Description
The Blackwell Guide to Recorded Country Music
This is the definitive guide to selecting the finest recordings in country music. Artists such as Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus outsell established pop and rock giants in the United States, and they are becoming increasingly popular in Europe. Yet this very popularity means that it is now more difficult to define just what 'country music' is.
The Guide looks at the key recordings in ten major areas of the music, selecting a main library of 100 discs - the majority of them currently available CDs, but with a few harder-to-find specialist items - that should form the core of any country collection. In addition, over 300 supplementary albums are listed and described, enriching the coverage of each style. Crossover artists are discussed (who adapted their styles to the vast pop audience), as are many of the other musicians who can make this vast and relatively uncharted area of music confusing for the first-time buyer and aficionado alike. The Guide alleviates confusion, and charts a clear course through the mass of releases that form the country catalog, past and present.
The Blackwell Guides are short reference books intended to bring specialist help and guidance to those building a library of recordings. Written and edited by the world's leading authorities, they can be relied upon for balanced and comprehensive information.
Contributors: Bob Allen, Tom Gilmore, Frank and Marty Godbey, Geoffrey Nimes, Pete Loesch, Nick Tosches, Charles Wolfe, Laurence J. Zwisohn.
Other titles in the Blackwell Guides series
The Blackwell Guide to Recorded Blues edited by Paul Oliver
The Blackwell Guide to Recorded Jazz edited by Barry Kernfeld
The Blackwell Guide to the Musical Theatre on Record Kurt Ganzl
The Blackwell Guide to Soul Recordings edited by Robert Pruter
Forthcoming title
The Blackwell Guide to Contemporary Composition on Record Brian Morton
About the Author
Bob Allen is editor-at-large for Country Music Magazine. His articles on country music have appeared in Esquire, Playboy, The Washington Post, The Saturday Evening Post, The Atlanta Journal, and the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of the 1984 biography George Jones: Saga of an American Singer. He lives on a farm in rural Maryland with his two dogs, one cat, two pigs, and several dozen chickens.
Book Information
ISBN 9780631191063
Author Bob Allen
Format Hardback
Page Count 424
Imprint Wiley-Blackwell
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Weight(grams) 794g
Dimensions(mm) 250mm * 200mm * 15mm
