I'm currently working on a country music-related project, due for release next year, and have come across two really incisive studies of the world of twang. One is called Nashville's Unwritten Rules, written by Dan Daley in 1998, and the other is Dreaming Out Loud: Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes and the Changing Face of Nashville; the author is Bruce Feiler. It was published in 1999.
Don't fear; it's not as if I'm embracing the 'big hats and belt buckles' look myself, I'm simply kicking around the same themes that are at the centre of my other books: what inspires a person to make music in the first place, and how does someone get to rise above the pack and become a 'star'? Whether you play country, rock, pop, hip-hop – or music as uncategorisable as Jeff Buckley's – those themes recur everywhere I look in the world of music.
Also really worth reading is Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy, the memoirs of legendary producer Tony Visconti. He writes with a frank, straight-up, 'who'd have thought it' style, which is especially surprising (and refreshing) for someone who was knee-deep in some of the pivotal moments in modern rock history.
I'm currently working on a country music-related project, due for release next year, and have come across two really incisive studies of the world of twang. One is called Nashville's Unwritten Rules, written by Dan Daley in 1998, and the other is Dreaming Out Loud: Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes and the Changing Face of Nashville; the author is Bruce Feiler. It was published in 1999. 
Don't fear; it's not as if I'm embracing the 'big hats and belt buckles' look myself, I'm simply kicking around the same themes that are at the centre of my other books: what inspires a person to make music in the first place, and how does someone get to rise above the pack and become a 'star'? Whether you play country, rock, pop, hip-hop – or music as uncategorisable as Jeff Buckley's – those themes recur everywhere I look in the world of music. 
Also really worth reading is Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy, the memoirs of legendary producer Tony Visconti. He writes with a frank, straight-up, 'who'd have thought it' style, which is especially surprising (and refreshing) for someone who was knee-deep in some of the pivotal moments in modern rock history.