The Country Music Hall Of Fame Publishes New Book ‘In-Law Country’

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The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has published a new book, In-Law Country: How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash and Their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music, 1968-1985, by Geoffrey Himes.

The book shines a light on a musical movement of outsiders who became influential insiders in the genre. Blending biography and musical analysis, Himes explores how a group of artists, musicians and producers helped change the sounds and stories of country, melding traditional stylings with fresh innovations and perspectives. It attempts to define the previously unnamed movement by delving into the lives and seminal works of Harris, Cash, Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, Gram Parsons, Ricky Skaggs, Clarence White, Townes Van Zandt and others. The book is being simultaneously issued in hardcover and paperback.

Himes has won numerous awards for writing about music in the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, New York Times, No Depression, Downbeat, Paste and many others since 1975. His book on Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A., was published in 2005. He has also penned liner notes for albums by Rosanne Cash, Merle Haggard, Marty Stuart and more.

The museum has also reissued Douglas B. Green’s Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy, which explores the story of the singing cowboy from the early days of vaudeville and radio, through the heyday of movie westerns before World War II, to the current revival. Green analyzes the studio system that made Gene Autry and Roy Rogers famous and documents the role that country music and regional TV stations played in carrying on the singing cowboy tradition after the war.

Originally co-published by the museum in 2002, the previously out-of-print title features new artwork and a new preface by the author and is being issued in paperback. Green is a music historian and performer who founded Riders in the Sky and is also known by his stage name, “Ranger Doug – The Idol of American Youth.”

Both books are published by the museum’s publishing arm, CMF Press. The books are now available on the museum’s website and in its retail store. The titles will be widely available in bookstores and online outlets beginning Dec. 10 through a distribution partnership with the University of Illinois Press

Lorie Hollabaugh
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