**A gorgeously illustrated and hugely entertaining story of America's
most popular music and the singers and songwriters who captivated,
entertained, and consoled listeners throughout the twentieth
century--based on the eight-part film series.
**
This fascinating history begins where country music itself emerged: the
American South, where people sang to themselves and to their families at
home and in church, and where they danced to fiddle tunes on Saturday
nights. With the birth of radio in the 1920s, the songs moved from small
towns, mountain hollers, and the wide-open West to become the music of
an entire nation--a diverse range of sounds and styles from honky tonk
to gospel to bluegrass to rockabilly, leading up through the decades to
the music's massive commercial success today.
But above all, Country Music is the story of the musicians. Here is
Hank Williams's tragic honky tonk life, Dolly Parton rising to fame from
a dirt-poor childhood, and Loretta Lynn turning her experiences into
songs that spoke to women everywhere. Here too are interviews with the
genre's biggest stars, including the likes of Merle Haggard to Garth
Brooks to Rosanne Cash. Rife with rare photographs and endlessly
fascinating anecdotes, the stories in this sweeping yet intimate history
will captivate longtime country fans and introduce new listeners to an
extraordinary body of music that lies at the very center of the American
experience.
