Bøger i Distributed for the Country Mu serien

In Los Angeles, from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, young musicians and singers formed tight-knit musical communities anchored by nightclubs such as the Ash Grove, the Troubadour, and the Palomino. These musicians injected elements of folk, bluegrass, and country to enliven and reinvigorate the sounds of pop and rock. The music flowing from these scenes exerted a lasting influence that would stretch the boundaries and alter the course of both rock and country music. This book, a companion to a major multi-year exhibition at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, traces a musical evolution beginning with California folk and bluegrass groups, which led to the country-rock sounds of the Byrds, CSN&Y, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, the Eagles, and many more. In the 1980s, a new wave of L.A. roots-rock ushered in Dwight Yoakam, Los Lobos, and Lone Justice. Richly illustrated with photographs of key musicians on the scene along with treasured items loaned to the museum for the exhibition, the book takes readers on a dazzling journey to a time and place when the beat and grit of rock met the harmonies and the twang of country to produce sounds that reverberate to this day.

Founded by brothers Charles and Herbert Hatch in 1879, Hatch Show Print is one of the oldest working letterpress poster and design shops in America. Throughout its long history, the shop has produced vibrant posters that served as a leading advertising medium for southern entertainment. Today, Hatch Show Print creates posters the same way they were made 140 years ago. More than a century after the shop’s beginnings, its staff continues to create new and vibrant posters, perpetuating and celebrating an American style of graphic design that holds great appeal for twenty-first century audiences. Richly Illustrated with more than 300 photographs of historic posters printed throughout the shop’s history, this book examines Hatch Show Print’s relationship to and interaction with Nashville’s music industry. Readers will enjoy the book’s generous selection of images of history posters, carved wood and linoleum blocks, and rare photographs.

Husband and wife Boudleaux and Felice Bryant wrote more than six thousand songs together in a wide variety of musical styles. Many would come to be regarded as pop and country classics. These include the biggest hits of the Everly Brothers, such as “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” As Nashville’s first full-time professional songwriters, the Bryants created enduring compositions that ranged from hard-country songs to tunes of romance and heartbreak, and even the widely known Tennessee state song “Rocky Top.” This book was published as a companion to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibition We Could: The Songwriting Artistry of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. It contains more than 100 rare personal photographs and reproductions of song manuscripts, and it celebrates their remarkable musical achievements and endearing love story

Includes a new foreword by musician Dom Flemons, forty-five illustrations, and a complete session discography. A founding member of the Grand Ole Opry and the program’s first Black star, DeFord Bailey (1899–1982) was among the Opry’s most popular early performers. Known as the “Harmonica Wizard” for his virtuosity on the instrument, he was also a singer, guitarist, banjoist, and composer.  For decades following his departure from the Opry, Bailey’s story was shrouded in mystery. This meticulously researched biography, long out of print, tells the story of a pioneering Black star in early country music in rich and fascinating detail. The book’s original publication in 1991 helped pave the way for Bailey’s election to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

This illustrated biography tells the story of one of the most decorated songwriters in history, Country Music Hall of Fame member Bill Anderson, who broke into the music business with “City Lights,” which he penned at the age of nineteen, in 1957. When singer Ray Price released the song in 1958 on Columbia Records, it became a #1 country hit, and it launched Anderson’s long and storied career as a songwriter and recording artist. Anderson’s songs have been recorded by performers as varied as Connie Smith, James Brown, Dean Martin, Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, the Louvin Brothers, Elvis Costello, Conway Twitty, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kenny Chesney, and countless others. His multifaceted career has included stints as a disc jockey, sportswriter, and television star. At the same time, he has demonstrated a remarkable ability to bridge eras in his music and collaborate with writers across the country music spectrum, cementing his reputation as a songwriter and recording artist of uncommon impact and distinction. This book was published as a companion to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s exhibition Bill Anderson: As Far as I Can See, and it contains a foreword from fellow Grand Ole Opry star Jeannie Seely, along with seventy-five personal photographs and significant images rarely seen.

An expert fiddler and a magnetic showman, Bob Wills (1905–1975) popularized a style of Southwestern dance music known as western swing, a rhythmic hybrid of fiddle music, blues, and big band swing. In 1938, when Wills was thirty-three and nearing the height of his fame, journalist Ruth Sheldon chronicled Wills’s rags-to riches rise. She produced a biography that captures the ebullient personality of Wills and reflects the bandleader’s vision of himself. Hubbin’ It provides a window into the daily life of a working musician during the Depression and a rich source of historical detail on one of America’s great musical innovators.

My Husband, Jimmie Rodgers was the first book-length biography ever published about a country musician, and fittingly so. No single performer left as profound an impression on early country music. Songs that Rodgers popularized--"T for Texas," "Daddy and Home," "In the Jailhouse Now," "Miss the Mississippi"--are still a regular part of country performers' repertoires. Despite a recording career that lasted only six years (1927-1933) and ended with Rodgers's untimely death from tuberculosis, in many ways Jimmie Rodgers is still very much with us.

The Delmore Brothers—Alton and Rabon Delmore—molded blues and country-gospel into an influential, guitar-driven harmony sound with classic songs such as “Brown’s Ferry Blues” and “Blues Stay Away from Me.” Older brother Alton also left behind this fascinating, long-unpublished autobiography, which brings to life the early Grand Ole Opry and the struggles of pioneering country musicians. Edited by historian Charles K. Wolfe, The Delmore Brothers: Truth is Stranger Than Publicity lives up to its title.

The riveting and heart-wrenching story of country music diva Patsy Cline, from her against-all-odds rise from poverty and a strange, lonely childhood shrouded in secrecy, to her tragic and untimely death at the age of thirty when, ironically, she had finally achieved the triumph she had sought all her life.