ISBN:
0806155868
,
9780806155869
Language:
English
Pages:
X, 355 pages
,
illustrations
,
24 cm.
Edition:
First edition.
Series Statement:
American popular music series volume 1
DDC:
781.6420975
Abstract:
"For over fifty years, Bill C. Malone has researched and written about the history of country music. Today he is celebrated as the foremost authority on this distinctly American genre. This new collection brings together his significant article-length work from a variety of sources, including essays, book chapters, and record liner notes. Sing Me Back Home distills a lifetime of thinking about country and southern roots music. Malone offers the heartfelt story of his own working-class upbringing in rural East Texas, recounting how in 1939 his family's first radio, a battery-powered Philco, introduced him to hillbilly music and how, years later, he went on to become a scholar in the field before the field formally existed. Drawing on a hundred years of southern roots music history, Malone assesses the contributions of artists such as William S. Hays, Albert Brumley, Joe Thompson, Jimmie Rodgers, Johnny Gimble, and Elvis Presley. He also explores the intricate relationships between black and white music styles, gospel and secular traditions, and pop, folk, and country music. Author of many books, Malone is best known for his pioneering volume County Music, U.S.A., published in 1968. It ranks as the first comprehensive history of American country music and remains a standard reference. This compilation of Malone's shorter--and more personal--essays is the perfect complement to his earlier writing and a compelling introduction to the life's work of America's most respected country music historian
Note:
Introduction: Gathering, reflecting, and rethinking -- "Sing me back home": growing up in the South and writing the history of music -- Neither Anglo-Saxon nor Celtic: Music of the Southern Plain folk -- Blacks and Whites and the music of the Old South -- William S. Hays: the Bard of Kentucky -- Stranger passing through your town: Jimmie Rodgers and the Rambler tradition -- Blue Sky Boys: the sunny side of life -- Albert E. Brumley: folk composer -- Church Wagon Gang: God's gentle people -- Honky-Tonk: the music of the Southern working class -- Johnny Gimble: the music came up from his soul -- Texas myth /Texas Music -- Romance that will not die: Appalachian music and American popular culture -- Elvis, country music, and the South -- Rural South moves North: Country music since World War II -- Country Music and the Academy -- Memories of Austin and Threadgill's
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