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Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock 'n' Roll
 
 

Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock 'n' Roll (Paperback)

by Nick Tosches (Author) "n the spring of 1607 a man named John Laydon, or Lydon, came to America ..." (more)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Da Capo Press Inc; 3rd edition (1 Aug 1996)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0306807130
  • ISBN-13: 978-0306807138
  • Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.5 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 511,604 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #64 in  Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Styles > Country & Western
  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description

Celebrating the dark origins of our most American music, Country reveals a wild shadowland of history that encompasses blackface minstrels and yodeling cowboys; honky-tonk hell and rockabilly heaven; medieval myth and musical miscegenation; sex, drugs, murder; and rays of fierce illumination on Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others, famous and forgotten, whose demonology is America's own. Profusely and superbly illustrated, Country stands as one of the most brilliant explorations of American musical culture ever written.

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n the spring of 1607 a man named John Laydon, or Lydon, came to America. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars American culture through the lens of popular music., 11 Jun 1997
By A Customer
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.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece!, 21 Oct 1998
By A Customer
I loved this book. I read it when it was called COUNTRY: THE BIGGEST MUSIC IN AMERICA which I thought was perfect in an ironic sense then and now. This is the thinking person's guide to why C&W matters.
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