Country music grew up in Tennessee, drawing from sources in the white rural music of East and Middle Tennessee, from the church music of country singing conventions, and from the black music of the Memphis area. The author traces the vital role played by Tennessee and its musicians in the development of this unique American art form.

Spanning over 1,000 separate performances, The Music of Bill Monroe presents a complete chronological list of all of Bill Monroe’s commercially released sound and visual recordings. Each chapter begins with a narrative describing Monroe’s life and career at that point, bringing in producers, sidemen, and others as they become part of the story. The narratives read like a “who’s who” of bluegrass, connecting Monroe to the music’s larger history and containing many fascinating stori...

Kentucky Country is a lively tour of the state's indigenous music, from the days of string bands through hillbilly, western swing, gospel, bluegrass, and honkey-tonk to through the Nashville Sound and beyond. Through personal interviews with many of the living legends of Kentucky music, Charles K. Wolfe illuminates a fascinating and important area of American culture. The list of country music stars who hail from Kentucky is a long and glittering one. Red Foley, Bill Monroe, Loret...

Women have been pivotal in the country music scene since its inception, as Charles K. Wolfe and James E. Akenson make clear in The Women of Country Music. Their groundbreaking volume presents the best current scholarship and writing on female country musicians. Beginning with the 1920s career of teenage guitar picker Roba Stanley, the contributors go on to discuss Polly Jenkins and Her Musical Plowboys, 50s honky-tonker Rose Lee Maphis, superstar Faith Hill, the relationship betwe...

"Listening to the Beat of the Bomb" UPK author Charles Wolfe discusses his work and his new book Country Music Goes to War in the NEW YORK TIMES. While Toby Keith suggests that Americans should unite in support of the president, the Dixie Chicks assert their right to criticize the current administration and its military pursuits. 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 Banne...

Now for the first time, country music authority Charles K. Wolfe gathers together his profiles of 50 legends of country music, including Bill Monroe, Lefty Frizzell, and Kitty Wells.

The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now celebrated as the greatest figure in blues history.Trying to separate myth from reality, biographer Elijah Wald studies the blues from the inside -- not only examining recordings but also the recollections of...

Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." I...

“Fifty years after its first publication, Country Music USA still stands as the most authoritative history of this uniquely American art form. Here are the stories of the people who made country music into such an integral part of our nation’s culture. We feel lucky to have had Bill Malone as an indispensable guide in making our PBS documentary; you should, too.”—Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, Country Music: An American Family StoryFrom reviews of previous ed...

Finding Fogerty: Interdisciplinary Readings of John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival, edited by Thomas M. Kitts, begins to correct the scholarly neglect of John Fogerty, one of America’s great songwriters, one of the rock era’s great vocalists, and one of its underrated guitarists and producers. This essential collection pulls together scholars from a wide range of disciplines and approaches to assess Fogerty’s fifty-year career and to argue for his musical and cultural significanc...

Country music's debt to African American music has long been recognized. Black musicians have helped to shape the styles of many of the most important performers in the country canon. The partnership between Lesley Riddle and A. P. Carter produced much of the Carter Family's repertoire; the street musician Tee Tot Payne taught a young Hank Williams Sr.; the guitar playing of Arnold Schultz influenced western Kentuckians, including Bill Monroe and Ike Everly. Yet attention to how these and ...

Blues: The Basics offers a concise introduction to a century of the blues. Organized chronologically, it focuses on the major eras in the growth and development of this popular musical style. Material includes:a definition of the blues and the major genres within itkey artists such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson and Blind Lemon Jeffersonkey recordingsComplete with timelines ...