British writer Doggett (Lou Reed: Growing Up in Public) rightly credits Bob Dylan's 1969 country record Nashville Skyline
and his seminal Grand Ole Opry appearance with Johnny Cash with kicking off the country rock movement, but he fails to trace the rest of the genre's "tumultuous history" coherently. The reader instead must attempt to find some central theme running through 40-plus short chapters strung together randomly. Why, for instance, does a chapter on Michael Nesmith and the Monkees jump to one on Gram Parsons? Why is the birth of the Eagles recounted alongside a profile of the counterculture band the Diggers? That Doggett has ably discerned three major phases—country helping birth rock (1950–1966), country infiltrating rock (1966 and on) and country rock mutations (post 1976)—helps little to organize this weighty, jumbled account (John Einarson offers a more chronological account of the same subject in his book Desperados). But there are some great stories here: Parsons helped launch Emmylou Harris's career after he heard her singing in a D.C. bar; Carl Perkins advised Jerry Lee Lewis, unable to move the audience like he and Cash, who "wore their guitars like phalluses," to play standing up. Doggett also has an impressive list of primary and secondary sources, although he fails to differentiate between the two in the text. Though the lack of organization and narrative flow won't help readers navigate the tangled roots of country, diehard fans of the genre will enjoy this tribute. 20 pages b&w photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)
