Opry, Bill Monroe, San Antonio, Gene Autry, Ernest Tubb, North Carolina, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, World War, Chet Atkins, Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride, Skillet Lickers, Earl Scruggs, Vernon Dalhart, Johnny Rodriguez, Blue Grass Boys, United States New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Although the roots of country music extend well back into the formative years of our nation's history, the idiom experienced such a spurt of growth in 1922-24, when it was first captured in the grooves of phonograph records, that it is convenient - and not too misleading - to speak of the developments of those years as the beginnings of country music. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
little lady preacher, bluegrass entertainers, few country singers, jazz choruses, commercial country music, other country singers, country music audience, mainstream country music, country music history, mountain ballads, music kill, bluegrass performers, lovesick blues, blue yodel, country music industry, watermelon wine, country entertainers, recorded repertoire, brochure notes, bluegrass groups, string band music, tenor banjo, bluegrass music, bluegrass style, country fiddler Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Uncle Dave, Carter Family, New York, Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Grand Ole Opry, Bill Monroe, San Antonio, Gene Autry, Ernest Tubb, North Carolina, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, World War, Chet Atkins, Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride, Skillet Lickers, Earl Scruggs, Vernon Dalhart, Johnny Rodriguez, Blue Grass Boys, United States New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
72
books
cite this book:
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- The Bill Monroe Reader (Music in American Life) by Tom Ewing on 4 pages
- Wrong's What I Do Best: Hard Country Music and Contemporary Culture by Barbara Ching in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization, and Country Music by Joli Jensen in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Social Origins of the Urban South: Race, Gender, and Migration in Nashville and Middle Tennessee, 1890-1930 by Louis M. Kyriakoudes in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Bluegrass Breakdown by Robert Cantwell in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
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