Country Music and Bluegrass
The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes country music as "a vibrant commercial genre that maintains allegiance to concepts of tradition and rusticity, even as the music continues to reflect the modernization and urbanization of its audience." First associated with rural lifestyles of Appalachia and denigrated as "hillbilly music," country quickly grew to include the music of other rural locales, such as Texas and the cowboy west as well as the French Cajun music of Louisiana. After wilder honky-tonk and rockabilly phases in the 1940s and 1950s, many of its rough edges were smoothed out through the pop-inflected Nashville Sound. Later the outlaw country of Willie Nelson and associates shifted the evolution of country music yet again. Find resources on country music in its different permutations below.
Recommended Books
The recommended books below include print reference sources and books on a wide sampling of topics related to country music and bluegrass. Reference sources on country are classified in ML 102.C7 (encyclopedias) and ML 156.4.C7 (discographies). Other books can be found in biographies (especially ML 420) and in types and styles of popular music (ML 3524). Books are sorted by their call numbers for ease of browsing. Hover over the info icon to see a description.
The Encyclopedia of Country Music: The Ultimate Guide to the Music by
To its millions of fans, country music is America's music, offering a window on the sweet dreams and cruel disappointments of ordinary American lives. Now the renowned Country Music Foundation, custodian of Nashville's legendary Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, has compiled a fascinating and infinitely useful guide to this beloved musical genre--The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Nearly 1,300 complete and up-to-the-minute alphabetical entries put eight decades of country music at readers' fingertips, from the earliest '20s recordings of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers to the '90s chart-topping albums of LeAnn Rimes and Garth Brooks. A distinguished field of 137contributors provides an eminently readable and reliable guide to the singers, songwriters, record companies, and industry movers and shakers who have made country music the increasingly popular--and profitable--juggernaut it is today. There are entries for influential radio and television programs, and for key country landmarks from Nashville's Music Row to Bakersfield's Blackboard nightclub. Ten longer essays probe the historical, cultural, religious, artistic, and financial forces shaping country music. Hundreds of photographs, some never before published, accompany the text, including 75 color photographs from the CMF Library's record collection, surveying the history of the country music album cover. Twelve appendices provide lists of country's all-time best-selling albums, country music stations nationwide, all the country music awards won over the years, and much more. Authoritative, accessible, and unerringly accurate, The Encyclopedia of Country Music will delight fans. It is an essential reference for libraries, radio stations, and the entertainment industry.
Call Number: ML102.C7 E54 1998 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 1998
The Resurrection of Johnny Cash: Hurt, Redemption, and American Recordings by
In 1992, Johnny Cash was battered and bruised. In constant pain through heart problems, broken bones and the aftermath of a second bout of drug addiction, his career wasn't in much better shape than his body. One of his last singles for CBS, before they dumped him in 1986 after nearly 30 years, had been Chicken In Black. At the age of 60, all the signs were that Cash was ready for the museum. In fact, he was building one. Already an exhibit in the Country Music Hall of Fame, when he wasn't playing small, shabby venues like Roadie's Roadhouse in Mississauga, Ontario, or Butlins Southcoast World in Bognor Regis, he was preparing to open the Cash Country theme park in Branson, Missouri. Cut to a little under two years later. December 1993. Cash is playing the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard in front of 150 of the hippest people in America. He is introduced by Johnny Depp; the audience includes Sean Penn, Juliette Lewis and assorted Red Hot Chili Peppers. They cheer him to the rafters for the full ninety minutes. He has just completed recording his landmark American Recordings, made with Midas-like hip-hop and metal producer Rick Rubin. He won a Grammy for that record and a fistful more for his five other American Recordings albums. He played an unforgettable Glastonbury set in 1994 and was feted by one and all, from Nick Cave and Bono to Trent Reznor. From thereon until his death in 2003 (and beyond), Cash was, once again, the epitome of hip. Big Daddy cool. The Resurrection of Johnny Cash tells the story of perhaps the most remarkable turnaround in musical history. As well as acknowledging Cash's drug, drink and religious travails in the fifties and sixties, the book digs much deeper, focusing on a lesser known but no less remarkable period of his life: the inglorious fall post-1970 and the almost biblical rebirth in his later years.
Call Number: ML420.C265 T56 2011Publication Date: 2011
The Bill Monroe Reader by
"Tell 'em I'm a farmer with a mandolin and a high tenor voice," Bill Monroe said. Known as the Father of Bluegrass Music, Monroe pioneered a whole new category of music and inspired generations of musicians and fans. Yet from his founding of the original bluegrass band through six decades of performing, he remained an enigmatic figure, a compelling mixture of fierce intensity, homespun modesty, and musical integrity. Determined to play the mandolin in a way it had never been played before, Monroe distinguished himself in the mid-1930s with the Monroe Brothers then began forming his own band, the Blue Grass Boys, in 1938. By the mid-1940s other bands were copying his sound, and a new style, bluegrass music, was born. While country music moved toward electrification, Monroe maintained his acoustic ensemble and developed his "high, lonesome sound," performing nearly up to his death in 1996. In this eclectic, richly illustrated reader, former Blue Grass Boy Tom Ewing gathers the most significant and illuminating of the many articles that have been written about Monroe. Through the writings of nearly sixty observers, interviewers, admirers, folklorists, and other scholars, along with Ewing's astute commentary, The Bill Monroe Reader offers a multifaceted view of one of the most influential country musicians of the twentieth century. Lively, heartfelt, and informative, The Bill Monroe Reader is a fitting tribute to the man and the musician who transformed the traditional music of western Kentucky into an international sensation.
