Long before the United States had presidents from the world of movies and reality TV, we had scores of politicians with connections to country music. In I’d Fight the World, Peter La Chapelle traces the deep bonds between country music and politics, from the nineteenth-century rise of fiddler-politicians to more recent figures like Pappy O’Daniel, Roy Acuff, and Rob Quist. These performers and politicians both rode and resisted cultural waves: some advocated for the poor and dispossessed, and others voiced religious and racial anger, but they all walked the line between exploiting their celebrity and righteously taking on the world. La Chapelle vividly shows how country music campaigners have profoundly influenced the American political landscape.

Carl Merritt comes from a world where no rules apply, where violence has always simmered close to the surface. Still in his teens, he became trapped in a world of illegal fighting. The men who owned Carl built him into an awesome opponent, and plunged him into a world of appalling violence, crime, and retribution. Armed with firsts, elbows, feet, teeth, and forehead, Carl would target his opponents inside the cage, from which there was no escape. Only the strongest survived.Some of Carl's opponents were even slaughtered by their own supporters, as so much money had been gambled and lost on them. London, Paris, Dublin, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Las Vegas--Carl lost track of the number of times he was smuggled into a deserted underground car park or an empty warehouse, in a strange land. Carl's most recent fight nearly proved fatal to both fighters, and once and for all he has left the bloody metal arena behind. Now he wants to break the cage's strict code of silence to reveal how it has become the most deadly sport in the world.

Music directory with records for artists, titles, labels and year of release for 45 RPM records published between 1947 and 1982.