The divided camps of country music and the one voice who unites them

"Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music"
by Chris Willman
The New Press, 320 pp., $25.95

"Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams"
by Paul Hemphill
Viking, 210 pp., $23.95

When the Country Music Association Awards were held in New York this month, many felt it cemented country as the dominant music genre in America. While hip hop sells more albums, everywhere outside of the coasts, country is the dominant American musical form, and industry statistics show it is the fastest-growing genre.

Even in New York City, the CMA Awards proved the enduring power of country's biggest acts: Garth Brooks hosted "Good Morning America," sharing his recipe for chicken breasts fried in potato chips, and even the staid New York Times sponsored the "Country Takes NYC" events.

All of this occurred in a city that doesn't even have a single radio station devoted to country (by contrast, Seattle's KMPS is the No. 1 station in the city and the state). Yet if the American political landscape is one divided, so too is country music, as Chris Willman points out in his "Rednecks & Bluenecks," a timely treatise on the current state of politics in country.

Willman begins with a discussion of the brouhaha created by the Dixie Chicks' slam of President Bush and uses that to explore country outcasts and insiders. He profiles Bush-bashers like Steve Earle and Merle Haggard, but also gives voice to Republican standard bearers like Toby Keith and Brooks & Dunn.

While Willman clearly sides with the bluenecks — as you would expect from a writer who works for Entertainment Weekly — his portraits are insightful and empathetic toward all comers.

There is no great conclusion to this discussion, but Willman's skill at analyzing the savvy marketing behind songs like "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)," make for lively debate.

Because Willman's book focuses on current country stars — mostly hunks and hotties — it only briefly touches on country's original redneck, Hank Williams Sr., who gets a more proper re-examination in Paul Hemphill's "Lovesick Blues."

Hank Williams didn't have the good looks of Keith Urban, who won the top CMA award and is attractive enough that gossip mags pair him with fellow Australian Nicole Kidman, but homely Williams created the greatest catalog of songs in country.

There have been a dozen other Williams books, and Hemphill's slim volume is by no means the definitive biography — he adds little to the exhaustive research already done by writers like Colin Escott and Roger Williams.

Instead, Hemphill's approach is to retell Williams' life in simple yet evocative prose, and on that front he succeeds. Like the recent Penguin biography of Elvis Presley by novelist Bobbie Ann Mason, this volume would make an excellent introduction for anyone interested in Hank Williams, but not wanting to lug around a 700-page tome.

Hank Williams' musical influence was so wide it touched anyone who grew up poor, knew about heartbreak or understood loss — in short, he invented the themes that would create the foundation of what country music would be about.

When Williams dies en route to a gig in Ohio, the haunting image of country's greatest star — lying dead and nearly frozen in the backseat of a cold Cadillac — is a vision that continues to linger over country music. Not surprisingly, there are at least two dozen country songs about Williams' death.

Country's hottest hunk — and pitchman for Ford trucks — Toby Keith may hit the top of the charts singing about how he's planning to kick some Iraqi butt, but it is the mournful sound of songs like "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" that continues to define the heart of country music. And that lonesome whistle blows for both rednecks and bluenecks, because loss and heartbreak know no political lines.

Charles R. Cross is the Seattle-based author of "Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix" and "Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain."