A biography on the Canadian country musician, from his poor childhood in Nova Scotia to international celebrity on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. Born in tiny Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, Hank Snow enjoyed a musical career that spanned five decades and sales of more than 80 million albums. In I’m Movin’ On, journalist Vernon Oickle chronicles Snow’s hardscrabble life, from his destitute childhood in Queens County to international fame. Leaving no stone unturned in his richly detailed profile of the Singing Ranger, Oickle exposes the highs and lows of Snow’s career, and his journey (“Everywhere, man,”) from small East Coast radio stations to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Includes a foreword from Hank’s son, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, a timeline, discography, and 75 photographs.

Today, country music enjoys a national fan base that transcends both economic and social boundaries. Sixty years ago, however, it was primarily the music of rural, working-class whites living in the South and was perceived by many Americans as “hillbilly music.” In Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly, Jeffrey J. Lange examines the 1940s and early 1950s as the most crucial period in country music’s transformation from a rural, southern folk art form to a national phenomenon. In his meticulous analysis of changing performance styles and alterations in the lifestyles of listeners, Lange illuminates the acculturation of country music and its audience into the American mainstream. Dividing country music into six subgenres (progressive country, western swing, postwar traditional, honky-tonk, country pop, and country blues), Lange discusses the music’s expanding appeal. As he analyzes the recordings and comments of each of the subgenre’s most significant artists, including Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, and Red Foley, he traces the many paths the musical form took on its road to respectability. Lange shows how along the way the music and its audience became more sophisticated, how the subgenres blended with one another and with American popular music, and how Nashville emerged as the country music hub. By 1954, the transformation from “hillbilly” music to country music was complete, precipitated by the modernizing forces of World War II and realized by the efforts of promoters, producers, and performers.

Colin McPhee was a performer, writer, and pioneer among Western composers in turning to Asia for inspiration. A close friend of Aaron Copland, Carlos Chavez, Henry Cowell, and Virgil Thomson, he played a vital role in new music activities in New York in the 1920s, but his most important accomplishments came from his devotion to the music of Bali. Carol Oja's Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds traces his life, his influences on fellow musicians, and the profound experience of a composer striving to comprehend an entirely new musical language. After hearing rare recordings of the Balinese gamelan--a percussion orchestra with delicately layered textures and clangorous sounds--McPhee traveled to Bali and worked closely with such Western anthropologists as Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. The island may also have appealed to him because of its relatively open attitude toward homosexuality. Gay by inclination, he nevertheless married anthropologist Jane Belo and built a native-style house on the island where they lived for most of the 1930s. During this time, McPhee became a devoted and meticulous chronicler of Balinese musical culture, and his Music of Bali remains a classic in ethnomusicology. Beginning in the mid-1930s, his own compositions became an imaginative hybrid of Balinese and Western music, anticipating the later work of such figures as John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Steve Reich. Finally back in print, Carol Oja's account of McPhee's unconventional life and work evokes key issues in composition and ethnomusicology, sure to be of interest to scholars, musicians or anyone interested in 20th century American or Balinese music.

Spanning over 1,000 separate performances, The Music of Bill Monroe presents a complete chronological list of all of Bill Monroe’s commercially released sound and visual recordings. Each chapter begins with a narrative describing Monroe’s life and career at that point, bringing in producers, sidemen, and others as they become part of the story. The narratives read like a “who’s who” of bluegrass, connecting Monroe to the music’s larger history and containing many fascinating stories. The second part of each chapter presents the discography. Information here includes the session’s place, date, time, and producer; master/matrix numbers, song/tune titles, composer credits, personnel, instruments, and vocals; and catalog/release numbers and reissue data. The only complete bio-discography of this American musical icon, The Music of Bill Monroe is the starting point for any study of Monroe’s contributions as a composer, interpreter, and performer.

The Music of the Stanley Brothers brings together forty years of passionate research by scholar and record label owner Gary B. Reid. A leading authority on Carter and Ralph Stanley, Reid augments his own vast knowledge of their music with interviews, documents ranging from books to folios sold by the brothers at shows, and the words of Ralph Stanley, former band members, guest musicians, session producers, songwriters, and bluegrass experts. The result is a reference that illuminates the Stanleys' art and history. It is all here: dates and locations; the roster of players on well-known and obscure sessions alike; master/matrix and catalog/release numbers, with reissue information; a full discography sorting out the Stanleys' complex recording history; the stories behind the music; and exquisitely informed biographical notes that place events in the context of the brothers' careers and lives. Monumental and indispensable, The Music of the Stanley Brothers provides fans and scholars alike with a guide for immersion in the long career and breathtaking repertoire of two legendary American musicians.

Set against the drama of the Great Depression, the conflict of American race relations, and the inquisitions of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Cafe Society tells the personal history of Barney Josephson, proprietor of the legendary interracial New York City night clubs Cafe Society Downtown and Cafe Society Uptown and their successor, The Cookery. Famously known as "the wrong place for the Right people," Cafe Society featured the cream of jazz and blues performers--among whom were Billie Holiday, boogie-woogie pianists, Big Joe Turner, Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Big Sid Catlett, and Mary Lou Williams--as well as comedy stars Imogene Coca, Zero Mostel, and Jack Gilford, and also gospel and folk singers. A trailblazer in many ways, Josephson welcomed black and white artists alike to perform for mixed audiences in a venue whose walls were festooned with artistic and satiric murals lampooning what was then called "high society." Featuring scores of photographs that illustrate the vibrant cast of characters in Josephson's life, this exceptional book speaks richly about Cafe Society's revolutionary innovations and creativity, inspired by the vision of one remarkable man.