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$23.99
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Bakersfield was established in 1863 in the western shadow of the Sierra Nevada at the intersection of two of the country's defining events: the California Gold Rush and the Civil War. Bakersfield's first generation of pioneers--gold-seekers, Southern sympathizers, and European immigrants--tamed the region's confluence of swamps and built a frontier town. Over the next century, the town at the southern tip of California's San Joaquin Valley produced a noteworthy array of heroes, poets, leaders, and scoundrels, including the most influential Supreme Court chief justice in the nation's history, two best-selling country artists, decorated athletes, brilliant innovators, and corrupt lawmen. Founded by Col. Thomas Baker, Bakersfield prospered atop fertile soil unmatched anywhere on the planet and crude oil reserves that had few peers. During the Dust Bowl migration, it became a beacon of hope to the refugees of the nation's most dire ecological disaster and, consequently, a unique region that writer Gerald Haslam came to call the Other California. Today, Bakersfield is California's ninth-largest city and among its fastest-growing. The story of its first century is presented here in words and pictures.
Country Music's Greatest Lines
9781467146487
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$21.99
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Bobby Braddock, the only living songwriter to have written number-one country songs in five consecutive decades, celebrates standout lines in more than eighty country masterpieces. Unique stories give the reader a behind-the-scenes look at classics from Hank Williams, Bill Anderson, Roger Miller and Merle Haggard, as well as twenty-first-century icons like Alan Jackson, Taylor Swift and Eric Church. Artist Carmen Beecher brings these tales to vivid life with strikingly realistic illustrations of seldom-seen songwriters, easily recognizable superstars and unforgettable song characters. From late 1940s jukebox hits to present-day chart toppers, Braddock and Beecher offer a magical journey from the songwriter's pen to the singer's lips to the listener's ear.
Hidden History of Music Row
9781467144568
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$24.99
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Nashville’s Music Row is as complicated as the myths that surround it. And there are plenty, from an adulterous French fur trader to an adventurous antebellum widow, from the early Quonset hut recordings to record labels in glass high-rise towers and from “Your Cheatin’ Heart” to “Strawberry Wine.” Untangle the legendary history with never-before-seen photos of Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Kris Kristofferson and Shel Silverstein and interviews with multi-platinum songwriters and star performers. Authors Brian Allison, Elizabeth Elkins and Vanessa Olivarez dig into the dreamers and the doers, the architects and the madmen, the ghosts and the hit-makers that made these avenues and alleys world-famous.
North Carolina String Music Masters
9781609498535
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$21.99
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North Carolina musicians pioneered and mastered the genres of old-time and bluegrass music.
The roots of American music are deeply grounded in North Carolina's music history. Doc Watson played mountain fiddle tunes on guitar. He emerged as the father of flatpicking and forever changed the role of the guitar in American music. Charlie Poole created techniques that eventually defined bluegrass, and folks around the state heard his banjo on some of the most important old-time recordings. Rising star Rhiannon Giddens keeps the music alive today through new interpretations of classic old-time and bluegrass songs. Elizabeth Carlson profiles these and other masters of string music in this fascinating record of North Carolina's musical past, present and future.
Texas Bluegrass History
9781467147231
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$21.99
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Texas has nurtured a thriving bluegrass scene since the early 1950s. The Lone Star State boasts the country's first bluegrass college degree and even hosts a Beatles bluegrass cover band. Meet the Pickin' Singin' Professor, the Fiddle Engineer and Blanco's Bluegrass Boy. Hit the trail with cowboys like the Mayfield brothers and go backstage with Grammy-nominated acts like Wood & Wire. Jeff Campbell and Braeden Paul celebrate the musicians who contributed to the harmonious heritage of Texas bluegrass.
Texas Bluegrass Legacies
9781467153676
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$23.99
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Enjoy a breakdown of the Lone Star State’s generational bluegrass harmonies.
From the moment they picked up the radio signal of Bill Monroe’s mandolin, Texans have been enamored with this uniquely American style of music. But the high lonesome sound couldn’t have put down roots without a tradition of mentorship that runs through families and spans generations. Meet the Van Cliburn piano prodigy that became a multi-instrumentalist for Taylor Swift. Travel to the summer bluegrass camp where students develop into teachers. Sit in on a back porch jam session with the Rogers, the Brocks, the Vestals and the Whites. From the state’s first Asian-American bluegrass family to its banjo-building Santa Claus, Jeff Campbell and Braeden Paul set the stage for the stewards of Texas bluegrass.
