 "Classic Country Music" was issued in eight volumes — either vinyl albums, cassette tapes or 8-track cartridges.It also contained an illustrated 56-page book by Bill C. Malone, a country music historian and professor of history at Tulane University.Malone's extensively annotated essay details country music's history era by era, from its beginnings in the 1920s and commercialization during the 1930s, and its evolution from the 1940s through the 1970s.