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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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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... |
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The cover of "Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music" is deceiving; it features prominently a picture of left-of-center Willie Nelson performing along with conservative Democrat/lightning rod Toby Keith. Above it, is a small picture of the Dixie Chicks, the book's main focus.
The book should really be titled after a phrase that's used several times in it: "Dixie Chicked: A Polarizing Time In Country Music." Willman uses Dixie Chicked as a verb, and a... |
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Bobby Braddock is, like many songwriters, not quite a household name although many of his songs are. Braddock has written or co-written many country classics including "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," "Golden Ring," "Catch a Falling Star" and "He Stopped Loving Her Today."
Known as a songwriter and musician, Braddock has added author to his list of accomplishments with the release of "Down in Orburndale: a Songwriters Youth in Old Florida." "Orburndale"... |
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Roni Stoneman, the "First Lady of the Banjo," has been one of the more colorful figures in country music (a genre which has hardly lacked colorful figures) for more than five decades. Listeners and television viewers know her from her many performances with the Stoneman Family as well as the Ironing Board Lady from Hee Haw. Those not intimately familiar with her might be less aware of the dire poverty in which she lived as a child or her five unsuccessful marriages... |
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In 2000, musician and author Richard D. Smith released "Can't You Hear Me Callin'," a biography of Bill Monroe, which threw aside much of the hero worship to present a picture of the man behind bluegrass music. It was an important contribution to the study of bluegrass and allowed readers to get to know the man that many found hard to approach or befriend. With "The Music of Bill Monroe," Neil V. Rosenberg and Charles K. Wolfe have done the same for the music of Bill Monroe... |
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The subtitle of this collaboration between photographer Carl Fleischhauer and historian Neil V. Rosenberg serves as a nice summation of the project: "A Dsocumentary in Pictures and Words, 1966-86."
When Fleischhauer and Rosenberg first met as students at Ohio 's Oberlin College in the early 1960s, they discovered a mutual love for bluegrass music and became fast friends and picking partners. Within a few years, they completed college and went their separate ways -... |
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"Proud to Be An Okie" is a fascinating book that details the history of Dust Bowl refugees migration to southern California. Unlike other books about this topic, this
one intertwines history with the country music that the transplanted settlers brought to the region.
La Chapelle does an excellent job of balancing both the migrants' history and that of the music history, giving a detailed description of both. The early portion of the book focuses on 1930's country/folk performer... |
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Despite the fact that Johnny Bush scored with several modest hits during the late '60s through mid-'70s - "Undo The Right" & "You Gave Me a Mountain" hit Top Ten - most fans outside of Texas don't know much about this talented singer-songwriter.
Indeed, his most successful recording - the book's title - is best known as a staple of Willie Nelson's act than his own. Recognition factor aside, Bush and coauthor Rick Mitchell have fashioned a cracking... |
