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For several years Marty Robbins was arguably the most popular entertainer on the Grand Ole Opry. He was given the last spot on the second show by accident - he was late getting there because he was racing - but he had to be the closer. The audience called him back for so many encores that the Opry would run long past its scheduled end time, 30 minutes, a few times pushing 60 minutes. This, of course, made the nearby Ernest Tubb Record Shop show late for it was scheduled immediately after the end of... »»» |
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It seems as though it's almost impossible now to mythologize the man Ingram Cecil Connor III into legend of Gram Parsons. This is after all the guy who gets credit for integrating country (or roots) music into the mainstream of rock, the guy whose Nudie suits actually featured nudes - as well as marijuana leaves, barbiturates and LSD sugar cubes, the guy whose two solo albums have attained cult status (not to mention his seminal work with The Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Emmylou Harris)... »»» |
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Gene Autry was the undisputed King of All Media - radio, movies, records, TV and endorsements - long before the title existed. In this exhaustively researched biography, Holly George-Warren chronicles Autry in all his guises: Oklahoma railroad worker, struggling radio singer, recording artist, movie star and multi-millionaire. Her crisp journalistic style showcases a wealth of behind-the-scenes material from every known facet of the singing cowboy's public life, imbuing each chapter with the... »»» |
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In his essay on the forgotten duo of Fleming and Townsend, author, researcher and historian Tony Russell sums up the reason for his new book "Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost": "Reissues...rewrite history, and the historian is required to stake a claim for the artists who have been written out." And so Russell has.
Russell has been a long time researcher of and commentator on American vernacular music as well as jazz and blues. His new book draws on the 20... »»» |
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At first glance, "It's All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life" seems to be another "tell-all" book, a Nashville-style story about the rise and (almost) fall of yet another superstar couple.
Alan Jackson and wife Denise's love story seemed to be a fairy tale. The high school sweethearts from Georgia married young and moved to Nashville to pursue Alan's dream of becoming a country music artist.
After nearly five years in Nashville Jackson became the first... »»» |
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Academic and scrupulously researched, "The Selling Sound: The Rise of the Country Music Industry" scholarly examination of country music's business tendencies proves enlightening as both history and pop culture.
Author Diane Pecknold expertly traces country's roots as a radio-based barn dance phenomenon - wherein listeners were encouraged to believe the genre actively preserved a bygone culture - through its struggles to shake off the "hillbilly" identity... »»» |
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The news hit the streets of Nashville in late 2001 that radio station WSM-AM was going to change from its traditional country music format to a mundane news-talk direction.
As a result, a week into the new year, hundreds of people showed up at the station's studios near the Gaylord Opryland Resort and the Grand Ole Opry House, not so much to protest the change of formats, but rather to offer support for the staff and recognition of the station's hallowed history.
Station ownership would... »»» |
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In this often touching autobiography, the revelations from Johnny Cash's first wife, Vivian, completely contradicts the fairy tales concocted for the 2005 film "Walk the Line."
Shortly before her death, Cash's ex confided to author Ann Sharpsteen that despite her 1967 remarriage, she never stopped loving the Man in Black. Further, she portrays second wife June Carter as a no-talent vixen who provided a harmful drug connection.
Although he was at as much to blame as... »»» |
