Spring 1999 Volume XXVIII, No. 2

Defining American Music by David Nicholls Post-Canonical Ellington by Mark Tucker Elliott Carter at 90+ by John F. Link Persona non grata: Frank Zappa's Orchestral Subculture by Arved Ashby The Eclectic World of Tom McDermott by Edward A. Berlin ISAM Matters Reviews Twentieth-Century Originals by Wayne Alpern Cage, Notation, and Theatre by Jon Erickson Country and Gospel Notes by Charles Wolfe ISAM Home

Country and Gospel Notes by Charles Wolfe The looming millennium seems to have inspired many chroniclers of American music to undertake large retrospective assessments of their fields. In the arena of country and gospel, these include a number of new entries in Oxford’s mammoth American National Biography, the twenty-four volume reference work that promises to become a staple on most library shelves. While it by no means deals only with music-related figures, there are a significant number of entries on people ranging from gospel publisher Aldine Kieffer and singer Roy Acuff to A&R man Ralph Peer and guitarist Merle Travis. No fewer than three specific country music encyclopedias have also emerged in recent years. One is Definitive Country (Perigree, 1995; cloth $40, paper $20), edited and largely written by British rockabilly fan Barry McCloud. A second is The Comprehensive Country Music Encyclopedia (Times Books/Random House, 1995; $25) produced by the editors and writers of the leading slick magazine for the genre, Country Music. The third and most recent is The Encyclopedia of Country Music (Oxford University Press, 1998; $55), edited by Paul Kingsbury and the staff of the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, with contributions from 137 experts in the field. Since this writer was involved in varying ways with each of these encyclopedias, it would be inappropriate to evaluate them in a formal sense. However, some general descriptions might be in order. The McCloud compilation is the largest of the three, boasting 1200 entries, and is strong on songwriters and older performers. The Comprehensive Country Music Encyclopedia is the most readable, since most of its authors are experienced journalists with well-honed writing skills; it contains, though, only 600 entries. The Oxford encyclopedia boasts 1300 entries on specific subjects and people, as well as mini-essays on country music and touring, country music and the growth of Nashville, and early recording techniques. Among the illustrations is an entire section devoted to a history of country record covers–though it is marred by poor color reproduction. Commentators who have evaluated the three have noted that the McCloud publication contains too many errors of fact and interpretation, while The Comprehensive Country Music Encyclopedia is too slick and superficial. Others have noted that the Oxford book contains disturbingly short entries on earlier historical figures like Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith and Dock Boggs, and plays to the cheap seat galleries by having long, glowing accounts of currently trendy acts like Brooks and Dunn, Alan Jackson, and Alison Krauss. Considering that a “serious” encyclopedia devoted to any form of popular culture represents an uneasy alliance between historians on one hand and fans on the other, some of these difficulties are inevitable. I would gauge at this point that the Oxford entry is the more dependable of the three, and the only one deserving of a substantial shelf life. Though not an encyclopedia per se, Barry R. Willis’s America’s Music, Bluegrass (Pine Valley Music, 1997; cloth $135, paper $59.95) is a huge compendium of all things having to do with bluegrass. After languishing for years as a sub-genre of country music, bluegrass has come into its own in the 1990s. Once described by Alan Lomax as “folk music in overdrive,” bluegrass now has its own trade organization, museum, best-seller lists, and crossover hits. Mainstream country stars like Vince Gill and Dolly Parton often return to their bluegrass roots, and a recent tribute album to Ralph Stanley included no less a figure than Bob Dylan. And though there has been considerable bluegrass history and appreciation written in various periodicals and in liner notes, there are surprisingly few book-length works. The standard survey is Neil Rosenberg’s Bluegrass: A History (University of Illinois Press, 1985), while an earlier, more informal look is Bob Artis’s Bluegrass (Hawthorne Books, 1975). America’s Music, Bluegrass is not like either of these. It is a huge, oversized volume that contains hundreds of thumbnail biographies and historical sketches; it is certainly the largest compendium of bluegrass data in print. Barry Willis, a former airline pilot, organizes his book not by traditional chronology, but by instruments–fiddle, mandolin, dobro, guitar, etc.–and those who play them, as well as tangential subjects like commercial recording companies, festivals (a sorely needed treatment), instrument companies and makers, and bluegrass on the international scene. Each of the chapters is in turn subdivided into shorter, titled segments, some only a few paragraphs long. This scattergun effect yields considerable information–much of which is borrowed from and credited to the journalists who originally published their work in Bluegrass Unlimited, Banjo Newsletter, Bluegrass Now, and other fan magazines. The trouble is that the book is too large and diffuse; it is hard for someone first coming to bluegrass to really appreciate the complex interconnections and relationships that so characterize the music. A textbook it is not, but as a supplement for someone who already knows something about the music, it is instructive and rewarding. Whatever one makes of them, these encyclopedias and compendiums do testify to the increasing seriousness with which country music is now being taken. In the thirty-one years since Bill C. Malone published his pioneering study, Country Music USA, an impressive amount of research has been done, and these volumes reflect its extent and depth.