The New Merle Haggard Anthology

(E-Z Play Today). His biggest hits, including: The Bottle Let Me Down * From Graceland to the Promised Land * If We Make It Through December * Mama Tried * Okie from Muskogee * and many more.

(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Artist Songbook). 54 of the very best from this country legend arranged for piano, voice and guitar, including: Okie From Muskogee * From Graceland to the Promised Land * A Place To Fall Apart * If We Make It Through December * Mama Tried * Let's Chase Each Other Around the Room * I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink * I Had a Beautiful Time * Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star * and many more.

(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Artist Songbook). 54 of the very best from this country legend, including: Okie From Muskogee * From Graceland to the Promised Land * A Place To Fall Apart * If We Make It Through December * Mama Tried * Let's Chase Each Other Around the Room * I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink * I Had a Beautiful Time * Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star * and many more.

The definitive biography of country legend Merle Haggard by the New York Times bestselling biographer of Clint Eastwood, Cary Grant, The Eagles, and more. Merle Haggard was one of the most important country music musicians who ever lived. His astonishing musical career stretched across the second half of the 20th Century and into the first two decades of the next, during which he released an extraordinary 63 albums, 38 that made it on to Billboard's Country Top Ten, 13 that went to #1, and 37 #1 hit singles. With his ample songbook, unique singing voice and brilliant phrasing that illuminated his uncompromising commitment to individual freedom, cut with the monkey of personal despair on his back and a chip the size of Monument Valley on his shoulder, Merle's music and his extraordinary charisma helped change the look, the sound, and the fury of American music. The Hag tells, without compromise, the extraordinary life of Merle Haggard, augmented by deep secondary research, sharp detail and ample anecdotal material that biographer Marc Eliot is known for, and enriched and deepened by over 100 new and far-ranging interviews. It explores the uniquely American life of an angry rebellious boy from the wrong side of the tracks bound for a life of crime and a permanent home in a penitentiary, who found redemption through the music of "the common man." Merle Haggard's story is a great American saga of a man who lifted himself out of poverty, oppression, loss and wanderlust, to catapult himself into the pantheon of American artists admired around the world. Eliot has interviewed more than 100 people who knew Haggard, worked with him, were influenced by him, loved him or hated him. The book celebrates the accomplishments and explore the singer's infamous dark side: the self-created turmoil that expressed itself through drugs, women, booze, and betrayal. The Hag offers a richly anecdotal narrative that will elevate the life and work of Merle Haggard to where both properly belong, in the pantheon of American music and letters. The Hag is the definitive account of this unique American original, and will speak to readers of country music and rock biographies alike.

By the bestselling author of Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll and Last Train the Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, this dazzling new book of profiles is a culmination of Peter Guralnick’s remarkable work, which from the start has encompassed the full sweep of blues, gospel, country, and rock 'n' roll. It covers old ground from new perspectives, offering deeply felt, masterful, and strikingly personal portraits of creative artists, both musicians and writers, at the height of their powers. “You put the book down feeling that its sweep is vast, that you have read of giants who walked among us,” rock critic Lester Bangs wrote of Guralnick’s earlier work in words that could just as easily be applied to this new one. And yet, for all of the encomiums that Guralnick’s books have earned for their remarkable insights and depth of feeling, Looking to Get Lost is his most personal book yet. For readers who have grown up on Guralnick’s unique vision of the vast sweep of the American musical landscape, who have imbibed his loving and lively portraits and biographies of such titanic figures as Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, and Sam Phillips, there are multiple surprises and delights here, carrying on and extending all the themes, fascinations, and passions of his groundbreaking earlier work. One of NPR’s Best Books of 2020 One of Kirkus Review/Rolling Stone’s Top Music Books of 2020 One of No Depression’s Best Books of 2020

California has been fertile ground for country music since the 1920s, nurturing a multitude of talents from Gene Autry to Glen Campbell, Rose Maddox to Barbara Mandrell, Buck Owens to Merle Haggard. In this affectionate homage to California's place in country music's history, Gerald Haslam surveys the Golden State's contributions to what is today the most popular music in America. At the same time he illuminates the lives of the white, working-class men and women who migrated to California from the Dust Bowl, the Hoovervilles, and all the other locales where they had been turned out, shut down, or otherwise told to move on. Haslam's roots go back to Oildale, in California's central valley, where he first discovered the passion for country music that infuses Workin' Man Blues. As he traces the Hollywood singing cowboys, Bakersfield honky-tonks, western-swing dance halls, "hillbilly" radio shows, and crossover styles from blues and folk music that also have California roots, he shows how country music offered a kind of cultural comfort to its listeners, whether they were oil field roustabouts or hash slingers. Haslam analyzes the effects on country music of population shifts, wartime prosperity, the changes in gender roles, music industry economics, and television. He also challenges the assumption that Nashville has always been country music's hometown and Grand Ole Opry its principal venue. The soul of traditional country remains romantically rural, southern, and white, he says, but it is also the anthem of the underdog, which may explain why California plays so vital a part in its heritage: California is where people reinvent themselves, just as country music has reinvented itself since the first Dust Bowl migrants arrived, bringing their songs and heartaches with them.

(Guitar Chord Songbook). A resource of nearly 70 Williams' classics, including: Cold, Cold Heart * Hey, Good Lookin' * Honky Tonk Blues * Honky Tonkin' * I Saw the Light * I'm a Long Gone Daddy * Jambalaya (On the Bayou) * Long Gone Lonesome Blues * My Son Calls Another Man Daddy * Take These Chains from My Heart * Your Cheatin' Heart * and more.

This text presents a comprehensive and up-to-date reference work on popular music, from the early 20th century to the present day.

Reviews and rates the best recordings of country artists and groups, provides biographies of the artists, and charts the evolution of country music

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