In the Blue Ridge Mountains along the Virginia–North Carolina border, an extraordinarily rich musical heritage survives and flourishes. Even before the legendary Bill Monroe coined the term “bluegrass” in the mid-1950s, the traditional music of this area was coming into its own as a distinctive style. Early performers from the 1920s through the 1950s, many of whom migrated northward during the Great Depression, popularized the music they had grown up hearing, thereby preserving and celebrating the cultural legacy of their home region.

In A Hot-Bed of Musicians, Paula Anderson-Green tells the stories of several of these legendary performers and instrument makers from the Upper New River Valley–Whitetop Mountain region, including Ola Belle Campbell Reed, Albert Hash, and Dave Sturgill. These men and women began to bring the music of Appalachia to a wider audience well before Nashville became the center of country music. Making extensive use of interviews, the book reveals the fascinating experiences and enduring values behind the practice of old-time music. This musical heritage remains an indispensable component of Appalachian culture, and Anderson-Green traces the traditions down to the present generation of musicians there.

Written for anyone with an interest in mountain music, this book focuses on performers from Alleghany and Ashe Counties in North Carolina and Carroll County and Grayson County in Virginia. It includes a comprehensive appendix of place names and music venues as well as annotated lists of musicians and the songs they have performed.

The Author: Paula Hathaway Anderson-Green is an adjunct professor of English at Kennesaw State University and does research in Appalachian studies.

The Mayors: The Chicago Political Tradition taps America’s most qualified observers to scrupulously assess the city’s mayors within the vigorous and tumultuous history of Chicago government. This revised and updated edition features extensive commentary on the enduring mayoral influence of Richard M. Daley.

“In the seventeen years since The Mayors was first published,” editors Paul M. Green and Melvin G. Holli write in the Preface to this edition, “Chicago politics has become more genteel, more docile, and more predictable. This dampening of the city’s once red-hot political coals is due to domination by one man: Mayor Richard M. Daley.” Also providing a political roadmap through the complex and fascinating labyrinth of Chicago politics are essays on other recent mayors: Richard J. Daley, Michael A. Bilandic, Jane M. Byrne, and Harold Washington.

Green and Holli’s popular study maintains that the key to the mayor’s office is power: the power to reward and the power to punish that comes with occupying the fifth floor of city hall in Chicago. Beginning with Joseph Medill, the Tribune publisher who guided the city in its rise from the ashes after the Great Fire of 1871, The Mayors takes readers through the terms of some of the city’s most colorful leaders: from the progressive Carter Harrison II and the radical Edward F. Dunne to the politically reticent Fred A. Busse and the loudmouth Big Bill Thompson. The essays collectively tell a riveting story of structures wherein aggressive power brokers surmount even massive corruption and scandal, and those who fail to seize the office’s inherent authority have short, uncomfortable tenures.

In addition to Green and Holli, contributors include David L. Protess, Edward R. Kantowicz, John D. Buenker, Maureen A. Flanagan, Douglas Bukowski, John R. Schmidt, Roger Biles, Arnold R. Hirsch, William J. Grimshaw, Monroe Anderson, Steve Neal, Steve Rhodes, and Laura S. Washington.

 Originally released in 1987, The Mayors: The Chicago Political Tradition gathered some of the finest minds in political thought to provide shrewd analysis of Chicago’s mayors and their administrations. Twenty-five years later, this fourth edition continues to illuminate the careers of some of Chicago’s most respected, forceful, and even notorious mayors, leaders whose lives were often as vibrant and eclectic as the city they served. In addition to chapters on the individual mayors—including a new chapter on Rahm Emanuel, enhanced by an expert explanation of the current state of the city’s budget by Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation—this new edition offers an insightful overview of the Chicago mayoral tradition throughout the city’s history; rankings of the mayors evaluated on their leadership and political qualities; an appendix of Chicago’s mayors and their years of service; and additional updated materials.