Country Music USA

Immersed in country music since his birth, Bill C. Malone has been both a scholar and a performer of the music for decades. On the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Country Music USA in 2008, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for American Music. His other books include Don’t Get above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class, Southern Music/American Music, and Sing Me Back Home: Southern Roots and Country Music.Tracey E. W. Laird is the author or editor of four books, including Louisiana Hayride: Radio and Roots Music Along the Red River, Austin City Limits: A History and Austin City Limits: A Monument to Music, the latter coauthored with Brandon W. Laird. She is a professor of music at Agnes Scott College.

• List of IllustrationsForeword by Henry SapoznikPrefaceChapter 1. The Folk Background before CommercialismChapter 2. The Early Period of Commercial Hillbilly MusicChapter 3. The First Country Singing Star: Jimmie RodgersChapter 4. Country Music during the DepressionChapter 5. The Cowboy Image and the Growth of Western MusicChapter 6. The War Years: The National Expansion of Country MusicChapter 7. The Boom Period: The Emergence of a Big Business, 1946–1953Chapter 8. The Development of Country-Pop Music and the Nashville SoundChapter 9. The Reinvigoration of Modern Country Music, 1960–1972Chapter 10. BluegrassChapter 11. Country Music, 1972–1984Chapter 12. Tradition and Change: Country Music, 1985–2000Chapter 13. A New CenturyNotesBibliographical EssaysIndexIndex of Song Titles

The ultimate history guide on country music...You’ll go back in time to the origins of the genre, discovering the people and events that helped build and shape what you know and listen to today. (Billboard) An important book. . . the first to tell the genre’s complete story, beginning with its folk, religious and early commercial origins - the ballads of the British Isles, the tent revivals, the 19th-century minstrel shows and the 1927 recording session in Bristol, Tennessee, that saw both Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family make their first recordings. (Texas Observer) Considered the definitive history of American country music. (Los Angeles Times) The standard history of the genre. (Variety) Country Music USA has been an authoritative and detailed history lesson and reference manual for country music, paralleled in quality and scope by few other works. It’s country music’s biography, starting with country’s very beginnings in primitive folk, and ranging all the way to the present day. (Saving Country Music) [Country Music USA] was, and remains, a staggering work of scholarship that became a cornerstone of American music history—anyone writing seriously about country must reckon with it. (Longreads) Malone's book provides a veritable treasure trove of information regarding the musicians, musical styles, and distribution networks (primarily the radio and phonograph recordings) of country music. . . Malone presents his readers with discrete insights into the particular musical acts that gave rise to and perpetuated the country music tradition in all of its internal contradictions, negotiations, and accommodations. (PopMatters) If you've long been passionate about music, especially early country music's acoustic forms, Malone's books are a validation of your passion. They are also a retro road map of how the musicians and tunes that moved our souls arrived in our lives. (Mandolin Café) The country-music history bible. (Rolling Stone) A seminal document in logging [country music's] story. (Billboard) [Country music's] definitive history. (New Yorker)