Cocaine & Rhinestones: The History of Country Music

By Tyler Mahan Coe

What's Cocaine & Rhinestones: The History of Country Music about?

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Cocaine & Rhinestones: The History of Country Music episodes:

02.19.2024
ANNOUNCEMENT: Book Adaptation of Season 2
Season 2 has been adapted into a book from Simon & Schuster, available now
02.15.2022
CR032/PH18 - Glenn
The end of one story is just the beginning of another.
02.01.2022
CR031/PH17 - Choices: George Jones' Last Run
At least this whole story has a happy ending, right? Of course, whether or not that's true depends a lot on your personal definitions of both "happy ending" and "whole story" but, either way, today we reach the final chapter...
01.18.2022
CR030/PH16 - Another Lonely Song: The Tammy Wynette & George Richey Story
Oh, you thought Jones had a hard time dealing with George Richey? Imagine being married to the guy. Today we say one of the saddest and most infuriating goodbyes we'll ever have to say, the one we say to Tammy...
01.04.2022
CR029/PH15 - Hell Stays Open All Night Long: George Jones, Phase III
Oh, you're back to hear more things that will chill you to the bone? Then we can talk about what George Jones' life was like in the period leading up to and through the biggest hit of his career. If...
12.21.2021
CR028/PH14 - Divorce/Death: He Stopped Loving Her Today, The Grand Tour & A Good Year for the Roses
It's a known fact that "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is the best and saddest country song of all time. But... is it?
12.07.2021
CR027/PH13 - Billy Sherrill's Nashville Sound
What if the first serious opinions that millions of rock music fans formed about country music were based on a few massive errors which then got passed down to future generations? How long do you think it would take for...
11.23.2021
CR026/PH12 - Loved It Away: Tammy Wynette, On Her Own
Following her breakup with George Jones, many people had many questions for Tammy Wynette. Well, they had questions for George, too, but he was a little harder to get in touch with, trying to drink himself onto a separate plane...
11.09.2021
CR025/PH11 - Being Together: The George Jones & Tammy Wynette Story
Though they were married to each other for little more than five years, the legacies of George Jones and Tammy Wynette are forever inseparable. This is partly due to their unprecedented success with creating music "based on the true story"...
10.26.2021
CR024/PH10 - Stand by Your Man: The Anti-Feminist Manifesto
Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man" is one of the most well-known recordings in the English language. It was also a plastic explosive detonated at a sea change moment in United States politics and culture. Look around. We're still picking...
08.10.2021
CR023/PH09 - Loneliness Surrounds: Virginia Wynette Pugh
Country music is full of rags-to-riches stories, like the one about how Virginia Wynette Pugh became Tammy Wynette. In a way, it's true. Even after becoming the most successful woman country singer at that point in history, the life she...
07.27.2021
CR022/PH08 - Dallas Frazier: Can't Get There From Here
Some of the best songs you've ever heard were written by Dallas Frazier. Don't recognize the name? Don't worry. You'll remember it forever after this episode, especially those of you who love Charley Pride, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, Connie Smith,...
07.13.2021
CR021/PH07 - Pappy Daily, Gene Pitney and How George Jones Came to Be on Musicor
This whole story began with a pinball machine and jukebox mogul in Texas jumping over to the independent record business of the 1950s. When he hitched his wagon to a Singing Marine who became the Greatest Country Singer Ever, it...
06.29.2021
CR020/PH06 - All to Pieces: George Jones, Phase II
In the early 1960s, George Jones had a huge hit record featuring such a phenomenal vocal performance it instantly turned him into a living legend. He didn't handle it well.
06.15.2021
CR019/PH05 - Wandering Soul: George Jones, Starday Recording Artist
There are some personalities who would embrace being called The Greatest Country Singer Ever or, at least, settle into the role once it became clear the brand was eternal. George Jones did not have one of those personalities. The fame...
06.01.2021
CR018/PH04 - White Lightning
In North Carolina, way back in the hills, there's a centuries-old tradition of cooking illegal liquor. Whether you feel that's right or wrong, good or bad, may be determined by any number of factors but the objective truth is moonshine...
05.18.2021
CR017/PH03 - The Nashville A Team
Now that we've established Owen Bradley as the single most important producer in the history of Nashville, let's take it further and acknowledge he's one of the most important figures in the history of all recorded music, even if for...
05.04.2021
CR016/PH02 – Owen Bradley's Nashville Sound
