Country (book)

Country was the first book published by Rolling Stone magazine critic Nick Tosches. Released in 1977 under the title Country: The Biggest Music in America, it was retitled in later editions as Country: Living Legends and Dying Metaphors in America's Biggest Music and Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock and Roll.

Rather than a detailed, chronological study of country music, the book is arranged like a fan's scrapbook, leaping across time and subject. Throughout Country, Tosches makes a point of paying tribute to pivotal but undersung figures in country, hillbilly, and blues music, including Emmett Miller, Cliff Carlisle, and Val and Pete.^[1] He also pays tribute to early music writers, such as Emma Bell Miles, whose 1904 essay Some Real American Music Tosches called "the most beautiful prose written of country music."^[2]