Explore the vast range of titles available.

Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches?Banding Togetherexplores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century American popular music. Drawing on a vast array of examples from sixty musical styles--ranging from rap and bluegrass to death metal and South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States--Jennifer Lena uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music. What are the common economic, organizational, ideological, and aesthetic traits among contemporary genres? Do genres follow patterns in their development? Lena discovers four dominant forms--Avant-garde, Scene-based, Industry-based, and Traditionalist--and two dominant trajectories that describe how American pop music genres develop. Outside the United States there exists a fifth form: the Government-purposed genre, which she examines in the music of China, Serbia, Nigeria, and Chile. Offering a rare analysis of how music communities operate, she looks at the shared obstacles and opportunities creative people face and reveals the ways in which people collaborate around ideas, artworks, individuals, and organizations that support their work.

Memphis Boyschronicles the story of the rhythm section at Chips Moman's American Studios from 1964, when the group began working together, until 1972, when Moman shut down the studio and moved the entire operation to Atlanta. Utilizing extensive interviews with Moman and the group, as well as additional comments from the songwriters, sound engineers, and office staff, author Roben Jones creates a collective biography combined with a business history and a critical analysis of important recordings. She reveals how the personalities of the core group meshed, how they regarded newcomers, and how their personal and musical philosophies blended with Moman's vision to create timeless music based on themes of suffering and sorrow. Recording sessions with Elvis Presley, the Gentrys, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Box Tops, Joe Tex, Neil Diamond, B. J. Thomas, Dionne Warwick, and many others come alive in this book. Jones provides the stories behind memorable songs composed by group writers, such as \"The Letter,\" \"Dark End of the Street,\" \"Do Right Woman,\" \"Breakfast in Bed,\" and \"You Were Always on My Mind.\" Featuring photographs, personal profiles, and a suggested listening section,Memphis Boysdetails a significant phase of American music and the impact of one studio.

\"True to herself and to her characters. That's film and TV writer Callie Khouri. As creator, writer and executive producer of the ABC smart musical drama series Nashville, returning for its second season this fall, Khouri is part of the hard-working TV industry elite. But it wasn't always that way. If hers seems a bit of a Cinderella story, well, yes, in a sense, it is. Before Khouri got her writing start, she waited tables for a time and worked her way up, in classic Hollywood style, from production company receptionist to production assistant to music video producer. Then in 1991, her first screenplay, Thelma & Louise, snagged the interest of famed movie director Ridley Scott, who turned Khouri's heartfelt words into a filmic tour de force.\" (The Writer) In this interview, Khouri discusses her screenwriting career and her work on the hit television show, Nashville.

This chapter describes events that occurred following the opening of the Starday Sound Studios in May 1960. The studio became one of the top four recording outlets in Nashville, alongside Owen Bradley’s Quonset Hut, RCA Victor, and Fred Foster studios. Despite having two talented house bands and a growing roster of top talent, there were still many challenges to be met in the Starday studios, including poor acoustics and equipment. An echo unit was later built to enhance recordings.

\"[Eric] Church and [Luke] Bryan are both pushing forty, and have released five albums each. They are neither grizzled veterans nor teens, but they are perfect examples of how Nashville has built a model for the pop song, with its standard verse-chorus-bridge architecture, that has outlasted the other genres that have traditionally used the form. Until recently, country music was seen as stylistically retrograde--conservative music for the conservative states. But the truth is more complicated.\" (New Yorker) This article explores how Bryan and Church are \"stretch[ing] country to include a wide variety of pop genres.\"