The swelling interest in popular music studies has far outpaced the outlets for publication. Country music, with its all-too-familiar stereotypes, has been particularly slow to gain scholarly acceptance. With the Country Music Annual, scholars, students, and even fans now have a outlet for the dissemination of research and ideas. Each volume of this new yearbook is devoted to all aspects of country music and is the only forum for series studies of the subject. Specific topics include old-time music, western swing, bluegrass, honky-tonk music, Cajun, instrumental music, Nashville sound era, new traditionalism, country rock, alternative country, Americana, modern folk, and contemporary Nashville, as well as biographical studies and interdisciplinary approaches to music, geography, gender, class, race, media, and culture. This inaugural edition defines country music in a broad sense and reflects the marvelous complexities of what has often been called a simple cultural form. The articles look at old-time music, Western swing, honky-tonk, Bluegrass, Cajun, country rock, and the many other incarnations country music has taken. Contributors explore country music in Hollywood and Nashville, humor, country's complex relationship with religion, music careers, sound mixing, and teaching country music in the classroom. Analysis of music, lyrics, and aesthetics stand alongside discussions of Minnie Pearl, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Shania Twain, and many more artists. Advisory Board: Bill C. Malone, Nolan Porterfield, Jimmie Rogers, Curtis Ellison, William K. McNeil, Wayne W. Daniel, Joli Jensen.

The swelling interest in popular music studies has far outpaced the outlets for publication. With the Country Music Annual, scholars, students, and interested readers have a place for sharing their research and ideas. The subjects of this second volume range from one of the very first musicians to make country records, Henry Gilliland, to the current avant-garde work of the alternative country band Uncle Tupolo. Ernest Tubb's musical roots, the origins of one of Roy Acuff's classic gospel songs, and the Carter Family's rhythms are discussed in these pages. Even NASCAR makes an appearance. Advisory Board: Bill C. Malone, Nolan Porterfield, Jimmie Rogers, Curtis Ellison, William K. McNeil, Wayne W. Daniel, Joli Jensen.

This illustrated A-Z guide covers more than 700 country music artists, groups, and bands. Articles also cover specific genres within country music as well as instruments used. Written in a lively, engaging style, the entries not only outline the careers of country music's greatest artists, they provide an understanding of the artist's importance or failings, and a feeling for his or her style. Select discographies are provided at the end of each entry, while a bibliography and indexes by instrument, musical style, genre, and song title round out the work. For a full list of entries, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Country Music: A Biographical Dictionary website.

In the third volume of this acclaimed country music series, readers can explore topics ranging from the career of country music icon Conway Twitty to the recent phenomenal success of the bluegrass flavored soundtrack to the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The tricky relationship between conservative politics and country music in the sixties, the promotion of early country music artists with picture postcards, the history of "the voice of the Blue Ridge Mountains" (North Carolina radio station WPAQ), and the formation of the Country Music Association as a "chamber of commerce" for country music to battle its negative hillbilly stereotype are just a few of the eclectic subjects that country music fans and scholars won't want to miss.

Women have been pivotal in the country music scene since its inception, as Charles K. Wolfe and James E. Akenson make clear in The Women of Country Music. Their groundbreaking volume presents the best current scholarship and writing on female country musicians. Beginning with the 1920s career of teenage guitar picker Roba Stanley, the contributors go on to discuss Polly Jenkins and Her Musical Plowboys, 50s honky-tonker Rose Lee Maphis, superstar Faith Hill, the relationship between Emmylou Harris and poet Bronwen Wallace, the Louisiana Hayride's Margaret Lewis Warwick, and more.

In The Country Music Reader Travis D. Stimeling provides an anthology of primary source readings from newspapers, magazines, and fan ephemera encompassing the history of country music from circa 1900 to the present. Presenting conversations that have shaped historical understandings of country music, it brings the voices of country artists and songwriters, music industry insiders, critics, and fans together in a vibrant conversation about a widely loved yet seldom studied genre of American popular music. Situating each source chronologically within its specific musical or cultural context, Stimeling traces the history of country music from the fiddle contests and ballad collections of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the most recent developments in contemporary country music. Drawing from a vast array of sources including popular magazines, fan newsletters, trade publications, and artist biographies, The Country Music Reader offers firsthand insight into the changing role of country music within both the music industry and American musical culture, and presents a rich resource for university students, popular music scholars, and country music fans alike.

Now in its sixth decade, country music studies is a thriving field of inquiry involving scholars working in the fields of American history, folklore, sociology, anthropology, musicology, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, and geography, among many others. Covering issues of historiography and practice as well as the ways in which the genre interacts with media and social concerns such as class, gender, and sexuality, The Oxford Handbook of Country Music interrogates prevailing narratives, explores significant lacunae in the current literature, and provides guidance for future research. More than simply treating issues that have emerged within this subfield, The Oxford Handbook of Country Music works to connect to broader discourses within the various fields that inform country music studies in an effort to strengthen the area's interdisciplinarity. Drawing upon the expertise of leading and emerging scholars, this Handbook presents an introduction into the historiographical narratives and methodological issues that have emerged in country music studies' first half-century.

The function of print resources as instructional guides and descriptors of popular music pedagogy are addressed in this concise volume. Increasingly, public school teachers and college-level faculty members are introducing and utilizing music-related educational approaches in their classrooms. This book lists reports dealing with popular music resources as classroom teaching materials, and will stimulate further thought among students and teachers. It focuses on the growing spectrum of published scholarship available to instructors in specific teaching fields (art, geography, social studies, urban studies, and so on) as well as on the multitude of general resources (including biographical directories and encyclopedias of artist profiles). Building on two recent publications: Teaching with Popular Music Resources: A Bibliography of Interdisciplinary Instructional Approaches, Popular Music and Society, XXII, no. 2 (Summer 1998), and American Culture Interpreted through Popular Music: Interdisciplinary Teaching Approaches (Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 2000), this volume focuses on the growing spectrum of published scholarship that is available to instructors in specific teaching fields (art, geography, social studies, urban studies, and so on) as well as on the multitude of general resources (including biographical directories and encyclopedias of artist profiles).

Country music boasts a long tradition of rich, contradictory gender dynamics, creating a world where Kitty Wells could play the demure housewife and the honky-tonk angel simultaneously, Dolly Parton could move from traditionalist "girl singer" to outspoken trans rights advocate, and current radio playlists can alternate between the reckless masculinity of bro-country and the adolescent girlishness of Taylor Swift. In this follow-up volume to A Boy Named Sue, some of the leading authors in the field of country music studies reexamine the place of gender in country music, considering the ways country artists and listeners have negotiated gender and sexuality through their music and how gender has shaped the way that music is made and heard. In addition to shedding new light on such legends as Wells, Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Charley Pride, it traces more recent shifts in gender politics through the performances of such contemporary luminaries as Swift, Gretchen Wilson, and Blake Shelton. The book also explores the intersections of gender, race, class, and nationality in a host of less expected contexts, including the prisons of WWII-era Texas, where the members of the Goree All-Girl String Band became the unlikeliest of radio stars; the studios and offices of Plantation Records, where Jeannie C. Riley and Linda Martell challenged the social hierarchies of a changing South in the 1960s; and the burgeoning cities of present-day Brazil, where "college country" has become one way of negotiating masculinity in an age of economic and social instability.