Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music by Dana Andrew Jennings

This book is part casual (i.e. not academically foot-noted) history of country music from 1950 to 1970 and part memoir. The style made it easy to read. Jennings's main arguments about country music were that it is primarily a working-class music (especially for the working class that still felt the lingering effects of the Great Depression after the Second World War), that it is not just a white, Southern phenomenon, and that country music (as opposed to what Jennings calls meta-country, or country music produced in Nashville about country music), because it is a product of given economic circumstances, is dying out. Jennings was fairly convincing, though most of his argument was based on anecdotal evidence. Still, you can feel his affection for the music and the people, and I found myself buying a selection of songs on iTunes immediately after reading this book.