Customer Reviews:
Worth it for the Side Stories, and Blaze Foley.......2007-08-16
There is hardly ever a perfect or even near perfect biography. But this book is worth it, if only for the passages about Blaze Foley, a real character whose few recordings are very worthwhile, for any fan of Townes.
TVZ - A Life of Demons.......2007-07-19
This book is a must for any songwriter, TVZ fan, or listener of country music. TVZ led the life that Willie, Waylon and Kris led - except they lived through it.
Look at the hole, not at the donut.......2007-05-23
While I agree with the previous reviewers that the book is flawed, I find more interesting the phenomenon that Townes Van Zandt is still, ten years later, the center of a vortex. The fact that author John Kruth was stymied in his search for the ghost inside Townes' machine is, in fact, the answer we all sought when we bought the book. Townes worked on everyone who knew him like a customized koan, frustrating us in precisely the most infuriating and mindblowing personalized ways. All of us are the donut, and Townes is the energy at the center of it all. The joke's on us for trying to nail down anything about an evanescent creature, like trying to pick up a watermelon seed with wet fingers. I won't go into the stylistic and editing flaws of the book, but I will correct a factual one: in the photo section, a shot of Townes with Mickey White and Harold Eggers in 1982 misidentifies the man with them as "Merrick." It is Marek Gorecki, a concert host in central Pennsylvania. My final answer--I learned some stuff. I'd buy it again.
A bumpy ride, but worth the fare........2007-05-13
Hang in there with this one. Kruth gets off to a shaky start, with one early chapter consisting entirely of an account of a drunken Guy Clark essentially telling the author to go to hell. But the narrative acquires power and tragic beauty as one of the most talented songwriters of all time slowly destroys himself with alcohol and drugs. The end of Van Zandt's life will look all too familiar to anyone who's ever watched an alcoholic ride the disease to the end of the line - the sheer horror of reaching the point where he can't continue to drink, and can't quit drinking, either. If you haven't already done so, you may want to steep yourself in Van Zandt's music before you read To Live's to Fly. Besides being required for anyone who gives a damn about the art of songwriting, I'm pretty sure this is a prerequisite to sticking out this tale to the bitter end.
A Fascinating Account .......2007-04-19
This book is a fascinating account of the life of a musician and songwriter whose importance and influence on American music is only beginning to be felt. I was immediately struck by the fluidity and color in Kruth's writing. He has a distinctive voice which, while informal at times, is perfect for a biography of Townes, who never dwelled on formalities. As for chronology, I suspect that many of the people Kruth interviewed could not remember which year certain events occurred, let let alone perfectly accurate details, which aren't necessary anyway. Kruth gives us something far more valuable than a timeline, he provides the reader with a feel for the poetic craziness of Townes' life. He relies on interviews with those who really knew Townes. His friends, family and fellow musicians speak for themselves, the author doesn't get in the way with the arbitrary editorializing and artificial structure that so many more traditional biographers feel obliged to provide. Finally, Kruth avoids the cliche of Townes as just another misunderstood and drug-addicted artist who pleads for our sympathy (a major problem with Margaret Brown's recent documentary). While Townes' problems are evident, so is his wit, intelligence, humor and charisma, all qualities which contributed to his art and were obvious to anyone who ever met the man, even in the last year of his life.
Book Description
In Lockhart, Texas, a rural working-class town just south of Austin, country music is a way of life. Conversation slips easily into song, and the songs are full of conversation. Anthropologist and musician Aaron A. Fox spent years in Lockhart making research notes, music, and friends. In Real Country, he provides an intimate, in-depth ethnography of the community and its music. Showing that country music is deeply embedded in the textures of working-class life, Fox argues that it is the cultural and intellectual property of working-class people and not only of the Nashville-based music industry or the stars whose lives figure so prominently in popular and scholarly writing about the genre.
