From the author of the bestselling The Catcher Was a Spy comes an exhilarating exploration of the performers, places, and experiences which form country music—a genre which is uniquely and authentically American.
In this evocative book, Dawidoff pays tribute to the music that sprang from places like Maces Springs, Viriginia, home of the Carter Family, and Bakersfield, California, where Buck Owens held sway. And he journeys to the back roads and country hollows that were home to the performers he loves.
In a series of indelible portraits Dawidoff shows us, among others, Jimmie Rodgers, the "father of Country"; Johnny Cash, forever tormented by the opposing claims of fame and creativity; and Patsy Cline, a lonely figure striding out bravely in a man's world. And we take a sidelong glance at today's mainstream Hot Country.
"A fine portrait of country musicians and the place that spawned them." —The New Yorker
"There is no book that better conveys the spirit and passion that informs country music." —Boston Globe
"Dawidoff writes about performance so that you can hear it." —Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times
"Evocatively reported...ranks with the most lovingly incisive explorations of American music...offering portraits and vignettes that feature the most evocative anecdote, the most telling detail, the part that illuminats the whole and recasts it in fresh light." —Austin American-Statesman
40 photos.
Nicholas Dawidoff is the author of five books. One of them, The Fly Swatter, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and another, In the Country of Country, was named one of the greatest all-time works of travel literature by Condé Nast Traveller. His first book, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg was a national bestseller and appeared on many 1994 best book lists. In 2009, Pantheon published The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball. His 2013 book Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football, was a finalist for a PEN America literary award. He is also the editor of the Library of America’s Baseball: A Literary Anthology. A graduate of Harvard University, he has been a Guggenheim, a Civitella Ranieri, and a Berlin Prize fellow and is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and the American Scholar.
View titles by Nicholas Dawidoff
From the author of the bestselling The Catcher Was a Spy comes an exhilarating exploration of the performers, places, and experiences which form country music—a genre which is uniquely and authentically American.
In this evocative book, Dawidoff pays tribute to the music that sprang from places like Maces Springs, Viriginia, home of the Carter Family, and Bakersfield, California, where Buck Owens held sway. And he journeys to the back roads and country hollows that were home to the performers he loves.
In a series of indelible portraits Dawidoff shows us, among others, Jimmie Rodgers, the "father of Country"; Johnny Cash, forever tormented by the opposing claims of fame and creativity; and Patsy Cline, a lonely figure striding out bravely in a man's world. And we take a sidelong glance at today's mainstream Hot Country.
"A fine portrait of country musicians and the place that spawned them." —The New Yorker
"There is no book that better conveys the spirit and passion that informs country music." —Boston Globe
"Dawidoff writes about performance so that you can hear it." —Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times
"Evocatively reported...ranks with the most lovingly incisive explorations of American music...offering portraits and vignettes that feature the most evocative anecdote, the most telling detail, the part that illuminats the whole and recasts it in fresh light." —Austin American-Statesman
40 photos.
Author
Nicholas Dawidoff is the author of five books. One of them, The Fly Swatter, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and another, In the Country of Country, was named one of the greatest all-time works of travel literature by Condé Nast Traveller. His first book, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg was a national bestseller and appeared on many 1994 best book lists. In 2009, Pantheon published The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball. His 2013 book Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football, was a finalist for a PEN America literary award. He is also the editor of the Library of America’s Baseball: A Literary Anthology. A graduate of Harvard University, he has been a Guggenheim, a Civitella Ranieri, and a Berlin Prize fellow and is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and the American Scholar.
View titles by Nicholas Dawidoff
