country music

While the West Coast is known for grunge and surf rock, Stephanie Clifford’s latest novel, a piece of historical fiction, reminds readers of the roots country music has here, especially Tacoma. Tacoma, a burgeoning port city on Commencement Bay in the 1940s and 50s, plays a central role in The Farewell Tour. The book is an American West tale of coming home, with a few forks in the road, that takes readers back in time over the protagonist’s life as she makes her way as a musician on the West Coast.

Growing up poor in Washington state, singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile learned about harmony and rhythm while performing as a backup singer for a friend's dad, who worked as an Elvis impersonator.

Pride died Saturday from complications of COVID-19 in Dallas. The baritone-voiced singer was the first Black man inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

"I did Nashville the Nashville way for so long ... with very little results," Guyton tells NPR. "So why am I holding out just in case?"

The music of this quintessential Nashville songwriter and lifelong independent spirit makes room for the wide range of emotions that careen through people as they stumble and dance through life.

Fiddler Jenee Fleenor is the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association's Musician of the Year Award. Her work is partly responsible for the instrument's resurgence.

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to WNYC's Jad Abumrad about his new podcast which explores the life and legacy of the prolific songwriter and her ability to bridge the divide in America.

Roseanne Cash has been making great records for forty years, but she's never played or written better music than she's doing right now.

Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires talk about the formation of their new all-female supergroup, a gutsy move within a male-dominated genre.

In his latest compendium of American culture, filmmaker Ken Burns, along with writer Dayton Duncan, explores the history of “Country Music” in a new 16-hour documentary. Burns said that story-songs are a phenomenon that can be traced back centuries, to long, multi-verse ballads that were handed down from generation to generation.