Best Books on Country/Roots Music
1. 
2. 
Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley
by:
Peter Guralnick
4.17 avg rating — 9,895 ratings 
4. 
Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music
by:
Mark Zwonitzer
4.30 avg rating — 1,169 ratings 
7. 
Can't You Hear Me Callin': The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass
by:
Richard D. Smith
4.05 avg rating — 284 ratings 8. 
12. 
Will the Circle be Unbroken: Country Music in America
by:
Paul Kingsbury
4.20 avg rating — 65 ratings 
14. 
Merle Haggard: The Running Kind (American Music Series)
by:
David Cantwell
4.07 avg rating — 117 ratings 15. 
16. 
Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll
by:
Peter Guralnick
3.99 avg rating — 1,088 ratings 
18. 
Outlaw: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and the Renegades of Nashville 3.63 avg rating — 822 ratings
19. 
Baby, Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him
by:
Alanna Nash
4.08 avg rating — 826 ratings 
22. 
Elvis and Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story
by:
Ginger Alden
3.91 avg rating — 2,037 ratings 23. 
Elvis and Me: The True Story of the Love Between Priscilla Presley and the King of Rock N' Roll 4.01 avg rating — 30,109 ratings
25. 
26. 
Merle Haggard's My House of Memories: For the Record
by:
Merle Haggard
3.93 avg rating — 607 ratings 27. 
29. 
To Live's to Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt
by:
John Kruth
3.91 avg rating — 357 ratings 
33. 
34. 
The Women of Country Music: A Reader
by:
Charles K. Wolfe
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 8 ratings 35. 
The Country Reader: 25 Years of the Journal of Country Music
by:
Paul Kingsbury
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings 36. 
Homeplace: A Southern Town, a Country Legend, and the Last Days of a Mountaintop Honky-Tonk
by:
John Lingan
3.60 avg rating — 144 ratings 
38. 
Bluegrass in Baltimore: The Hard Drivin' Sound and Its Legacy
by:
Tim Newby
4.33 avg rating — 24 ratings 38. 
John Duffey's Bluegrass Life: Featuring the Country Gentlemen, Seldom Scene, and Washington, D.C.
by:
Stephen Moore
4.26 avg rating — 23 ratings 38. 
One armed banjo player: Early years of country music with Emory Martin
by:
Linda Lou Martin
0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings 38. 
My Walk Among the Stars: Rubbing Shoulders With Country Giants
by:
Dick Flood
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings 
38. 
45. 
Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
by:
Barry Mazor
4.18 avg rating — 50 ratings 45. 
Don't Get Above Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern Working Class
by:
Bill C. Malone
4.35 avg rating — 43 ratings 
45. 
The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers: A Legacy in Country Music
by:
Jocelyn R. Neal
3.43 avg rating — 7 ratings 50. 
The Natural Blues and Country-Western Harmonica: A Beginners Guide
by:
Jon Gindick
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 11 ratings 
50. 
55. 
Pickin' on Peachtree: A History of Country Music in Atlanta, Georgia
by:
Wayne W. Daniel
3.73 avg rating — 15 ratings 55. 
Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music
by:
David N. Meyer
4.13 avg rating — 980 ratings 
55. 
Scratch My Back: A Pictoral History of the Musical Saw and How to Play It
by:
James Leonard
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings 59. 
Calling Me Home: Gram Parsons and the Roots of Country Rock
by:
Bob Kealing
4.02 avg rating — 110 ratings 59. 
No Depression: An Introduction to Alternative Country Music. Whatever That Is.
by:
Grant Alden
3.96 avg rating — 48 ratings 59. 
Nashville Babylon: The Uncensored Truth and Private Lives of Country Music's Stars
by:
Randall Riese
3.71 avg rating — 59 ratings 59. 
65. 
65. 
Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley
by:
Peter Guralnick
4.17 avg rating — 9,895 ratings 
70. 
Fiddlin' Georgia Crazy: Fiddlin' John Carson, His Real World, and the World of His Songs
by:
Gene Wiggins
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 6 ratings 
74. 
A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry
by:
Charles K. Wolfe
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 34 ratings 74. 
76. 
Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy
by:
Douglas B. Green
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 25 ratings 
76. 
79. 
85. 
Storm over Nashville: A case against "modern" country music it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
86. 
In Close Harmony: The Story of the Louvin Brothers (American Made Music Series)
by:
Charles K. Wolfe
3.75 avg rating — 28 ratings 87. 
I Love You a Thousand Ways: The Lefty Frizzell Story
by:
David Frizzell
3.75 avg rating — 24 ratings 87. 
Radio's 'Kentucky Mountain Boy' Bradley Kincaid - Includes Words & Music to 50 Songs
by:
Loyal Jones
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating 89. 
Clem Maverick, the Life and Death of a Country Music Singer
by:
R.G. Vliet
4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings 90. 
Virginia's Blues, Country, and Gospel Records, 1902-1943: An Annotated Discography
by:
Kip Lornell
0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings 
91. 
The Decca Hillbilly Discography, 1927-1945
by:
Cary Ginell
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating 
94. 
The Jazz of the Southwest: An Oral History of Western Swing
by:
Jean A. Boyd
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 13 ratings 95. 
Discography of Western Swing and Hot String Bands, 1928-1942
by:
Cary Ginell
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating 
97. 
Dance All Night: Those Other Southwestern Swing Bands, Past and Present
by:
Jean A. Boyd
3.80 avg rating — 5 ratings 98. 
Comin' Right at Ya: How a Jewish Yankee Hippie Went Country, or, the Often Outrageous History of Asleep at the Wheel
by:
Ray Benson
4.08 avg rating — 91 ratings 99. 
A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt (North Texas Lives of Musician Series) 4.03 avg rating — 566 ratings
