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NASHVILLE'S UNWRITTEN RULES

Name: NASHVILLE'S UNWRITTEN RULES
Author: Dan Daley
ISBN: 0-87951-770-0

INSIDE THE BUSINESS OF THE COUNTRY MUSIC MACHINE

by Dan Daley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1998

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This study of the country-music industry takes a smart look at the business end of America's most popular musical genre. Music journalist Daley divides Nashville's music empire into four fiefdoms: producers (whom he dubs ``princes''), songwriters, publishers, and musicians. Among musicians, the author focuses not on star performers but on session musicians—the professionals who give the music its identifiable sound. With this rule in place, Daley adopts an anecdotal approach to the growth and development of Nashville, calling on his dozens of interviews with major figures to explain what makes the city the undisputed capital of country. Those interviewed range from relative old-timers like Owen Bradley (who, with Chet Atkins, helped to establish many of the unwritten rules of Daley's title) to the newest musicians to join the A-list of session players selected to cut records by producers. Daley painstakingly details such unwritten rules as ``Thou shalt live in Nashville,'' which refers to the industry's disapproval of anyone daring to commute between the main hive and the outlands. Indeed, if producers are the princes of Nashville, then the twin villains, observes Daley, are the swaggering provinces of New York and Los Angeles, whose expatriates are treated with no small amount of suspicion when they arrive on Nashville's Music Row, purportedly threatening the local industry's ``rigid, familial, and benignly feudal structure.'' Rigid as this parochial prejudice against outsiders and commuters may be, it has also, as Daley points out, helped to keep country music authentic and has led Nashville to spectacular success in sending its music all around the nation. A solid plumbing of the forces driving a dominant and uniquely American industry. (16 b&w photos, not seen)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-87951-770-0

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Overlook

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.