Country Music Culture: From Hard Times to Heaven (Studies in Popular Culture) - Softcover

Ellison, Curtis W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0878057226 ISBN 13: 9780878057221

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 1995

Synopsis

A search for the heart of America's most prevalent form of music to learn what caused its astonishing popularity

About this title

About the Author

Curtis W. Ellison is author of Country Music Culture: From Hard Times to Heaven, published by University Press of Mississippi.

From the Back Cover

Here is a perspective on contemporary country music's stars, promoters, and fans. It shows how this vibrant culture evolved from rustic radio programs based in the American South to become an international phenomenon charged by aggressive promotion of recording artists and an extended network of performers and fans unparalleled in other forms of popular music. Here the Grand Ole Opry is likened to the mother church, with the Carter family and Jimmie Rodgers as its tragic troubadours who passed the torch for plaintive anthems to Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. Elvis Presley provided an icon for spiritual devotion. Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Reba McEntire have carved popular images of strong, successful women, while Garth Brooks, country music's most vibrant financial success, plays out an image of sensitive masculinity. Drawing upon a diverse range of sources - literary and scholarly works, fan magazines and music business publications, biographies of country music stars, recordings, radio and television programs, and motion pictures - Country Music Culture is based on the author's firsthand observations of more than seventy-five live concerts and public events.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0878057226
• ISBN 13: 9780878057221
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356