Individual chapters focus on major
figures in the development of country music, including bluegrass.
Dawidoff interviewed all of his subjects, including Bill Monroe,
Earle Scruggs, George Jones, Kitty Wells, Doc Watson, Buck Owens,
EmmyLou Harris, and more) except Jimmie Rodgers, Sara Carter, and
Patsy Cline, all of whom were deceased at the time of the writing.
One other luminary is strangely not included, although his name crops
up in almost every chapter: Hank Williams. Perhaps Williams, who died
in 1953) was simply too big and dominating a character to be
adequately covered in simply a chapter.
It's a joy to read a book about music
by a writer who's taking on a subject rather than a fan who decided
to write. The use of lively imagery, thoughtful narrative, careful
structure and apt description raise Dawidoff's writing above the
pedestrian, bringing life to the characters who've enriched country
music for nearly a hundred years. Published in 1998, the book uses
living artists and extensive interviews with those who knew the
subjects, bringing them to life in a way no other book I've read has
managed.
In the chapter on Doc Watson, the
actual voices of Tom Ashley and Ralph Rinzler give the descriptive
passages a greater reality that brings Watson's background and
development as a performer to life. Insights, such as the fact that
Doc grew up with music he heard on an old gramophone and the radio
differentiated his music from that of others who learned theirs in
church or on the front porch, giving it the distinctive precision
that other country and bluegrass musicians of the time lacked. Such
connections, found in each chapter distinguish Dawidoff's pellucid
writing as they permeate Watson's playing.
The Johnny Cash chapter examines the
role of celebrity on productive song writing along with his image,
life, and the road with comments from Bob Dylan and Bruce
Springsteen. In the George Jones chapter, I learned more about the
reality of Jones in one short chapter than I did in the entire Grand
Tour bio
by Rich Kienzle. Part of this comes from the quality of Dawidoff's
writing, and I think also from the distance he achieves by not being
fully tied to the music community. While the book is often admiring,
it never falls into hero worship as it keeps a clear, though
sympathetic but never sycophantical eye on the character and
development of each person in every profile.
Dawidoff
gives attention to the social and geographical mass movements of the
mid- and late-twentieth century. Often, this is a book of
displacement and connection. Most of the singers profiled came to
stardom in music when they brought their music to honky tonks,
theaters, and recording studios far removed from the southern poverty
so many of them were born into during the depression. Even
performers, like Rose Maddox and Buck Owens, who were from
California, are the of product of southern migrations to places where
they or their parents could find more lucrative employment or escape
the rigors of depression era farming conditions. His insights
punctuate and extend the insight that today's country musicians don't
share that experience, leading their music to go into other
directions, because it has often come from less challenging
circumstances. EmmyLou Harris represents a changing voice and
sensibility in country music. Discussing her view of country's past
and future, she says, “We're bringing a different experience to it,
and that's right. Mimicking the past because the past is a safe bet
is the worst thing to do.”
Nicholas Dawidoff
Nicholas Dawidoff is the author of six
books. One of them, The Fly
Swatter, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and another, In
the Country of Country, was named one of the greatest
all-time works of travel literature by Conde Nast Traveller. His
first book, The Catcher Was A
Spy: The Mysterious Life Of Moe Berg was a national
bestseller and appeared on many 1994 best book lists. His latest
book, Collision Low Crossers:
Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football
was published in 2014. A graduate of Harvard University, he
has been a Guggenheim, Civitella Ranieri and Berlin Prize Fellow, and
is a contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and
the American Scholar. The fact that he chooses a wide range of
topics, including sports, family history, and country music suggests
that Dawidoff brings broad experience to his writing, allowing
unusual, piercing insights to emerge.
In
the Country of Country by
Nicholas Dawidoff (Random House, 1997, 365 pp., $18.95/14.99) was
written after all the people he interviewed were well past their
prime. Fortunately, he was able to interview them in their own
contemporary setting before they left us. He portrays a time when
what so many people today call “real” country was still a close
memory, even while it had been replaced in popular music by rock and
roll, contemporary pop, and hip hop. His vivid profiles, along with
my listening contemporaneously to the performers themselves, helped
clarify their place in music history for me and to realize why the
music so many people seem to yearn for lies in our past rather than
our present. I consider this book to be essential reading for anyone
interested in the growth and development of country music. I read In
the Country of Country in a
used trade paperback version I bought through Thriftbooks.
Note: All
books mentioned in my reviews are linked to the book through my
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you can do so thorough my link. This will result in a small
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