Fox spent hundreds of hours observing, recording, and participating in talk and music-making in homes, beer joints, and garage jam sessions. He renders the everyday life of Lockhart’s working-class community in detail, right down to the ice cold beer, the battered guitars, and the technical skills of such local musical legends as Randy Meyer and Larry “Hoppy” Hopkins. Throughout, Fox focuses on the human voice. His analyses of conversations, interviews, songs, and vocal techniques show how feeling and experience are expressed, and how local understandings of place, memory, musical aesthetics, working-class social history, race, and gender are shared. In Real Country, working-class Texans re-imagine their past and give voice to the struggles and satisfactions of their lives in the present through music.
Customer Reviews:
Buy this book!.......2006-11-02
If you read one book about country music, this is the one you should read. Fox's brilliant analysis sidesteps the whole Nashville-Dollywood-Branson commericial thing to explore how working class people in rural Texas and Illinois use country music to express their senses of self and their aesthetic and cultural values. The way he writes about the singing voice and the way he incorporates the character of the people he studied with into his presentation is about the best I've seen. Why only four stars, you ask? Well.....It can get a little dense sometimes - he has a theoretical point to make about music and culture, and he is after all a scholar (teaches in the music department at Columbia University). But bear with that and you'll be very happy you did. If you love country music, read this book.
Book Description
Praise for Johnny Bush and
Whiskey River (Take My Mind):
"Johnny Bush and I started out together... The story contained in this book is gospel."
—Charley Pride
"From the crown of his western hat down to the tips of his needle-nosed James Leddy cowboy boots, Johnny Bush is pure-D Texas from the get-go. His telling reads like a honky-tonk song, only real; you can hear the hurtin', heartache, cheatin', and pain in every word and feel the boot-scootin' shuffle with every turn of the page."
—Joe Nick Patoski, author of
Selena: Como La Flor and
Stevie Ray Vaughn: Caught in the Crossfire and writer for
Rolling Stone and
No Depression
"Through his talents Johnny Bush has made a significant contribution to country music, and has given to his many fans the joy of magnificent music. You will enjoy meeting this creative man through this book."
—Ralph Emery
"I am as proud of Johnny Bush as I am of Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, and Johnny Paycheck—all Cherokee Cowboys alumni. I am especially proud of his triumph over his debilitating voice problem. This is the real story, told in his own voice."
—Ray Price
"From hard-time hungry Houston childhood to Nashville hit-making, from scuffling honky-tonk sideman to king of the Texas dancehalls, from victim of a strange career-killing illness to comeback kid, Johnny Bush has a Texas-sized story to tell about his life and times in country music. He tells it honestly, with humor and humility. Listen up when he speaks."
—John Morthland, contributing editor,
Texas Monthly, and former associate editor of
Rolling Stone,
Creem, and
Country Music
"Johnny Bush is one of my oldest and dearest friends. He and I started out together in music, and we're still together. Everything that's been said about me in this book, good or bad, is pretty accurate."
—Willie Nelson
"I love Johnny Bush. He is classic Texas honky-tonk, one of our state's treasures. Every honky-tonker out there has tried to sing like him, myself included. Thanks, Johnny, for being a true Texas original, and for your friendship."
—George Strait
When it comes to Texas honky-tonk, nobody knows the music or the scene better than Johnny Bush. Author of Willie Nelson's classic concert anthem "Whiskey River," and singer of hits such as "You Gave Me a Mountain," "Undo the Right," "Jim, Jack and Rose," and "I'll Be There," Johnny Bush is a legend in country music, a singer-songwriter who has lived the cheatin', hurtin', hard-drinkin' life and recorded some of the most heart-wrenching songs about it. He has one of the purest honky-tonk voices ever to come out of Texas. And Bush's career has been just as dramatic as his songs—on the verge of achieving superstardom in the early 1970s, he was sidelined by a rare vocal disorder that he combated for thirty years. But, survivor that he is, Bush is once again filling dance halls across Texas and inspiring a new generation of musicians who crave the authenticity—the "pure D" country—that Johnny Bush has always had and that Nashville country music has lost.
