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'Cocaine & Rhinestones' is a one-man history of country music that's attracting new fans to this often mocked and neglected musical genre.

Host Tyler Mahan Coe comes from a well-known country music family, and was working as a professional musician in his father's band, but then the band broke up and he hadn't quite found his niche. But he loves country music, couldn't find any good country podcasts to listen to, so decided he was going to make one himself.

And I do mean 'himself': it's just him doing all the research, the scripting, the editing, the recording, and the sound engineering, learning as he goes. He's 14 episodes in so far and apparently each one takes him about 100 hours to put together.

Photo: Supplied

We speak to Tyler about his story, and play a clip from the fourth episode of Cocaine & Rhinestones called 'Bobbie Gentry: Exit Stage Left' which tells the story of Bobbie Gentry and her 1967 track 'Ode to Billie Joe'. The song was originally planned as the B-side of her first solo single, but then musical arranger Jimmie Haskell got involved, introduced some strings, and a massive hit was made.



