Country & Folk

Paperback

From his earliest recordings to his posthumously released albums, the haunting baritone of Waylon Jennings marked him as an extraordinarily individualistic country music artist. This biography by the late R. Serge Denisoff, first published in 1983, recounts Waylon’s west Texas upbringing, his introduction to music as a radio announcer at thirteen years old, his tutelage by rock star Buddy Holly, and his eventual stellar yet stormy music career. Where the original 1983 biography ends, music scholar Travis Stimeling picks up with the waning years of Waylon’s recording and performing. Stimeling recounts in the new afterword Waylon’s continued musical success in the early 1980s—though his financial troubles and battle with drugs and alcohol would soon cost him both professionally and personally—his triumphant and sober return in the 1990s and collaboration with longtime recording artists in the industry, and his continued musical relevance in an evolving industry driven by Nashville’s urban popularization of country music. Additionally, series editor Ted Olson, in his foreword, touches on Waylon’s legacy and the continued influence of his outlaw style of country music. Fans of Waylon, country music, and the Nashville music scene are sure to find this second edition of R. Serge Denisoff’s classic biography a welcome addition to the publications on the father of outlaw country.

Tom Mayhas been a folksinger/guitarist/songwriter/performer for nearly fifty years. He has recorded fourteen albums of original material, and produced various CDs for other artists. His touring has taken him to every state in the US-as well as to most Canadian provinces and to Europe. He has headlined concerts with symphony orchestras, been featured at music festivals across North America, and opened shows for Gordon Lightfoot, Willie Nelson, Alabama, and many others. In 1985, he began producing the nationally syndicated radio program, River City Folk. He also founded and directs "Winterfolk" in Portland, Oregon-an annual concert now in its thirty-second year of raising funds for Pacific Northwest residents in need of food and shelter.Tom's journey has truly been a "Life in Song"-a joyous romp in a challenging, competitive corner of the arts. Full of amusing stories, interesting geography, bungled romances, and excellent wine, this is a book to be savored by anyone who enjoys a story of "making it" in the music business-a process that means vastly different things to different folks-and having fun along the way. Tom's dedication to music that makes a difference has never faltered, and it shines through in this peripatetic tale.

Do you love country music?Are you a bit of a trivia lover?Then The Great Book of Country is for you!Whatever you're a fan of Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson or any of the other legendary artists within Country, this book is packed with interesting and true stories for everyone to enjoy.In The Great Book of Country, you'll learn the answers to the following questions: Where does country music come from originally?What was the main topic in early country music?The term "country" refers to what?The genre bluegrass is named after what?Who was the first woman in country to sell more than a million records?And so much more! The history of country music is not just about facts and dates. It's about understanding and connecting the dots between all those events and people who have shaped up and maintained the genre. The best way to reach this goal is, of course, to have fun along the way. And this is what we've tried to achieve in The Great Book of Country!One thing is guaranteed, though. Having read this book, you will never listen to country music the same way. Grab a copy now and be entertained!

Life working along the banks of the Erie Canal is preserved in the songs of America's rich musical history. Thomas Allen's "Low Bridge, Everybody Down" has achieved iconic status in the American songbook, but its true story has never been told until now. Erie songs such as "The E-ri-e Is a-Risin'" would transform into "The C&O Is a-Risin'" as the song culture spread among a network of other canals, including the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Pennsylvania Main Line. As motors replaced mules and railroads emerged, the canal song tradition continued on Broadway stages and in folk music recordings. Author Bill Hullfish takes readers on a musical journey along New York's historic Erie Canal.