In
Whiskey River (Take My Mind), Johnny Bush tells the twin stories of his life and of Texas honky-tonk music. He recalls growing up poor in Houston's Kashmere Gardens neighborhood and learning his chops in honky-tonks around Houston and San Antonio—places where chicken wire protected the bandstand and deadly fights broke out regularly. Bush vividly describes life on the road in the 1960s as a band member for Ray Price and Willie Nelson, including the booze, drugs, and one-night stands that fueled his songs but destroyed his first three marriages. He remembers the time in the early 1970s when he was hotter than Willie and on the fast track to superstardom—until spasmodic dysphonia forced his career into the slow lane. Bush describes his agonizing, but ultimately successful struggle to keep performing and rebuild his fan base, as well as the hard-won happiness he has found in his personal life.
Woven throughout Bush's autobiography is the never-before-told story of Texas honky-tonk music, from Bob Wills and Floyd Tillman to Junior Brown and Pat Green. Johnny Bush has known almost all the great musicians, past and present, and he has wonderful stories to tell. Likewise, he offers shrewd observations on how the music business has changed since he started performing in the 1950s—and pulls no punches in saying how Nashville music has lost its country soul. For everyone who loves genuine country music, Johnny Bush, Willie Nelson, and stories of triumph against all odds,
Whiskey River (Take My Mind) is a must-read.
Customer Reviews:
Country Music Veteran .......2007-03-29
Not everybody can be Garth Brooks, and thank the Good Lord for that. Johnny Bush is the real deal in country music, he's been laying down good music for years both as a songwriter and singer, primarily on that Texas circuit where the fans demand high quality and will go to the wall for you if they love you. But you have to earn that respect and Bush did. He cut his teeth playing in small time Texas bands like that led by uncle, minor honky tonk legend Jerry Jericho. He then moved up to Ray Price's glorious Cherokee Cowboys. Frustrated in Nashville, he headed back to Texas and built a career based around strong songwriting (he wrote Whiskey River, made famous by Willie Nelson) and solid performance. He tells most in this open, honest autobiography. The text is engagingly written and the stories well told. There is no better insider look at the world of honky tonk music.
Amazon.com
Duncan McLean has a dilemma. He's head over heels for a music that's not only going out of style, but is found most prevalently in Texas--a long way from his home in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. After exhausting Scotland's supply of western swing, in 1995 McLean travels to America, rents a Chevy Cavalier, and heads west to explore the birthplace, meet the makers, and dig up the roots of the sounds with which he's fallen in love. As he describes it:
"This is the hottering chili-pot of New Orleans Jazz, old country fiddling, big-band swing, ragtime, blues, pop, mariachi and conjunto that dominated Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and beyond--all the way to San Francisco in the west, Memphis in the east--from the mid-Thirties till mid-Elvis. This is western swing."
Lone Star Swing is both musical pilgrimage and witty travelogue. As McLean trails his favorite music over the back roads of Texas, his adventures make for interesting reading. He has a way of making you feel you're riding along in the passenger seat as he finds the top 10 things to do in Turkey, Texas, on Bob Wills Day (Bob is McLean's western-swing hero), learns how to nibble an onion cooked up sunflower style at the Presidio Onion Festival, gets lectured for cussing in front of ladies after his Chevy gets its doors rehung by a hit-and-run driver, and suffers the wrath of Gulf Coast prawns eaten too far from their home waters. And although he's far away from the Orkney Islands, McLean has a way of making himself at home in just about every place the music takes him.
Book Description
High Fidelity meets Blue Highways in this gloriously offbeat quest for the true roots of Texas Swing. Using the prize money from his Somerset Maugham Award, Duncan McLean traveled from Orkney, Scotland, to Texas in search of the extraordinary mix of jazz, blues, country, and mariachi that is Western Swing. This account of his travels takes in barbed-wire museums, onion festivals, hoe-downs, ghost-towns, dead dogs, and ten thousand miles of driving through the Lone Star State. A constant soundtrack of vintage music from bands like the Texas Top Hands, The Lightcrust Doughboys, and the Modern Mountaineers cheers McLean as he tries, with great difficulty, to track down any trace of his greatest heroes: Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Both a quest for a musical grail and a wildly funny travelogue, Lone Star Swing captures the singular wonders of Texas and its maverick inhabitants, its staggering 100-in-the-shade heat, its mouth-blistering chilies. . . . Above all it captures the spirit of the glorious mongrel music--once incredibly popular, now all but forgotten--that he crossed the world to hear.
