Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo (Holiday 2003)

How did an ancient Swiss mountain tradition evolve into an American country-music staple? That's only one of the questions Plantenga seeks to answer in his solid, exhaustive look at yodeling, a high-pitched ululation good for herding cows, marketing Tarzan, and inflicting Martian brain melt in a Tim Burton film. Moving beyond the kitsch factor, the author credits Jimmie Rodgers, the tubercular Singing Brakeman, for siring Nashville's infatuation with this Alpine cry; notes that real cowboys probably didn't yodel before Gene Autry; and tracks the warble as far as Bollywood and New Zealand.