The parallel histories of baseball and country music are the topic of an engaging new book, Baseball and Country Music, by Dr. Don Cusic, a Belmont University music business professor, songwriter and country music historian in Nashville.
Dr. Cusic’s book describes how the histories of baseball and country music ran in parallel tracks through most of the twentieth century, and how “America’s sport and America’s music moved from the fringes to the mainstream, gaining exposure and building heroes, first via radio broadcasts and then on the television screen.” Both baseball and country music evolved with American society through wartime, the Civil Rights movement, and into the age of multimillion dollar superstars.
Cusic’s book, just published by the University of Wisconsin Press, offers an engaging and insightful analysis that addresses race, gender, class, ethnicity, business practices and marketing, performance, media, and the cult of celebrity.