Customer Reviews:
Quite a ride.......2007-01-12
One of the funnest books I've read in a long time, and educational too. I was drawn to this book because of the Bob Wills kick I've been on because of a boxed CD set and biography of him, but this book let me know how much more this is to Western Swing music than Bob Wills, so now I'm encouraged to further pursue this music thanks to the author.
I'm also amazed at how these people who write great travel books seem to have such great travel experiences along the way, when I'm usually bored to tears when I hit the road. Maybe I'm just not trying hard enough and don't have the proper attitude, but I think another thing you can take out of this book is how enriching the travel experience can be if you're in the proper frame of mind.
Laugh-out-loud travelogue . . ........2005-06-01
This is a five-star book for readers who enjoy fish-out-of-water accounts of travel, where the writer's eye (ear, nose and throat, for that matter) seems to encounter only the completely incongruous and absurd. The jokes go both ways, of course - on the inhabitants of the place traveled through as well as the credulous author, whose expectations are wildly different. Paul Theroux does this in (to me) a cranky and irritating way ("Kingdom by the Sea"), but Duncan McLean, a Scotsman from little Orkney, plays it for belly laughs, and there's a lot of fun to be had along the way.
A caveat or two. Texans may find his jaundiced view of Texas grating, and lovers of Bob Wills and western swing may find the book something of a hodgepodge on those two subjects. Onion festivals, scary encounters with border patrol, and his opinion of Rush Limbaugh will seem beside the point. Likewise, readers not into western swing will find his enthusiasms, knowledge of music trivia, and references to musicians and songs a bit of a yawn.
But if you've read Charles Townsend's biography of Bob Wills and love the music, this slaphappy mix of travel writing and musicology can put a big smile on your face. Also, McLean's difficulties in finding and interviewing the old-timers who once played with Wills will give you an appreciation for the monumental effort of research that went into the writing of the biography. Best advice: Read Townsend first, then pick up McLean and be prepared to laugh.
Texas! Music!.......2004-11-07
McLean, a Scottish writer, discovered an old, scratchy LP of Bob Wills and was instantly became a fanatic for western swing, a music that dominated popular radio in the '30s and '40s and is now close to forgotten. After winning the Somerset Maugham Prize for his book of short stories, he decides to spend the money on a tour of Texas tracking down the surviving musicians who played western swing. On his journeys, he finds the Texas Wills and his associates sang about (in small towns) and a Texas overwhelmed by newer Trends (Austin, Fort Worth, etc.). An interesting tale of another guy obsessed with music.
All you get is an empty trail!.......2004-07-06
A poorly planned book about a poorly planned trip through Texas. The writer has a great love for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, but comes up empty on his search and in his book. I read everything I can find on Bob and His Texas Playboys, and this book was the most disappointing.
The only two great books are: San Antonio Rose (by Charles Townsend) and My Years With Bob Wills (by that ol' piano pounder, Al Stricklin)
Skip this one. Save your money for the Bear Records box set.
Entertaining, Though Seriously Flawed.......2003-07-21
"Lone Star Swing" is an entertaining and occasionally funny read, though not very enlightening about the subject at hand (western swing music). McLean made the mistaken assumption that he could breeze through Texas with little planning beforehand and produce a compelling book within the 30 days his money allowed him. As a result he stumbles around, trying to find interesting people and experiences on the fly, but often coming up empty. An in-depth interview with Adolph Hofner would have been great, but McLean didn't bother to plan it in advance and blows the opportunity. He praises people like Billy Briggs and Smokey Woods but makes no attempt to track down people who can shed light on their personalities or music. Thus most of McLean's comments come across as witty fodder for a fanzine, but not much else. His hyper-enthusiasm for Bob Wills is a little disturbing, since the most interesting people he talks about in the book had very little contact with Wills, and actually played with other groups. The story ends with the author attending a rather tepid "Playboys reunion" that features guys who played with Wills in the '50s and '60s -- far removed from the 1930s era band that McLean is so enthused about in the rest of the book. Not much of a climax, but McLean is such a "fan" that he doesn't notice this discrepancy.
