Michael Cain offers an informal social history that describes Americana as both a musical genre and a movement, showing what it is, where it came from and where it is going. Through anecdotes and interviews, Cain provides a firsthand view into the creation of Americana, trying to clarify how the genre can be categorized and defined.

Michael Scott Cain is the author of seven chapter books of poetry, most recently East Point Poems and three novels, including Midnight Train, a country music novel. After teaching Popular Culture and Literature at the collegiate level for forty years, he now covers the topic in the Frederick News -Post while also serving as jazz, blues, poetry, and folklore editor for Rambles.