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Mark Guarino – Country and Midwestern feat. Dollar Country
Friday, May 12 @ 7 pmCountry and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival is the untold story of Chicago’s pivotal role as a country and folk music capital.
Chicago is revered as a musical breeding ground, having launched major figures like blues legend Muddy Waters, gospel soul icon Mavis Staples, hip-hop firebrand Kanye West, and the jazz-rock band that shares its name with the city. Far less known, however, is the vital role Chicago played in the rise of prewar country music, the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s, and the contemporary offspring of those scenes.
In Country and Midwestern, veteran journalist Mark Guarino tells the epic century-long story of Chicago’s influence on sounds typically associated with regions further south. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and deep archival research, Guarino tells a forgotten story of music, migration, and the ways that rural culture infiltrated urban communities through the radio, the automobile, and the railroad.
Mark Guarino writes about culture, national news, and all points between.
He is a producer with ABC News where he writes for the website, and researches stories and book segments for Good Morning America and other programs.
His byline has also appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Crain’s Chicago Business, The Chicago Tribune, Reuters, The Chicago Sun Times, New York Magazine, among many other outlets. He was the Midwest Bureau Chief for The Christian Science Outlet for six years where he covered the BP oil spill, labor, the environment, Hurricane Katrina recovery, hate crimes, federal trials, among many other topics. He was also the pop music critic for The Chicago Daily Herald for 11 years.
Mark has taught journalism at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his MFA from Bennington College in Vermont.
With Dollar Country spinning records in the shop during the book signing.
Dollar Country is a radio show hosted by WTFC radio. It primarily features country 45’s found in dollar bins around the country. Featuring everything from old hits to b-sides, common records to rarities, and everything between the most popular artists and private press junk. Dollar Country plays things that he finds good, interesting, or at least amusing.