¿ The music today known as "classic country" originated in the South in the 1920s. Influenced by blues and folk music, instrumentation was typically guitar, fiddle, bass, steel guitar, and later drums, with lyrics and arrangements rooted in tradition. This book covers some of the genre's legendary artists, from its heyday in the 1940s to its decline in the early 1970s. Revivalists keeping the traditions alive in the 21st century are also explored.Drawing on original interviews with artists and their associates, biographical profiles chronicle their lives on the road and in the studio, as well as the stories behind popular songs. Thirty-six performers are profiled, including Ernest Tubb, Ray Price, Loretta Lynn, Bill Anderson, Faron Young, Mickey Gilley, Freddie Hart, Jerry Reed, Charley Pride, David Frizzell, The Cactus Blossoms, The Secret Sisters, and Pokey LaFarge.

When he was twenty-two years old Brad Sanzenbacher decided he wanted to become a folk singer. The only problem was that he had never sung or played an instrument in his entire life. Launching himself into this new endevour, Sanzenbacher begain what would become a ten year journey that would take him across the United States and in and out of the lives of what he describes as "The best people I've ever known".This is the story of his rise into obscurity.

During the 1940s, country music was rapidly evolving from traditional songs and string band styles to honky-tonk, western swing, and bluegrass, via radio, records, and film. The Blue Sky Boys, brothers Bill (1917-2008) and Earl (1919-1998) Bolick, resisted the trend, preferring to perform folk and parlor songs, southern hymns, and new compositions that enhanced their trademark intimacy and warmth. They were still in their teens when they became professional musicians to avoid laboring in Depression-era North Carolina cotton mills. Their instantly recognizable style was fully formed by 1936, when even their first records captured soulful harmonies accented with spare guitar and mandolin accompaniments. They inspired imitators, but none could duplicate the Blue Sky Boys' emotional appeal or their distinctive Catawba County accents. Even their last records in the 1970sretained their unique magical sound decades after other country brother duets had come and gone.In this absorbing account, Dick Spottswood combines excerpts from Bill Bolick's numerous spoken interviews and written accounts of his music, life, and career into a single narrative that presents much of the story in Bill's own voice. Spottswood reveals fascinating nuggets about broadcasting, recording, and surviving in the 1930s world of country music. He describes how the growing industry both aided and thwarted the Bolick brothers' career, and how World War II nearly finished it. The book features a complete, extensively annotated list of Blue Sky Boys songs, an updated discography that includes surviving unpublished records, and dozens of vintage photos and sheet music covers.

Love folk music? Liza Mulholland invites you Inside Folk to share an insight into her experience as a contemporary Scottish musician. Drawing on more than twenty-five years in folk music, she reflects on elements of a typical year - performing, teaching, travelling, launching an album, juggling gigs and children, listening, composing - and offers a heartwarming illustration of the joys, delights and challenges of playing music for a living.Packed with humour, anecdote and thoughtful observation, Notes from a Scottish musician's year, the first volume in the Inside Folk series, is an entertaining exploration of Scottish music. Whether ceilidhing in the hollow trunk of a giant redwood at Alasdair Fraser's fiddle camp, teaching at Fèis or playing with her band, Liza dances us through a year of her musical life and many past adventures.With a background of a large Glasgow-Irish family of musicians and singers on her father's side and the Gaelic song tradition of her mother's Hebridean heritage, it was perhaps inevitable she would feel the strongest pull towards folk music. Learning piano from a young age and, later, accordion, playing and writing music became life-long passions, and her love of her subject sings off every page.Having played on more than a dozen albums, had her compositions used in film and video, and collaborated with numerous artistes, Liza writes from a place of extensive knowledge and understanding. Across the Inside Folk series she uses her own wide and varied experience to shine a little light on the everyday business of making music. Her enthusiasm is infectious, so don't be surprised if you find yourself dusting off that old fiddle you've been meaning to get back to for years!

