All Music Guide to Country: The Experts' Guide to the Best Recordings in Country Music

For country music fans everywhere, this is a comprehensive guide to the entire spectrum of the music, from string bands and old-timey country, to new traditionalists, alternative country, and today's Nashville superstars. A wealth of great country music has been made over the course of the 20th century, but unfortunately that music hasn't always been well presented. Country has a history of poorly assembled studio albums, quickly recorded cash-in albums, budget-priced compilations, and rerecordings. This book helps listeners to sort through all of this and find the best recordings of old favorites, as well as to discover some great music they may not have heard before. The All Music Guide to Country points out which albums have all the original recordings, which budget-line collections are actually worth acquiring, and which old records are worth a search. Designed for devoted country fans and newcomers alike, this book is packed with fascinating and informative features, including biographies of more than 1,000 artists and groups, providing thorough and concise overviews of their careers; reviews and ratings of the best recordings of each performermore than 5,500 in all; historical essays and "music maps" charting the roots and evolution of country music, its styles, instruments, key artists, and more; and country resources, including book reviews, magazine listings, online sites, and mail-order sources.