What if the first serious books about country music contained a few massive errors which were then repeated by nearly everyone who's since used those books as a source? How long do you think it would take for society to...
04.20.2021
CR015/PH01 - Starday Records: The Anti-Nashville Sound
The story of a little independent record label in Texas becoming "a force" in the Nashville country music industry brings an outsider's perspective to the anatomy of a machine. Going from backwoods honky tonks and roadhouse jukeboxes to stretch limos...
04.07.2021
Season 2 Announcement
Cocaine & Rhinestones Season 2 begins on April 20th.
02.06.2018
BONUS: Cocaine & Rhinestones Season 1 Q&A
You might think, "How could anyone finish a season of a podcast like Cocaine & Rhinestones and have questions? That guy saturates every episode with details like he's getting paid by the fact." There's always more to know. Like, how...
01.23.2018
CR014 - Ralph Mooney: The Sound of Country Music
The legendary pedal steel guitarist, Ralph Mooney, deserves the reputation he earned on his instrument. However, he deserves a lot more than that. This episode of the podcast backtracks to Bakersfield for a deeper examination of its "sound," a closer...
01.16.2018
CR013 - Rusty & Doug Kershaw: The Cajun Way
Rusty & Doug come from a long tradition of surviving against the odds, against a world that would just as soon see you dead as see you succeed. Starting from nothing but a houseboat in Louisiana, they fought their way...
01.09.2018
CR012 - Wynonna
Some people think we have all these "authenticity tests" in country music. We don't. But, even if we did, Wynonna would pass them. From somehow surviving a childhood full of several types of abuse to a years-long reign over country...
01.02.2018
CR011 - Don Rich & Buck Owens, Part 2: Together Again
Words often fail to express the connection that can exist between two people. In the friendship of Don Rich and Buck Owens, our notions of reality itself may prove inadequate. With spacetime as our stage, we trip backwards for more...
12.26.2017
CR010 - Buck Owens & Don Rich, Part 1: Open Up Your Heart
Whatever else is true about Buck Owens (and some of it certainly is), he brought hard country music to the world in a time when we desperately needed someone to do that. Sticking to that honky tonk sound from Bakersfield...
12.19.2017
CR009 - Harper Valley PTA, Part 3: Tom T. Hall
Behind any story worth telling, you'll always find another story. Maybe if we can get behind some of Tom T. Hall's best stories, we'll find the story about who he is and how he's able to do what he can...
12.12.2017
CR008 - Harper Valley PTA, Part 2: Jeannie C. Riley
Jeannie C. Riley's debut single sold over a million copies within ten days of being released but she never wanted to record the song. In the late '60s, Jeannie C. Riley became country music's most blatant sex symbol to date...
12.05.2017
CR007 - Harper Valley PTA, Part 1: Shelby S. Singleton
You think all it takes to make a hit record is to find a good song and get a good performance of it? That's cute. Have a seat and let an old-school record man show you how it's done. This...
11.28.2017
CR006 - The Louvin Brothers: Running Wild
The way Charlie and Ira Louvin could sing together is downright otherworldly. There's even a special term we had to invent for family (it's always/only family) who can sing this way: blood harmony. This episode delves in to exactly what...
11.21.2017
CR005 - Breaking Down Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee"
The song was just what so many Americans needed at the time, in 1969. Conservatives needed someone to stand up and defend small town, traditional values. Politicians needed someone to justify America's continuing involvement in the Vietnam War. Oklahomans needed...
11.14.2017
CR004 - Bobbie Gentry: Exit Stage Left
In 1967, Bobbie Gentry's recording of a song she wrote, called "Ode to Billie Joe," directly influenced the future of every major musical genre in America. In the early '80s, she disappeared. What happened in the decade between? Why did...
11.07.2017
CR003 - The Murder Ballad of Spade Cooley
Spade Cooley came to California in the early 1930s, as poor as everyone else who did the exact same thing at the exact same time. Only, Spade became a millionaire. And all he needed to accomplish that was a fiddle,...
10.31.2017
CR002 - The Pill: Why Was Loretta Lynn Banned?
This episode of Cocaine & Rhinestones briefly examines the history of contraceptive laws in America (Trigger Warning: abortion is discussed) before moving on to uncover the staggering inequality of morality applied to women in country music versus that applied to...
10.24.2017
CR001 - Ernest Tubb: The Texas Defense
Everyone loves Ernest Tubb. So when he straps on a gun belt one night to head across town and snuff out a character named Jim Denny, well, you might guess that ol' Jim had it coming. Maybe he didn't, maybe...