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THE TEXAS OBSERVER BOOKSTORE 504 WEST 24TH, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78705 IN A NARROW GRAVE: ESSAYS ON TEXAS Larry McMurtry $ 7.50 $ 6.00 : at ,”. THE TRAGEDY OF LYNDON JOHNSON Eric F. Goldman $ 8.95 $ 7.16 tlitilstantier THE UNFINISHED ODYSSEY OF ROBERT KENNEDY David Halberstam $ 4.95 $ 3.96 SOD DAYS: THE SIEGE OF L Harrison Salisbury POLICE POWER Paul Chevigny JFK AND LB; Tom Wicker THE TEXANS: WHAT THEY ARE-AND WHY David Nevin $ 5.95 $ 4.76 85 DAYS: THE LAST OF ROBERT KENNEDY Jules Witcover TOWARD A DEMOCRATIC LEFT Michael Harrington IN OUR TIME Paul Douglas THE NEW INDUSTRIAL John K. Galbraith BUCK RAGE W. H. Grier & P. M. Cobbs FAREWELL TO TEXAS William 0. Douglas $ 6.95 $ 5.56 THE AMERICAN CHALLENGE J. J. Serven-Sciweiter 6.95 5.56 A VERY PERSONAL PRESIDENCY: LYNDON JOHNSON IN THE WHITE HOUSE Hugh Sidey $ 5.95 $ 4.76 $ 4.00 $ 5.56 4.75 HowARD GRIFFIN READER B $ 8.50 SAO DARK STAR: HIROSHIMA RECONSIDERED IN THE LIFE OF CLAUDE EATHERLY Ronnie Dugger $ 5.95 $ 4.76 $ 4.95 $4.76′ . THE BEST OF BRANN: THE ICONOCLAST $ 6.95 $ 5.56 S FROM THE BIG THICKET $ 635 $ 5.40 THE GREAT FRONTIER Walter Prescott Webb $ 6.00 $ 4.80 ADVENTURES WITH A TEXAS NATURALIST Roy Bedichelt . $ 4.50 $ 3.60 SOME PART OF MYSELF J. Frank Dobie $ 6.95 $ 5.56 THREE MEN IN TEXAS: BEDICHEK, WEBB, AND DOME Ronnie Dagger $ 6.50 $ 5.20 The Texas Observer offers a book-ordering service through which members will be entitled to purchase ANY hardbound book published in the U.S.* at a 20% discount. Books will be mailed postpaid. A 1-year membership is $5.00. If purchases during the 12 months do not result in a saving of at least $5.00 over the list price of the books, your membership will be extended until you do realize such a saving. For readers who are not interested in participating in the discount plan the Observer will gladly accept, at the list price, orders for any hard-bound book published in the U.S.* Such orders also will be filled post-free. Many of the books which might be of particular interest to Observer readers are available at the Observer office. A partial list of books in stock appears below. Other books will be ordered by the Observer and you will receive them directly from the publisher. Some Suggested Titles List Price Mem. Price List Price Mem. Price finds his listeners are distracted; not simply because he is a sensitive person, but primarily because he believes the music to be worthy of genuine reverence. Malone is an unusual combination of both artist and scholar, as his book bears witness. He is a professor of American history and specializes on the South and cultural and intellectual history. He earned a PhD from the University of Texas, where he wrote a doctoral dissertation on the origins and development of country music. This book is an outgrowth of that study. MALONE TRACES country music from its Anglo-Celtic beginnings to its present, almost universal popularity. The early chapters are especially significant because of the heretofore woefully inadequate scholarly attention paid early hillbilly music. Malone explains why the South became the natural residence of traditional folk music style, how country music was influenced by Calvinistic religious attitudes, and how styles were transmitted from one rural region to another. He discusses the importance to country music of the revolution in transportation, the tremendous role the radio and phonograph industry played in the development and spread of country music, the emergence of the solo performer such as Jimmie Rodgers and Vernon Dalhart, the rise of the Hollywood singing cowboy, and the marriage of country music to the Western cowboy image. All of these factors and many others are carefully discussed. A valuable aspect of the book is the extensive biographical data presented on many of the early country music artists. An entire chapter is devoted to Jimmie Rodgers, commonly and properly referred to as the father of country music. Malone has given more serious attention to Rodgers than has any other single critic \(including Rodger’s wife, Carrie, who wrote a highly romanticized account of her with him so intensively. Malone, who plans to write a biography of Jimmie Rodgers, points out that Rodgers sang essentially every kind of Southern rural song and also introduced “one that was a product of his own native environment” the blue yodel. The influence Rodgers exerted on later country performers is nothing short of profound. Many popular contemporary country artists acknowledge their debt to the “blue yodeler.” For instance, Ernest Tubb and Merle Haggard have both recently re-released old Jimmie Rodgers’ originals. The twenties and thirties saw the simultaneous gebgraphical expansion and commercial acceptance of traditional country DR. LOUIS E. BUCK Veterinarian House Call Practice GR 2-5879-Austin House Call Fee No More Than Office Call Fee styles. Performers who thought their music had only a regional appeal found a still larger acceptance. Some country artists, such as Rodgers, the Carter family, Riley Puckett, and Uncle Dave Macon, found they could earn a living by performing on radio stations and giving live concerts. Nevertheless, the music by the close of the thirties continued to have a largely rural appeal. Other forces were at work, however, which were soon to give country musicians a far greater audience. Gene Autry, a country performer well before his rise to film stardom, helped give July 4, 1969 13