Country: Living Legends and Dying Metaphors in America's Biggest Music

A great read for folks who want to re-visit the great originators of this lively American music. BUT, be aware this same book has been re-issued often under 3 different titles!

I have bought 6 copies of this books since 1988, for friends and for the two copies I wore out. Before reading this I was already a fan of early Country Music, but this book opened my eyes and ears to a multitude of artists that I wasn't aware of but who had helped shape the direction of Country Music. The only negative thing I can say about this book is that after reading it, I ended up spending a small fortune purchasing LPs, and later CDs, of the obscure artists he makes reference to.

In a reader review of Tosches' book on Emmett Miller, whose real origins are in the imaginary chapters of the first edition of this book, this book belongs in every home. The writing is this book alone is worth the price. He's a vigorous wise ass and elegant literary dynamo. If you just read the writing, and dont give a hoot about country music, you will enjoy yourself. So much of music writing is devoled to haigiagraphy and confirming ignorant common places, whereas Tosches is concerned with the dirty nasty truth, and the wild side of things. You aren't going to learn that Roy Acuff who appointed himself a great country music icon, decades after he had had a hit, began his work in music with a group called "the Bang Boys" that specialized in X rated songs. His description of a Jerry Lee Lewis recording session sometimes in the 1970s is really masterful and still rings in my mind 20 years after I first read it. Likewise, you will love Tosches' description of the dark end of Spade Cooley. Cooley torutured and murdered his wife because Cooley believed she had banged Roy Rodgers--and Cooley got into show business a double for Roy Rogers in the movies! There is so much uncovered about the real origins of rock and roll. No one can live without the first book that wasn't afraid to let you know that Hank Williams was bald! If you don't have this book in your house, buy it, or move in with someone who's got it! Dont forget his great book on Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire.This man knows how to write!

Tosches displays not only a historian's love for the eras he writes about, but a gossip columnist's passion for irreverence and shock. That makes this book and its companion (Unsung Heroes of Rock & Roll) completely essential reads for anyone who loves popular twentieth century music. And, it blows the lid off country's origins in a way guaranteed to outrage country's often-times "holier-than-thou" patrons. Obscure names, obscure songs, obscure facts all mesh to create a living, breathing historical time-capsule that speaks as much about the era the music was recorded in as the music itself. And the writing is dry yet never condescending, witty yet never demeaning, sincere yet unafraid to point out "the truth" no matter how ugly and undignified it may be. But you'll learn to love the heroes that pepper this book for the pioneers they were. And, when the last page is read, you'll come back to it again and again. Part of the pleasure of reading a great book is rereading it and learning much more than you did the last time you read it... Tosches manages that feat thanks to an unflinching eye for detail and a poet's way with words.

This is an interesting study of the wilder side of country music, first published in 1977. This was Nick Tosches first full length book, and has a number of themes that have run through his writings over the last 20 years. The raw vitality of popular music, whether country or blues, the social conditions and folk traditions it came from, and the veneer of respectability slapped on it as it became a bigger business. Some of the assertions seem kind of anachronistic after 20 years, like his disdain for Johnny Cash, who has rehabilitated himself from the saccharine born-again phase he was in during the `70s (there is a mind-blowingly-bad page from a Johnny Cash Christian comic book reproduced in the book). But the good stories are enthralling. Tosches can trace the origins of an obscure Sun records B-side back to medieval England and make it seem like a drunken rumble. This is a fine companion book to Greil Marcus' new Invisible Empire book about Dylan's basement tapes. It covers much of the same ground in a way that is to me even more compelling.<P