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The Delmore Brothers—Alton and Rabon Delmore—molded blues and country-gospel into an influential, guitar-driven harmony sound with classic songs such as “Brown’s Ferry Blues” and “Blues Stay Away from Me.” Older brother Alton also left behind this fascinating, long-unpublished autobiography, which brings to life the early Grand Ole Opry and the struggles of pioneering country musicians. Edited by historian Charles K. Wolfe, The Delmore Brother...

The riveting and heart-wrenching story of country music diva Patsy Cline, from her against-all-odds rise from poverty and a strange, lonely childhood shrouded in secrecy, to her  tragic and untimely death at the age of thirty when, ironically, she had finally achieved the triumph she had sought all her life.

My Husband, Jimmie Rodgers was the first book-length biography ever published about a country musician, and fittingly so. No single performer left as profound an impression on early country music. Songs that Rodgers popularized--"T for Texas, " "Daddy and Home, " "In the Jailhouse Now, " "Miss the Mississippi"--are still a regular part of country performers' repertoires. Despite a recording career that lasted only six years (1927-1933) and end...

An expert fiddler and a magnetic showman, Bob Wills (1905–1975) popularized a style of Southwestern dance music known as western swing, a rhythmic hybrid of fiddle music, blues, and big band swing. In 1938, when Wills was thirty-three and nearing the height of his fame, journalist Ruth Sheldon chronicled Wills’s rags-to riches rise. She produced a biography that captures the ebullient personality of Wills and reflects the bandleader’s vision o...

The product of a hardscrabble childhood, J. Mayo "Ink" Williams parlayed an Ivy League education into unlikely twin careers as a foundational producer of Black music and pioneering Black player in the early NFL. Clifford R. Murphy tells the story of an ambitious, upwardly mobile life affected, but never daunted, by white society's racism or the Black community's class tensions. Williams caroused with Paul Robeson, recorded the likes of Ma Rain...

From the 1870s to the 1960s, circuses crisscrossed the nation providing entertainment. A unique workforce of human and animal laborers from around the world put on the show. They also formed the backbone of a tented entertainment industry that raised new questions about what constituted work and who counted as a worker. Andrea Ringer examines the industry-wide circus world--the collection of shows that traveled by rail, wagon, steamboat, and c...

Shifting demographics. Downstate versus Chicago. Billionaires and bribery. Even veteran observers need a roadmap to track Illinois' ever-changing political landscape. Melissa Mouritsen, Kent D. Redfield, and James D. Nowlan provide an up-to-date primer on Prairie State politics, government, and policies. Features include: Discussions of recent events like the 2015-2017 budget disaster, the response to COVID-19, and the fall of longtime House S...

“My idol growing up, all I wanted to be, was Stan Isaacs.” --Tony Kornheiser “Stan Isaacs is directly responsible for my television career--and much of how I approached what I’ve said and whom I’ve said it about.” --Keith Olbermann Iconoclastic and irreverent, Stan Isaacs was part of a generation that bucked the sports establishment with a skepticism for authority, an appreciation for absurdity, and a gift for placing athletes and events withi...

Cycling emerged as a sport in the late 1870s, and from the beginning, Black Americans rode alongside and raced against white competitors. Robert J. Turpin sheds light on the contributions of Black cyclists from the sport’s early days through the cementing of Jim Crow laws during the Progressive Era. As Turpin shows, Black cyclists used the bicycle not only as a vehicle but as a means of social mobility--a mobility that attracted white ire. Pro...

Richard Wright’s dramatic imagination guided the creation of his masterpieces Native Son and Black Boy and helped shape Wright’s long-overlooked writing for theater and other performative mediums. Drawing on decades of research and interviews with Wright’s family and Wright scholars, Bruce Allen Dick uncovers the theatrical influence on Wright’s oeuvre--from his 1930s boxing journalism to his unpublished one-acts on returning Black GIs in WWII...

From the United States' earliest days, African Americans considered education essential for their freedom and progress. Linda Perkins’s study ranges across educational and geographical settings to tell the stories of Black women and girls as students, professors, and administrators. Beginning with early efforts and the establishment of abolitionist colleges, Perkins follows the history of Black women's post–Civil War experiences at elite white...

Michael Madigan rose from the Chicago machine to hold unprecedented power as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. In his thirty-six years wielding the gavel, Madigan outlasted governors, passed or blocked legislation at will, and outmaneuvered virtually every attempt to limit his reach. Veteran reporter Ray Long draws on four decades of observing state government to provide the definitive political analysis of Michael Madigan. Sec...

Mexican American and Puerto Rican women have long taken up the challenge to improve the lives of Chicagoans in the city's Latino/a/x communities. Rita D. Hernández, Leticia Villarreal Sosa, and Elena R. Gutiérrez present testimonies by Latina leaders who blazed new trails and shaped Latina Chicago history from the 1960s through today.Taking a do-it-all attitude, these women advanced agendas, built institutions, forged alliances, and created es...

One of the most innovative composers of his generation, Mikel Rouse is known for a trilogy of operas that includes Dennis Cleveland and a gift for superimposing pop vernaculars onto avant-garde music. This memoir channels Rouse’s high energy personality into an exuberant account of the precarity and pleasures of artistic creation. Raconteur and starving artist, witty observer and acclaimed musician, Rouse emerged from the legendary art world o...

Despite a genuine admiration for Native Hawaiian culture, white Californians of the 1930s ignored authentic relationships with Native Hawaiians. Surfing became a central part of what emerged instead: a beach culture of dressing, dancing, and acting like an Indigenous people whites idealized. Patrick Moser uses surfing to open a door on the cultural appropriation practiced by Depression-era Californians against a backdrop of settler colonialism...

In 1990, a suburban Chicago race for the Republican Party nomination for state representative between Penny Pullen and Rosemary Mulligan unexpectedly became a national proxy battle over abortion in the United States. But the hard-fought primary also illustrated the overlooked importance of down-ballot contests in America's culture wars. Patrick Wohl offers the dramatic account of a rollercoaster campaign that, after attracting political celebr...

The ultrawealthy largely own and guide the newspaper system in the United States. Through entities like hedge funds and private equity firms, this investor class continues to dismantle the one institution meant to give voice to average citizens in a democracy. Margot Susca reveals the little-known history of how private investment took over the newspaper industry. Drawing on a political economy of media, Susca's analysis uses in-depth intervie...

This illustrated biography tells the story of one of the most decorated songwriters in history, Country Music Hall of Fame member Bill Anderson, who broke into the music business with “City Lights, ” which he penned at the age of nineteen, in 1957. When singer Ray Price released the song in 1958 on Columbia Records, it became a #1 country hit, and it launched Anderson’s long and storied career as a songwriter and recording artist. Anderson’s s...

Husband and wife Boudleaux and Felice Bryant wrote more than six thousand songs together in a wide variety of musical styles. Many would come to be regarded as pop and country classics. These include the biggest hits of the Everly Brothers, such as “Bye Bye Love, ” “Wake Up Little Susie, ” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” As Nashville’s first full-time professional songwriters, the Bryants created enduring compositions that ranged from hard-co...

Founded by brothers Charles and Herbert Hatch in 1879, Hatch Show Print is one of the oldest working letterpress poster and design shops in America. Throughout its long history, the shop has produced vibrant posters that served as a leading advertising medium for southern entertainment. Today, Hatch Show Print creates posters the same way they were made 140 years ago. More than a century after the shop’s beginnings, its staff continues to crea...