At right: The Belmont Book Award, given for the best book on country music, is presented at the annual International Country Music Conference at Belmont University. Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, edited by Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash, with picture editor F. Lynne Bachleda, won the award for calendar year 2006. Pictured, left to right, are F. Lynn Bachleda, Eddy Arnold, Paul
Kingsbury and awards chair Don Cusic.
Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, edited by Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash and published by DK Publishing has been announced as the winner of the Belmont Book Award. The award given annually by Belmont University honors the writer and the editor of the Best Book on Country Music. The presentation occurred on Friday, May 25, at a special awards luncheon held during the International Country Music Conference held at Belmont May 24-26.
The book Will the Circle Be Unbroken is a project of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Foundation, whose photos were used extensively in this comprehensive history of country music.
“This book joins a line of distinguished books about country music since we inaugurated this award in 1996,” founder and chair of the Belmont Book Award, Don Cusic, said. “Will the Circle Be Unbroken represents the best of scholarly research in country music and the editors, Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash, are outstanding authors of previous books. In fact, Alanna Nash’s biography of Colonel Tom Parker and the Country Music Encyclopedia edited by Paul Kingsbury were previous winners of this honor.”
The award is determined by a blue ribbon panel of experts. Books published in the previous calendar year are eligible and a wide variety of books on country music are considered, from scholarly studies of various aspects of country music to biographies and autobiographies.