Turbo-folk music is the most controversial form of popular culture in the new states of former Yugoslavia. Theoretically ambitious and innovative, this book is a new account of popular music that has been at the centre of national, political and cultural debates for over two decades. Beginning with 1970s Socialist Yugoslavia, Uro¿ ¿voro explores the cultural and political paradoxes of turbo-folk: described as 'backward' music, whose misogynist and Serb nationalist iconography represents a threat to cosmopolitanism, turbo-folk's iconography is also perceived as a 'genuinely Balkan' form of resistance to the threat of neo-liberalism. Taking as its starting point turbo-folk's popularity across national borders, ¿voro analyses key songs and performers in Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia. The book also examines the effects of turbo on the broader cultural sphere - including art, film, sculpture and architecture - twenty years after its inception and popularization. What is proposed is a new way of reading the relationship of contemporary popular music to processes of cultural, political and social change - and a new understanding of how fundamental turbo-folk is to the recent history of former Yugoslavia and its successor states.

Donald Brown follows shifting versions of Dylan, from songs of social involvement to more personal songs, exploring his influential albums, tours, and personas. In an engaging adventure, Brown provides insightful critical commentary on Dylan’s entire career in the context of its times to assess the relationship of Dylan's music to American culture.

Patsy Cline remains a much beloved singer, even though she died in 1963. By 1996, Patsy Cline had become such an icon that The New York Times magazine positioned her among a pantheon of women celebrities who transcended any single cultural genre. A series of essays on "Heroine Worship" included Patsy Cline with such "feminine icons" as Eleanor Roosevelt, Martha Graham, Indira Gandhi, Aretha Franklin, and Jackie Onassis. The making of an icon is a cultural process that transcends traditional biographical analysis. One does not need to know the whole life story of the subject to understand how the subject became an icon. This book explores how Patsy Cline transcended class and poverty to become the country music singer that non-country music fans embraced. It goes beyond a traditional biography to explore the years beyond her death."This is the first thoroughly researched book on Patsy Cline. It is true to Patsy and her legacy."Judy Sue Huyett-KempfPresident, Celebrating Patsy ClineThe Patsy Cline Historic HouseWinchester, Virginia Douglas Gomery taught mass media history at the University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, New York University, the University of Utrecht the Netherlands), and the University of Maryland. He retired in 2005 to become the Official Historian for Celebrating Patsy Cline and Resident Scholar at the Library of American Broadcasting.

In the autumn of 1961, an obscure recording by a little-known college folk group climbed to the top of the Billboard charts. Upon returning to campus for their senior year, the five Highwaymen found themselves with the number one song not only in the U.S. but throughout most of the world. It was the pinnacle of the last Folk Revival of the 20th century, the time of "Great Folk Music Scare". The era that began with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and the Weavers, and which would eventually give birth to the legend of Bob Dylan, and those who followed, reached its popular, commercial zenith between 1960-1964. "NUMBER #1" tells the story of folk music-- especially at its commercially successful-- through the lens of the Highwaymen and their experiences. The history of folk music is traced from its roots, through the crucible of the Great Depression and World War II, and into the 1950s and 1960s, where it experienced its greatest popularity. The story continues as the legacy of folk music continues into the 21st century. The Highwaymen-- yes, the originals-- are still singing together and still celebrating the folk tradition with songs old and new. Relive the songs of yesterday, celebrate the sounds of today, and look forward to the music of tomorrow with "NUMBER #1".

In the 1940s and 1950s, Richard Dyer-Bennet (1913-1991) was among the best known and most respected folk singers in America. Paul O. Jenkins tells, for the first time, the story of Dyer-Bennet, often referred to as the "Twentieth-Century Minstrel." Dyer-Bennet's achievements were many. He became the first solo performer of his kind to appear in Carnegie Hall. This book argues Dyer-Bennet helped pave the way for the folk boom of the mid-1950s and early 1960s. It also posits strong evidence that Dyer-Bennet would certainly be much better known than he is today had his career not been interrupted midstream by the anticommunist, Red-scare blacklist and its ban on his performances.Paul O. Jenkins is the director of library services at College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has published articles in Old-Time Herald and College and Research Libraries News. He received the New York Times Academic Librarian Award in 2006. Bonnie Dyer-Bennet is the daughter of Richard Dyer-Bennet.