Enjoy a breakdown of the Lone Star State's generational bluegrass harmonies. From the moment they picked up the radio signal of Bill Monroe's mandolin, Texans have been enamored with this uniquely American style of music. But the high lonesome sound couldn't have put down roots without a tradition of mentorship that runs through families and spans generations. Meet the Van Cliburn piano prodigy that became a multi-instrumentalist for Taylor Swift. Travel to the summer bluegrass camp where students develop into teachers. Sit in on a back porch jam session with the Rogers, the Brocks, the Vestals and the Whites. From the state's first Asian-American bluegrass family to its banjo-building Santa Claus, Jeff Campbell and Braeden Paul set the stage for the stewards of Texas bluegrass.
Texas has nurtured a thriving bluegrass scene since the early 1950s. The Lone Star State boasts the country's first bluegrass college degree and even hosts a Beatles bluegrass cover band. Meet the Pickin' Singin' Professor, the Fiddle Engineer and Blanco's Bluegrass Boy. Hit the trail with cowboys like the Mayfield brothers and go backstage with Grammy-nominated acts like Wood & Wire. Jeff Campbell and Braeden Paul celebrate the musicians who contributed to the harmonious heritage of Texas bluegrass.
The first major biography of the Carter Family, the musical pioneers who almost single-handedly created the sounds and traditions that grew into modern folk, country, and bluegrass music. Meticulously researched and lovingly written, it is a look at a world and a culture that, rather than passing, has continued to exist in the music that is the legacy of the Carters—songs that have shaped and influenced generations of artists who have followed them. Brilliant in insight and execution, Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? is also an in-depth study of A.P., Sara, and Maybelle Carter, and their bittersweet story of love and fulfillment, sadness and loss. The result is more than just a biography of a family; it is also a journey into another time, almost another world, and theirs is a story that resonates today and lives on in the timeless music they created.
Texas singer-songwriter Hayes Carll declared, “Ray would be at the top of the list if I were gonna read about somebody’s life.” In The Messenger: The Songwriting Legacy of Ray Wylie Hubbard, author, journalist, and music producer Brian T. Atkinson demonstrates why Carll and so many others hold Ray Wylie Hubbard in such high regard. Atkinson takes readers into and beyond the seedy bar in Red River, New Mexico, where the incident occurred that inspired Hubbard’s most famous song, “Redneck Mother.” Hubbard tells the stories, and Atkinson enlists other musicians to expound on the nature of his abiding influence as songwriter, musician, and unflinching teller of uncomfortable truths. Featuring interviews with well-known artists such as Eric Church, Steve Earle, Kinky Friedman, Chris Robinson, and Jerry Jeff Walker, and also mining the insights of up-and-comers such as Elizabeth Cook, Jaren Johnston, Ben Kweller, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Paul Thorn, The Messenger makes clear why so many musicians across a wide spectrum admire Ray Wylie Hubbard. Readers will also learn why “Redneck Mother,” the song that put Hubbard on the map for most listeners, is also a curse, of sorts, in its diminution of both his spiritual depth as a lyricist and his multidimensional musical reach. As Hubbard himself says, “The song probably should have never been written, let alone recorded, let alone recorded again.. . . the most important part of songwriting is right after you write a song, ask yourself, ‘Can I sing this for twenty-five years?’” Atkinson’s work makes a convincing case that Ray Wylie Hubbard’s truest and most lasting contributions will long outlive him. And, with a couple of good breaks, they may even outlive “Redneck Mother.”
A combination of button accordion and bajo sexto, conjunto originated in the Texas-Mexico borderlands as a popular dance music and became a powerful form of regional identity. Today, listeners and musicians around the world have embraced the genre and the work of conjunto masters like Flaco Jiménez and Mingo Saldívar. Erin E. Bauer follows conjunto from its local origins through three processes of globalization--migration via media, hybridization, and appropriation--that boosted the music’s reach. As Bauer shows, conjunto’s encounter with globalizing forces raises fundamental questions. What is conjunto stylistically and socioculturally? Does context change how we categorize it? Do we consider the music to be conjunto based on its musical characteristics or due to its performance by Jiménez and other regional players? How do similar local genres like Tejano and norteño relate to ideas of categorization? A rare look at a fascinating musical phenomenon, Flaco’s Legacy reveals how conjunto came to encompass new people, places, and styles.