Call Number: ML420.M5595 B55 2000Publication Date: 2000
Bluegrass: A History by
"Bluegrass" chronicles the colorful story of the birth and enormous growth of one of America's most popular musical forms. Originating in the country music of the thirties and forties, bluegrass developed during the fifties and beyond into a distinctly independent form, featuring such talents as Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Ralph and Carter Stanley, Sonny and Bobby Osborne, the Country Gentlemen, the Dillards, the Lewis Family, the Johnson Mountain Boys, Jim and Jesse McReynolds, and Ricky Skaggs. But "Bluegrass" is not just a genealogy of bands or a history of the music's evolution. What makes the book so valuable is Neil Rosenberg's ability to place bluegrass in the larger context of American culture. Country music show business, the rural upland South, the urban folk revival, rock and roll, the fiddling revival, commercial gospel music, the counterculture, movie and TV soundtracks, bluegrass festivals, and local bluegrass associations are all part of the rich history Rosenberg narrates. Never before has the bluegrass story been more deftly told or more meticulously researched.
Call Number: ML3520 .R67 1985Publication Date: 1985
A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music by
From the smiling, sentimental mothers portrayed in 1930s radio barn dance posters, to the sexual shockwaves generated by Elvis Presley, to the female superstars redefining contemporary country music, gender roles and imagery have profoundly influenced the ways country music is made and enjoyed. Proper male and female roles have influenced the kinds of sounds and images that could be included in country music; preconceptions of gender have helped to determine the songs and artists audiences would buy or reject; and gender has shaped the identities listeners made for themselves in relation to the music they revered. This interdisciplinary collection of essays is the first book-length effort to examine how gender conventions, both masculine and feminine, have structured the creation and marketing of country music. The essays explore the uses of gender in creating the personas of stars as diverse as Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, and Shania Twain. The authors also examine how deeply conventions have influenced the institutions and everyday experiences that give country music its image: the popular and fan press, the country music industry in Nashville, and the line dance crazes that created the dance hall boom of the 1990s. From Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life" to Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue," from Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man" to Loretta Lynn's ode to birth control, "The Pill," A Boy Named Sue demonstrates the role gender played in the development of country music and its current prominence.
Call Number: ML3524 .B68 2004Publication Date: 2004
Country Music Goes to War by
Two current popular country music acts, the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith, have fired verbal volleys at each other during recent years. While Toby Keith has suggested that all Americans should unite in support of the president in these critical times, the Dixie Chicks have asserted their rights to criticize the current administration and its military pursuits. The essays in Country Music Goes to War demonstrate that country musicians' engagement with significant political and military issues is not strictly a twenty-first-century phenomenon. In fact, country songs about war are nearly as old as the genre itself, and the first gold record in country music went to the 1942 war song There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere, by Elton Britt. The contributors to Country Music Goes to War examine the output of country musicians responding to America's large-scale confrontations in recent history: World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Cold War, September 11, and both conflicts in the Persian Gulf. They address the ways in which country songs and artists have energized public discourse, captured hearts, and inspired millions of minds.
Call Number: ML3524 .C695 2005Publication Date: 2005
The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization, and Country Music by
This book is about the value that an audience places on a commercial cultural product like country music. It explores why the concept of authenticity in country music is so crucial to so many of its fans. It does this by examining the dramatic changes that occurred in country music in the 1950s and 1960s, when one popular style - honky-tonk - was effectively supplanted by another - the smoother, more broadly accessible "Nashville Sound" associated with producers Owen Bradley, Chet Atkins, and others. Author Joli Jensen shows how this change was an inventive compromise, a way to maintain the most important aspects of the music's roots while broadening its appeal. She documents this musical and cultural transition in a chapter focusing on the remarkable recording career of Nashville Sound artist Patsy Cline, the artist who most fully embodies these tensions. Jensen explores a variety of far-reaching questions: What does it mean when we label a commercial music "authentic" or "traditional"? Why should an audience value one style of music over another? And, ultimately, what does this expression of taste - the choosing of a commercial musical style - tell us about ourselves, not only as consumers but also as human beings trying to find meaning in a transient world?
