Real Country

""Real Country" is by far the best book on Texas country music and working-class culture since Manuel Pena's "The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music "was published in 1985. As opened to us by Aaron A. Fox, the working-class world of Lockhart, Texas, is complex and richly textured, and country music is its most characteristic and expressive voice. Grounded both in the most sophisticated recent scholarship and in Fox's longtime involvement as performer and observer, "Real Country" extends to the music the full measure of respect it deserves. In so doing, it carries country music scholarship to a new level that will challenge and guide all subsequent commentators."--David E. Whisnant, author of "Rascally Signs in Sacred Places" and "All That Is Native and Fine"

Aaron A. Fox is Associate Professor of Music at Columbia University.