Country

From the Dust Bowl to the coalmines, from the backwoods to the badlands, we've rustled up a chuck wagon jam-packed with seven decades' worth of country music's biggest sorrows, sensations, songs, and stars. We open up with America's favorite singing cowboy, Gene Autry, as he spins a yarn of cattle drives, wide-open spaces, and his trusty six-gun in the grandpappy of country classics, "Back In the Saddle Again." Love's embers rage out of control as country music's Man In Black, Johnny Cash, plunges into the Tex-Mex inferno of "Ring of Fire." And when it comes to hillbilly heartbreak, nobody's ever done it better than Hank Williams in the troubled twang of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry."

In Next Steps, women get their fair share of misery, but not to worry . . . there's plenty of pleasure to go along with all that pretty pain.

From the bedroom to the boardroom to the wide-open spaces, country's ladies know how to play it smart, break some hearts, and top the charts. Tammy Wynette, best known for standing by her man in a hit she had later the same year, throws in her tear-soaked hankie in the honky-tonk heartache of "D-I-V-O-R-C-E." Country traditionalist Dolly Parton takes an unexpected detour from her backwoods stomping grounds into working-girl citybilly in "9 to 5," the title track to a film starring the somewhat unlikely trio of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Parton herself. And the Dixie Chicks hit a sweet spot between bluegrass, Americana, and soft rock that set the stage for their superstar surge in the breeziness of "Wide Open Spaces."

In Deep Cuts, we'll hear from some of country's greatest gold-garnering groups, from the Statler Brothers to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

In Deep Cuts, we're stepping away from our earlier solo stylings to strike up the band — make that bands — that set country's airwaves ablaze. Believe it or not, country music isn't all broken hearts and busted broncs, as the Statler Brothers prove in two-and-a-half minutes of loony-bin-inspired goofiness, "Flowers on the Wall" — a performance that won them the Best Contemporary Vocal GRAMMY® in 1965. With a giddy-up-a-boom-pop-a-boom-pop-a-mow-mow, the Oak Ridge Boys drop a dollop of doo-wop into their 1981 country chart-topper, "Elvira." And we'll wrap it up with a gospel-tinged get-together, as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band rounds up an all-star posse, including country deities Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs, and Roy Acuff, for the bluegrass bye-bye of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."

We surely love our jazz and soul and rock 'n' roll, but if you really want to get to know the essence of America's heartland, you gotta dust off your Stetson, put on your cowboy boots, and dig into the music we — and everybody else, for that matter — know as country. From the backwoods of West Virginia to the badlands of Texas, from the hills of Tennessee to the Rocky Mountains' highs, country music tells the story of work and play, love and loss, joy and sorrow like no other music can. And from classic-era legends like Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and Johnny Cash, to modern-day superstars like George Strait, Faith Hill, and Dwight Yoakam, we've got country's biggest and best thoroughbreds saddled up and ready to ride.