I’ve been doing a lot of driving this summer so I’ve been looking for lots of new podcasts. Cocaine and Rhinestones has turned out to be one of my favorites. The host, Tyler Coe, tells the story of country music made in the 20th century and I find it fascinating. I was a long-time sucker for those Behind the Music docs from the 90’s and this scratches the same itch. Country Music has been a huge gap in my musical knowledge and this podcast has opened me up to all kinds of good stuff. I’ll be bringing some up on the podcast in a couple of weeks.
The episodes run just over an hour long and the subjects range from music acts (The Louvin Brothers), to people (Buck Owens), to individual songs (a 3-parter on “Harper Valley P.T.A.“). As Coe says on the About page, “You don’t need to “be” country to perform country, so you certainly don’t have to be country to enjoy it.” The same goes for this podcast. If you like music history you will probably be into this podcast. I am 100% in.