Amusing, but you'd be better off buying some western swing CDs.
Average customer rating:
- Yarn spinnin' ahorseback . . .
- precious memories
|
Cowboy Fiddler in Bob Wills' Band
Frankie McWhorter , and
John R. Erickson
Manufacturer: University of North Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Country & Folk
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ASIN: 1574410253 |
Customer Reviews:
Yarn spinnin' ahorseback . . ........2005-05-19
Writing biography is hard work, says the author of this book, John Erickson, who's written fine books about his own cowboying and ranching experiences, as well as a series of hilarious children's books "Hank the Cowdog." In this book, he lets his subject Frankie McWhorter talk in his own voice, and what we get is a transcription of more or less free-association anecdotes from the Texas cowboy fiddler who once played in Bob Wills' famous western swing band.
The result is rough around the edges and freewheeling in a kind of one-darn-thing-after-another way. And it captures maybe as well as you can in the printed word the cowboy culture of Panhandle Texas - its values, preoccupations, and down-to-earth points of view. What you miss, of course, are the visual and oral dimensions of this kind of storytelling. And because McWhorter was a fiddler who counted himself among Bob Wills' most trusted band members, you also yearn to hear the music that he's talking about.
Laboring a bit under these disadvantages, the book is a worthy introduction to a colorful and talented cowboy who has never lost his roots in the soil of Hall County, Texas. There are 35+ great black and white photos of McWhorter as both fiddler and cowboy. But to get to know the full dimension of the man, the best thing is to go directly to the music section of amazon and order yourself a McWhorter CD.
Meanwhile, readers hoping to know more about the career of Bob Wills will find that McWhorter came along after the peak of Wills' success. The big band leader is beginning to age here, and not gracefully, relying over much on the bottle to get him through the days on the road. There are, however, some entertaining and informative Wills stories, including examples of the firm hand he took with band members and an explanation of how the classic "San Antonio Rose" began as a "mistake" and then, thanks to Irving Berlin, needed to be rechristened "New San Antonio Rose."
precious memories.......2000-10-30
Heart-warming memoir by an old-style Texas Fiddler and Cowboy. The reader can count on some candid remembrances of life on the road with Bob Wills. Excellent book; but if you're Old School Texas, as this South Texan reviewer is, be prepared to sigh every time you turn a page. They just don't make'em like Mr.McWhorter anymore, and we are all the poorer for it...
Average customer rating:
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Texas Country Style
D. Alan Calhoun
Manufacturer: Gibbs Smith Publishers
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Binding: Hardcover
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Lone Star Living: Texas Homes and Ranches
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Ranch Style: The Artistic Culture and Design of the Real West
ASIN: 158685013X |
Average customer rating:
- Must read if you listen to Texas music or 'alt country'
- An excellent primer for fans of Texas alt-country
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The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock: New Edition (Jack and Doris Smothers Series in Texas History, Life, and Culture)
Jan Reid
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0292701977 |
Book Description
Musical magic hit Austin, Texas, in the early 1970s. At now-legendary venues such as Threadgill's, Vulcan Gas Company, and the Armadillo World Headquarters, a host of country, rock-and-roll, blues, and folk musicians came together and created a sound and a scene that Jan Reid vividly detailed in his 1974 book,
The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock.
The breadth of talent still astounds—Willie Nelson, Janis Joplin, Jerry Jeff Walker, Doug Sahm, Delbert McClinton, Michael Martin Murphey, Willis Alan Ramsey, Kinky Friedman, Steve Fromholz, Bobby Bridger, Billy Joe Shaver, Marcia Ball, and Townes Van Zandt. Reid's book even inspired the nationally popular and long-running PBS series
Austin City Limits, which focused attention on the trends that fed the music scene—progressive country, country rock, western swing, blues, and bluegrass among them.