Texas Jailhouse Music
9781626198678
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$21.99
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Inside the Texas State Prison is a surprising story of ingenuity, optimism and musical creativity. During the mid-twentieth century, inmates at the Huntsville unit and neighboring Goree State Farm for Women captured hearts all over Texas during weekly radio broadcasts and live stage performances. WBAP's Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls took listeners inside the penitentiary to hear not only the prisonersʼ songs but also the stories of those who sang them. Captivating and charismatic, banjo player Reable Childs received thousands of fan letters with the Goree All-Girl String Band during World War II. Hattie Ellis, a young black inmate with a voice that rivaled Billie Holiday's, was immortalized by notable folklorist John Avery Lomax. Cowboys, songsters and champion fiddlers all played a part in one of the most unique prison histories in the nation. Caroline Gnagy presents the decades-long story of the Texas convict bands, informed by prison records, radio show transcripts and the words and music of the inmates themselves.
The Jamboree in Wheeling
9781467105682
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$24.99
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Beginning in the mid-1920s, radio stations that catered to rural audiences sponsored programs featuring country music, generically termed "barn dances." Ranking second in terms of longevity and perhaps in significance to the Grand Ole Opry from WSM Nashville came the Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia. It became the springboard for such country stars as Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, Hawkshaw Hawkins, the Osborne Brothers, Doc and Chickie Williams, Lee Moore, Big Slim the Lone Cowboy, and most recently, Brad Paisley. Under slightly varying names, the Jamboree flourished from 1933 through 2005 over the airwaves of 50,000-watt WWVA 1170 AM and now airs on WWOV 101.1 FM.
The Scotch-Irish Influence on Country Music in the Carolinas
9781609499532
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$21.99
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Country music in the Carolinas and the southern Appalachian Mountains owes a tremendous debt to freedom-loving Scotch-Irish pioneers who settled the southern backcountry during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These hardy Protestant settlers brought with them from Lowland Scotland, Northern England and the Ulster Province of Ireland music that created the essential framework for "old-time string band music." From the cabins of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains to the textile mills and urban centers of the Carolina foothills, this colorful, passionate, heartfelt music transformed the culture of America and the world and laid the foundation for western swing, bluegrass, rockabilly and modern country music. Author Michael Scoggins takes a trip to the roots of country music in the Carolinas.
Traditional Country & Western Music
9781467105392
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$24.99
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Traditional Country & Western Music presents historical photographs, memorabilia, and stories about an enduring music genre that took root in America from the late 1920s through the mid-1930s. Although many of our early folk songs originated from the British Isles, Jimmie Rodgers (the "Father of Country Music") and Gene Autry ("America's Favorite Singing Cowboy") became the foundation of modern country and western music. Many regional styles and variations of country and western music developed during the first half of the 20th century, including hillbilly, bluegrass, honky-tonk, rockabilly, southern gospel, Cajun, and Texas swing. Local artists, live radio shows, and regional barn dance programs provided entertainment throughout the Great Depression, World War II, and into America's postwar years. During the 1950s, country and western music became homogenized with the Nashville sound and the Bakersfield sound. By the end of the 1960s, country music completed its move to Nashville, and "western" was dropped from the equation. This book recalls the golden age of country and western music from the late 1920s through the 1960s. Each of the featured artists and programs in this book were once household names. We celebrate these early legends, live radio and television shows, unsung heroes, and local performers from Maine to California.
West Virginia's Traditional Country Music
9781467123112
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$24.99
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West Virginia has been known for a century as a rich repository of traditional country music and musicians. Beginning in the mid-1920s, phonograph recordings and radios brought this music to a wider audience. With the passing of time and the influence of commercialization, this music developed into what became first known as hillbilly and then into the more refined country because of its long appeal to those of rural background. Although modernization has caused the traditional element to recede considerably, much still remains. Many folk still cling to the older sounds exemplified by the raw traditionalists and the neo-traditional bluegrass style that emerged in the 1940s. From the earliest recording artists, such as the Tweedy Brothers and David Miller, who was blind, to contemporary stars like Kathy Mattea and Brad Paisley, West Virginians and others have held their musicians in high esteem.