Sacred Harp music or shape-note singing is as old as America itself. The term sacred harp refers to the human voice. Brought to this continent by the settlers of Jamestown, this style of singing is also known as “fasola.” In Legacy of the Sacred Harp, author Chloe Webb follows the history of this musical form back four hundred years, and in the process uncovers the harrowing legacy of her Dumas family line. The journey begins in contemporary Texas with an overlooked but historically rich family heirloom, a tattered 1869 edition of The Sacred Harp songbook. Traveling across the South and sifting through undiscovered family history, Webb sets out on a personal quest to reconnect with her ancestors who composed, sang, and lived by the words of Sacred Harp music. Her research irreversibly transforms her rose-colored view of her heritage and brings endearing characters to life as the reality of the effects of slavery on Southern plantation life, the thriving tobacco industry, and the Civil War are revisited through the lens of the Dumas family. Most notably, Webb’s original research unearths the person of Ralph Freeman, freed slave and pastor of a pre-Civil War white Southern church. Wringing history from boxes of keepsakes, lively interviews, dusty archival libraries, and church records, Webb keeps Sacred Harp lyrics ringing in readers’ ears, allowing the poetry to illuminate the lessons and trials of the past. The choral shape-note music of the Sacred Harp whispers to us of the past, of the religious persecution that brought this music to our shores, and how the voices of contemporary Sacred Harp singers still ring out the unchanged lyrics across the South, the music pulling the past into our present.
What do you do when the man you're falling for is tasked with bringing your family to justice? The daughter of one of the most notorious outlaws in the country, Karissa Jones has spent the last two years running from her past. With her sister Beth, she's begun a new life for herself in Pine Creek, Texas. US Marshal Matthew Carmichael is a man on a mission. For the last five years, he's chased the Jones gang clear across the country. As Matthew rides into town, Karissa's as struck by his green eyes and steady manner as she is his marshal star. She's spent much of her life hiding from men - and even more hiding from the law - but something about him makes her feel safe for the first time in her life. When Karissa's past catches up to her, and she finds herself kidnapped and brought straight into a den of outlaws, trusting herself and Matthew might be her only way out alive. **A Historical Christian Romance**
CMJ New Music Monthly, the first consumer magazine to include a bound-in CD sampler, is the leading publication for the emerging music enthusiast. NMM is a monthly magazine with interviews, reviews, and special features. Each magazine comes with a CD of 15-24 songs by well-established bands, unsigned bands and everything in between. It is published by CMJ Network, Inc.
In the twentieth century, Appalachian migrants seeking economic opportunities relocated to southwestern Ohio, bringing their music with them. Between 1947 and 1989, they created an internationally renowned capital for the thriving bluegrass music genre, centered on the industrial region of Cincinnati, Dayton, Hamilton, Middletown, and Springfield. Fred Bartenstein and Curtis W. Ellison edit a collection of eyewitness narratives and in-depth analyses that explore southwestern Ohio’s bluegrass musicians, radio broadcasters, recording studios, record labels, and performance venues, along with the music’s contributions to religious activities, community development, and public education. As the bluegrass scene grew, southwestern Ohio's distinctive sounds reached new fans and influenced those everywhere who continue to play, produce, and love roots music. Revelatory and multifaceted, Industrial Strength Bluegrass shares the inspiring story of a bluegrass hotbed and the people who created it. Contributors: Fred Bartenstein, Curtis W. Ellison, Jon Hartley Fox, Rick Good, Lily Isaacs, Ben Krakauer, Mac McDivitt, Nathan McGee, Daniel Mullins, Joe Mullins, Larry Nager, Phillip J. Obermiller, Bobby Osborne, and Neil V. Rosenberg.
