Paul Kingsbury, HCP Technical Writer

Paul Kingsbury, who serves as Technical Writer for the HCP project, is Communications Manager for The Nature Conservancy in Tennessee. He grew up in Memphis and has lived most of his life in Nashville. In the course of his job at The Nature Conservancy he has traveled Tennessee end to end—from canoeing the Hatchie River’s confluence with the Mississippi River to hiking the Appalachian Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He has written on the environment and conservation for Tennessee Conservationist magazine, Nature Conservancy magazine, the Conservancy’s Field Notes Tennessee newsletter and nature.org, The Nature Conservancy’s Web site.

In addition to his expertise on the outdoors he is a widely published writer about popular music, especially country music. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including The Grand Ole Opry History of Country Music (Random House), Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop (Chronicle Books), and Vinyl Hayride: Country Music Album Covers, 1947–1989 (Chronicle Books). He co-edited Woodstock: Three Days That Rocked the World (Sterling) and Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America (Dorling-Kindersley). He is also editor-in-chief of The Encyclopedia of Country Music (Oxford University Press), Country on Compact Disc (Grove Atlantic Press), and Country: The Music and the Musicians (Abbeville Press), which won a Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award. He served as a consulting editor to the Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (Billboard Books). He has also written about music and culture for many popular magazines. He has a bachelor’s degree in English from Vanderbilt University.

Contact Information:

Phone: (615) 383-9909

E-mail: pkingsbury@tnc.org