Country

I'm not as comfortable with Country and Western music as I am with other forms of music, but at least I've heard of most of the names. Some of the older performers such as Uncle Dave Macon, the Carter Family, and Kitty Wells were new to me but Hank Williams, Ernest Tubbs, and Lefty Frizzell were all names I'd heard. Of course I attacked the collection like I do all collection building by finding the 'classics' first. My problem here was that I didn't have enough cash to do it all in one buy so the C&W fans who use the library will get the oldies first. Roy Acuff, Eddy Arnold, Waylon Jennings, Pierce Webb, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Thompson, and Bob Wills are guys and gals of Country and Western that I was able to get in on last year's buy. This year I got the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Pee Wee King, Moon Mullican, Molly O'day and the Cumberland Mountain Folks.

Overall I think our Country & Western section was weak. It's one of the reasons I decided to work on it so soon. I pretty much went for the big names, The Judds, Wynonna, Reba McEntire, Clint Black, Garth Brooks, Tanya Tucker, Faren Young, Moe Bandy, Charlie Pride, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Charlie Rich, Statler Brothers, Sonny James, Roger miller, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Buck Owens, Jim Ed Brown, Bobby Bare, Patsy Cline, Ray Price, and George Jones. I think this should cover me for most Country fans. I did try to get the famous duets, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, along with Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn but these are getting hard to find in print. I also picked up Gram Parson's G.P/Grievous Angel CD. Gram Parsons like Charlie Daniels was a Country Rock crossover at a time when this wasn't very common. He seems to have been unnoticed in his time but I find that a lot of country music critics mention him as an influence on later C&W stars such as Dwight Yokam. One reason I bought the CD was that Emmylou Harris appears on the Gram Parsons CD so I thought it was an Important CD for several reasons. Two guys I need to find are Tennessee Ernie Ford and Grandpa Jones. Both need to be a part of any country collection but so far I haven't found one of their CD's in print.