New Season of Cocaine & Rhinestones Podcast

I am excited to hear a new season of Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast is coming April 20, 2021. Here is an announcement:

For those of you not familiar with this podcast, it is about country music history. Tyler Mahan Coe is the researcher, writer, and presenter. The 14-episode first season debuted in October 2017. The show was critically acclaimed and popular.

Coe is wonderfully opinionated, but backs it with exhaustive research. This is not a dry reporting of history – Coe is a captivating storyteller. Here is my review from a few years ago.

In season one each episode focused on “some mystery about country music” like: the controversy over Loretta Lynn’s recording of “The Pill”, the meaning of Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee”, and the musical relationship of the Louvin Brothers. I can’t emphasize how deep Coe gets into a topic – episodes typically are 90 minutes or more. Coe augments episodes with “liner notes, “clarifications and corrections” and sources. I assume season two will follow the same basic format, but Coe has suggested some enhancements. Think of this as an audio documentary vs. a conversational podcast.