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ON THE
A BLOG about
Country Music & Politics
Mountain
PETER LA CHAPELLE
"La Chapelle's writing flourishes" -Times Literary Supplement
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"Excellent new book... deeply absorbing"-No Depression
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Audiobook available on Audible March 2020.
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Long before the United States had presidents from the world of movies and reality TV, we had scores of politicians with connections to country music. In I’d Fight the World, Peter La Chapelle traces the deep,
bonds between country music and politics, from the nineteenth-century rise of fiddler-politicians to more recent figures like Pappy O’Daniel, Roy Acuff, Jimmie Davis, Tex Ritter, and Kinky Friedman. These performers and politicians both rode and resisted cultural waves: some advocated for the poor and dispossessed and others voiced religious and racial anger, but they all walked the line between exploiting their celebrity and righteously taking on the world. My goal is to show how country music campaigners have profoundly influenced the American political landscape.
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Peter La Chapelle is a former Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellow and current Professor of History at Nevada State College in the greater Las Vegas area. A recipient of his campus' iTeach Award for Teaching Excellence, his 2007 book received honorable mention in the running for the Urban History Association's Best Book in North American Urban History.
Audiobook (Chris Abernathy, narrator)
Hear author discuss major themes in the book: (WICN radio podcast)
