Recent Book Reviews

Few artists embody the spirit, diversity and history of traditional American folk music like Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson. Not only was Watson a real creative driving force for the folk music revival in the 1960s, but he has managed to stay relevant in the decades that followed despite an ever-changing popular music landscape. Given this historical background, it is really surprising that Kent Gustavson's comprehensive new tome marks the first true Doc Watson biography in print... »»»

For years, Buck Owens perfected his Bakersfield sound and topped the charts with his own brand of distinctive country music. To a generation of fans, he was a musical innovator and eschw-er of current trends. To another generation, he was the co-host of the syndicated "Hee Haw" where he traded jokes in the cornfield and showcased his songs with the Buckaroos on a weekly basis. Behind the scenes, though, he was known as a shrewd, and often unfeeling, businessman and womanizer... »»»

The general consensus of the historians and musicologists who spend much of their time researching and writing about such things is that what we now call "country music" - or at least the recorded era of it - begins in 1922 with an eccentric Texas fiddler by the name of Eck Robertson journeying to a New York City studio and sawing away on Sally Gooden into what was, by modern standards, a primitive microphone and sound board. Only a year before, KDKA in Pittsburgh inaugurated the radio... »»»

Equal parts bravura investigative history and he-said she-said gossip, Alanna Nash's tome on the women in Elvis Presley's life provides the final word on the late rock king's romantic escapades. The first music journalist to see Presley in his casket - as she proudly proclaims on the book jacket - the author has diligently collected stories from the singer's early puppy love phase, Hollywood days, spiritual era and his sad premature decline. The portrait she paints is that of a... »»»