Call Number: ML3524 .J46 1998Publication Date: 1998
Louisiana Hayride: Radio and Roots Music Along the Red River by
On a Saturday night in 1948, Hank Williams stepped onto the stage of the Louisiana Hayride and sang "Lovesick Blues." Up to that point, Williams's yodeling style had been pigeon-holed as hillbilly music, cutting him off from the mainstream of popular music. Taking a chance on this untried artist, the Hayride--a radio "barn dance" or country music variety show like the Grand Ole Opry--not only launched Williams's career, but went on to launch the careers of well-known performers such as Jim Reeves, Webb Pierce, Kitty Wells, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. Broadcast from Shreveport, Louisiana, the local station KWKH's 50,000-watt signal reached listeners in over 28 states and lured them to packed performances of the Hayride's road show. By tracing the dynamic history of the Hayride and its sponsoring station, ethnomusicologist Tracey Laird reveals the critical role that this part of northwestern Louisiana played in the development of both country music and rock and roll. Delving into the past of this Red River city, she probes the vibrant historical, cultural, and social backdrop for its dynamic musical scene. Sitting between the Old South and the West, this one-time frontier town provided an ideal setting for the cross-fertilization of musical styles. The scene was shaped by the region's easy mobility, the presence of a legal "red-light" district from 1903-17, and musical interchanges between Blacks and whites, who lived in close proximity and in nearly equal numbers. The region nurtured such varied talents as Huddie Ledbetter, the "king of the twelve-string guitar," and Jimmie Davis, the two term "singing governor" of Louisiana who penned "You Are My Sunshine." Against the backdrop of the colorful history of Shreveport, the unique contribution of this radio barn dance is revealed. Radio shaped musical tastes, and the Hayride's frontier-spirit producers took risks with artists whose reputations may have been shaky or whose styles did not neatly fit musical categories (both Hank Williams and Elvis Presley were rejected by the Opry before they came to Shreveport). The Hayride also served as a training ground for a generation of studio sidemen and producers who steered popular music for decades after the Hayride's final broadcast. While only a few years separated the Hayride appearances of Hank Williams and Elvis Presley--who made his national radio debut on the show in 1954--those years encompassed seismic shifts in the tastes, perceptions, and self-consciousness of American youth. Though the Hayride is often overshadowed by the Grand Ole Opry in country music scholarship, Laird balances the record and reveals how this remarkable show both documented and contributed to a powerful transformation in American popular music.
Call Number: ML3524 .L29 2005Publication Date: 2005
Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly: Country Music's Struggle for Respectability, 1939-1954 by
Today, country music enjoys a national fan base that transcends both economic and social boundaries. Sixty years ago, however, it was primarily the music of rural, working-class whites living in the South and was perceived by many Americans as "hillbilly music." In Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly, Jeffrey J. Lange examines the 1940s and early 1950s as the most crucial period in country music's transformation from a rural, southern folk art form to a national phenomenon. In his meticulous analysis of changing performance styles and alterations in the lifestyles of listeners, Lange illuminates the acculturation of country music and its audience into the American mainstream. Dividing country music into six subgenres (progressive country, western swing, postwar traditional, honky-tonk, country pop, and country blues), Lange discusses the music's expanding appeal. As he analyzes the recordings and comments of each of the subgenre's most significant artists, including Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, and Red Foley, he traces the many paths the musical form took on its road to respectability. Lange shows how along the way the music and its audience became more sophisticated, how the subgenres blended with one another and with American popular music, and how Nashville emerged as the country music hub. By 1954, the transformation from "hillbilly" music to country music was complete, precipitated by the modernizing forces of World War II and realized by the efforts of promoters, producers, and performers.
Call Number: ML3524 .L325 2004Publication Date: 2004
Country Music, U.S.A. by
Since its first publication in 1968, Bill C. Malone's Country Music, U.S.A. has won universal acclaim as the definitive history of American country music. Starting with the music's folk roots in the rural South, it traces country music from the early days of radio through the first decade of the twenty-first century. This third revised edition includes an extensive new chapter in which new coauthor Jocelyn R. Neal tracks developments in country music in the post-9/11 world, exploring the relationship between the current scene and the traditions from which the music emerged.
Call Number: ML3524 .M34 2010Publication Date: 2010
Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky-Tonk Angels: The Women of Barn Dance Radio by
American barn dance radio of the 1920s-1940s evoked comforting images of a nostalgic and stable past for listeners beset by economic problems at home and worried about totalitarian governments abroad. Sentimental images such as the mountain mother and the chaste everybody's-little-sister "girl singer" helped to sell a new consumer culture and move commercial country music from regional fare to national treasure. Drawing on personal interviews and rich archival material from the Grand Ole Opry, Kristine M. McCusker examines the gendered politics of the images through the lives and careers of six women performers: Linda Parker, the Girls of the Golden West (Milly and Dolly Good), Lily May Ledford, Minnie Pearl, and Rose Lee Maphis.
Call Number: ML3524 .M347 2008Publication Date: 2008
Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America by
Charting the history of country music from its folk beginnings to the billion-dollar business it is today, this comprehensive guide will delight fans, collectors, and those just discovering America's music. Foreword by Willie Nelson. Essays by Roseanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter, among others. Published in cooperation with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Call Number: ML3524 .W53 2006Publication Date: 2006
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.