Country music isn't just the most popular music in the world today. For many, Country is America: its celebration, its soundtrack. Colin Escott tells the real story of Country: of an independent Hillybilly folk music that became the nation's authentic voice and a global arena of superstars with all the excess that such fame creates. Combining rare and definitive images with intimate interviews from its biggest stars, musicians and songwriters, Escott weaves together the story of Country with tales of its stars - whose lives are often more tragic and extreme than those in any of the songs they sing - from the 1920s to the present day.