50th Anniversary Edition
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List of IllustrationsForeword by Henry SapoznikPrefaceChapter 1. The Folk Background before CommercialismChapter 2. The Early Period of Commercial Hillbilly MusicChapter 3. The First Country Singing Star: Jimmie RodgersChapter 4. Country Music during the DepressionChapter 5. The Cowboy Image and the Growth of Western MusicChapter 6. The War Years: The National Expansion of Country MusicChapter 7. The Boom Period: The Emergence of a Big Business, 1946-1953Chapter 8. The Development of Country-Pop Music and the Nashville SoundChapter 9. The Reinvigoration of Modern Country Music, 1960-1972Chapter 10. BluegrassChapter 11. Country Music, 1972-1984Chapter 12. Tradition and Change: Country Music, 1985-2000Chapter 13. A New CenturyNotesBibliographical EssaysIndexIndex of Song Titles
. - Publisher Synopsis: "Malone's book provides a veritable treasure trove of information regarding the musicians, musical styles, and distribution networks (primarily the radio and phonograph recordings) of country music. . . Malone presents his readers with discrete insights into the particular musical acts that gave rise to and perpetuated the country music tradition in all of its internal contradictions, negotiations, and accommodations." * PopMatters * "[Country Music USA] was, and remains, a staggering work of scholarship that became a cornerstone of American music history- anyone writing seriously about country must reckon with it." * Longreads * "Country Music USA has been an authoritative and detailed history lesson and reference manual for country music, paralleled in quality and scope by few other works. It's country music's biography, starting with country's very beginnings in primitive folk, and ranging all the way to the present day." * Saving Country Music * "An important book. . . the first to tell the genre's complete story, beginning with its folk, religious and early commercial origins - the ballads of the British Isles, the tent revivals, the 19th-century minstrel shows and the 1927 recording session in Bristol, Tennessee, that saw both Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family make their first recordings." * Texas Observer *
