THE READING ROOM: More Books That Tell the Country Music Story

Last week, I provided a short list of books that offered readers a little guidance in digging deeper into the topics covered in Ken Burns’ PBS series, Country Music. As with all series like this, Burns can hit the high notes, but seldom has time or space to tease out the implications of certain events or to provide a fuller sketch of a personality or cultural clashes. The books on last week’s list provided a good starting point for diving deeper into some of the subjects Burns and his team cover.

I indicated last week that my list was hardly exhaustive, but some readers of my list pointed out some shortcomings: it lacked diversity and did not account for some of the best work being done these days on the cultural, social, and political contexts out of which country music arose and in which it exists. I am grateful for the readers’ thoughts and take them seriously. Knowing that lists like the one I produced last week seem to start conversations and almost always lack completeness, I have provided this week a much longer — though still not exhaustive — list of books that offer more depth on the subjects covered in Country Music. One of the best starting points for anyone interested in the history of country music is a book I mentioned last week: the 50th-anniversary edition of Country Music USA, by Bill C. Malone and Tracey E.W. Laird. While every chapter is valuable, the bibliographic essays at the end of the book are a gold mine, for these essays provide not only short descriptions of book-length treatments of their subjects, but also point out important journal, magazine, and, in some cases, newspaper articles about the subject. The companion book to the PBS series, Country Music: An Illustrated History, by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, also contains a useful and lengthy bibliography.

I have included some biographies and autobiographies of key figures on this and last week’s list, but I have made no attempt to list every biography of every musician covered by the series. There are also books on this list that cover a narrow slice of a subject, and there are collections of essays on this list. Such collections can be notoriously uneven in quality, but they are often the very best ways to gain a broad perspective on a topic. I have arranged the list alphabetically.

Chad Berry, ed. The Hayloft Gang: The Story of the National Barn Dance (Illinois)

Mary A. Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann, Finding Her Voice: Women in Country Music, 1800-2000 (Country Music Foundation/Vanderbilt University Press)

Patsi Bale Cox, The Garth Reader: The Career behind Country’s Big Boom (Center Street)

Don Cusic, Discovering Country Music (Praeger)

Dan Daley, Nashville’s Unwritten Rules: Inside the Business of Country Music (Overlook)

Wayne W. Daniel, Pickin’ on Peachtree: A History of Country Music in Atlanta (Illinois)

Nicholas Dawidoff, In the Country of the Country: People and Places in American Music (Pantheon)

Diane Diekman, Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story (Illinois)

Peter Doggett, Are You Ready for the Country? Elvis, Dylan, Parsons, and the Roots of Country Rock (Penguin)

Curt Ellison, Country Music Culture: From Hard Times to Heaven (Mississippi)

Ralph Emery, with Patsi Bale Cox, The View from Nashville (Morrow)

Colin Escott, The Grand Ole Opry: The Making of an American Icon (Center Street)

Chet Flippo, Your Cheatin’ Heart: A Biography of Hank Williams (Plexus)

Aaron A. Fox, Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture (Duke)

Holly George-Warren, Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry (Oxford)

Holly Gleason, ed. Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives (Texas)

John Grissim, Country Music: White Man’s Blues (Paperback library)

Merle Haggard, My House of Memories: An Autobiography (Cliff Street Books)

Merle Haggard, Sing Me Back Home (Pocket Books)

Tom T. Hall, The Storyteller’s Nashville (Doubleday)

Murphy Hicks Henry, Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass (Illinois)

Nadine Hubbs, Rednecks, Queers and Country Music (California)

Patrick Huber, Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South (UNC)

Charles Hughes, Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South (UNC)

Mary G. Hurd, Kris Kristofferson: Country Highwayman (Rowman & Littlefield)

Waylon Jennings, Waylon: An Autobiography (Warner)

Bob Kealing, Calling Me Home: Gram Parsons and the Roots of Country Rock (Florida)

Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America (DK/Country Music Foundation)

Tracey E.W. Laird, Louisiana Hayride: Radio and Roots Music Along the Red River (Oxford)

Laurence Leamer, Three Chords and the Truth: Hope, Heartbreak, and Changing Fortunes in Nashville (HarperCollins)

Charlie Louvin, Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers (HarperCollins)

Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner’s Daughter (Vintage)

Bill C. Malone, Don’t Get above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class (Illinois)

Kristine McCusker, Lonesome Girls and Honky Tonk Angels: The Women of Barn Dance Radio (Illinois)

Jimmy McDonough, Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen (Vintage)

Karl Hagstrom Miller, Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow (Duke)

David C. Morton, with Charles K Wolfe, DeFord Bailey: A Black Star in Early Country Music (Tennessee)

Alanna Nash, Behind Closed Doors: Talking with the Legends of Country Music (Cooper Square)

Jocelyn R. Neal, Country Music: A Cultural and Stylistic History (Oxford)

Willie Nelson, It’s a Long Story: My Life (Little, Brown)

Buck Owens, Buck ’Em!: The Autobiography of Buck Owens (Backbeat)

Dolly Parton, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business (HarperCollins)

Minnie Pearl, Minnie Pearl: An Autobiography (Simon & Schuster)

Diane Pecknold, ed. Hidden in the Mix: The African American Presence in Country Music (Duke)

Diane Pecknold, The Selling Sound: The Rise of the Country Music Industry (Duke)

Diane Pecknold and Kristine McCusker, ed. A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music (Mississppi)

Diane Pecknold and Kristine McCusker, Country Boys and Redneck Women: New Essays in Gender and Country Music (Mississippi)

Richard A. Peterson, Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity (Chicago)

Charley Pride, Pride: The Charley Pride Story (Morrow)

Jan Reid, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock (Texas)

Neil V. Rosenberg, Bluegrass: A History (Illinois)

Tamara Saviano, Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark (Texas A&M)

Travis D. Stimeling, The Country Music Reader (Oxford)

Travis D. Stimeling, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Country Music (Oxford)

Michael Streissguth, Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris, and the Renegades of Nashville (It Books)

Marty Stuart, Pilgrims: Sinners, Saints, and Prophets (Rutledge Hill Press)

Cecelia Tichi, High Lonesome: The American Culture of Country Music (UNC)

Charles Wolfe, A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry (Country Music Foundation Press/Vanderbilt)

Charles K. Wolfe and James Akenson, ed. The Women of Country Music: A Reader (Kentucky)

Mark Zwonitzer, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone: The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music (Simon & Schuster)