Nashville's Unwritten Rules: Inside The Business Of Country Music

A system more feudal than modern, the Nashville country music business is closely controlled by just a handful of producers who are responsible for four-fifths of the hits from Music Row. This insider's guide explores all the parts of this Byzantine system and its group of tightly-knit power players: the producers, writers, artists, publishers, session musicians, studios, labels, and the promotion machine, as well as the deep roots and the promising future of country music and its role in today's culture. As country music continues to be the crossover success story of the 1990s, with artists such as Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakam, k.d. lang and LeAnn Rimes selling millions of records and putting their names on the top of the pop as well as country charts, country music is no longer thought of as merely southern, rural or American. The music and the city are loved by fans all over the world. Nashville's Unwritten Rules is the first guided tour of the inner sanctum of country music's holy city.