Stars of Country Music: Uncle Dave Macon to Johnny Rodriguez

When this book was published in 1975, the editors claimed it was the first time that academics had taken country music seriously. Country musicians and their listeners didn't care, I'm sure. They were country when country wasn't cool, and country music has always gotten along fine without professors, poohbahs and government grants. Still, the book was produced by enthusiasts, some of them in the trade, and remains valuable, both as a history, as profiles of several musicians and for its bibliographies and discographies. The discographies, of course, need to be matched with current issues, but they can help sort out the multiplicity of issues. As far as the authors are concerned, country music started with disc recordings. A sort of prequel chapter reviews some of the very earliest recorded musicians, like Eck Robertson, Fiddlin' John Carson and half of the Skillet Lickers: Riley Puckett (probably the first professional country musician), Gid Tanner and Clayton McMichen. Fate Norris is ignored, understandably because the recordings of his time didn't pick up his banjo among the ensemble, but unaccountably in the case of Lowe Stokes, who has some claim to be the greatest country fiddler who ever lived -- certainly the greatest one-armed country fiddler. Profiles are given to Macon, Vernon Dalhart, Bradley Kincaid, the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Gene Autry, Bob Wills, Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Charley Pride, Tom T. Hall and Johnny Rodriguez. The later choices offer some insight into where people thought country music was heading in the mid-'70s. As it happened, television and the chance to make big money ruined mainstream country music, just as it did NASCAR, pro wrestling and barbecue; but luckily, the huge expansion of music generally over the past 30 years left a residue of fans and performers of old-time music who, though only a corporal's guard compared with the millions of consumers of bland Nashville country music, are probably more numerous now than in the heyday of country, when it was something southerners kept to themselves. One cannot ask too much of a volume like this, and Cajun music is ignored, the interfertilization of black and white styles is only glancingly addressed and the tension between religious music and play-party music is merely alluded to. But if you can find it, "The Stars of Country Music" is worth having for anyone who likes the old ways. Just remember, as Gid Tanner admonished, roll up the carpet before you start dancing.