In this new edition, Jan Reid revitalizes his classic look at the Austin music scene. He has substantially reworked the early chapters to include musicians and musical currents from other parts of Texas that significantly contributed to the delightful convergence of popular cultures in Austin. Four new chapters and an epilogue show how the creative burst of the seventies directly spawned a new generation of talents who carry on the tradition—Lyle Lovett, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Earl Keen, Steve Earle, Jimmy LaFave, Kelly Willis, Joe Ely, Bruce and Charlie Robison, and The Dixie Chicks.
Customer Reviews:
Must read if you listen to Texas music or 'alt country'.......2006-07-07
This is THE book. I could not put it down. Every page was a jolt for someone who has listened to this music since 1974 or so. The newer added chapters at the end cover Robert Earl Keen and some newer artists. Just an amazing book about Austin music and everything you need to know about the difference between Nashville country and real American music.
An excellent primer for fans of Texas alt-country.......2004-07-23
Jan Reid's excellent update of his previously published work is a must-read for any fans of the Texas country music scene, both present and past. Reid updates his book with added chapters and descriptive passages, tracing the development of the sounds and styles that have virtually defined Texas music. This is as much a work of Texana as it is a musical history. It's important writing, and it carries significant cultural weight behind it.
Reid's writing is much like the characters that he writes about. Rambling, disjointed at times, occasionally losing track of a theme or a story, but always interesting. Virtually all of the seminal Texas cosmic cowboys are profiled here, from the early years of Doug Sahm and the 13th Floor Elevators, to Willis Alan Ramsey, Michael Martin Murphey, Kinky Friedman, and many more. Reid's updated material profiles the modern-day inheritors of the style, such as Robert Earl Keen, Charlie Robison, and Jimmy LaFave. Reid even covers the blues influence, with good source material on Marcia Ball, and the immortal Steve Ray Vaughn.
If you're a fan of this music, get this book. If you're wanting to know what Austin was like back when it was still a smallish college town and a haven for redneck hippies, get this book. If you want to know about the music that has provided a background soundtrack for the lifestyle of many Texans, get this book. It's the real deal. Every music fan in Austin should own a copy.
Book Description
In this definitive biography of Ernest Tubb, Ronnie Pugh brings one of country music’s greatest performers back to center stage. Tracing a career that began in the 1930s and continued until just a few years before Tubb’s death in 1984, Pugh presents not only the long and legendary life of the Texas Troubadour but also an unparalleled view of the world of country music in which Ernest Tubb played an essential part.
Tubb began his career as an imitator of Jimmie Rodgers, but stormed the country music scene in the 1940s with a new honky tonk sound and a string of hits that included “Walking the Floor Over You.” His innovations marked an important transition in country music to a style and lyric in tune with modern American working people, or at least that offered the real-life themes of hard drinking, divorce, tough times, and ruined lives—changes that helped define the music we recognize today as “country.” A member of the Grand Ole Opry until 1982, Tubb hosted a live radio broadcast from the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville for years and became one of the first country music stars to host his own television show in the mid-1960s. Always popular and on the road much of the time even after his prime hit-making years had ended, he was well-known for promoting the careers of many new performers on the rise.
Delving into fan club journals, songbooks, newspaper broadcast logs, record company files, and hundreds of interviews, Ronnie Pugh draws a picture of Tubb—exploring both his personal and professional life—that is unprecedented in its intimacy, detail, and vitality. We get a close-up view of Tubb riding the crest of his popularity, setting the pace for Nashville, facing the onslaught of Elvis Presley and rock ’n roll, and surviving as a country music legend. Richly illustrated with almost a hundred photographs, many of which are rare unpublished shots from private collections, Ernest Tubb also contains a detailed and complete sessionography, a resource that will be of continuing importance for serious record collectors.
A biography that has been long awaited from Ronnie Pugh, unquestionably the leading authority on Ernest Tubb, this book will delight readers from among the fans of country music, those interested in the history of country music or American popular music and culture generally, and, of course, Ernest Tubb fans.
Customer Reviews:
Great biography of a Country music giant.......2003-05-11
Ronnie Pugh has done an excellent job of describing a Country music legend. He told many of the ways that Ernest Tubb helped the Country music industry, and gave what I think is a fair and accurate account of the man himself. This book is a must for any Ernest Tubb fan, and for anyone who wants to learn more about this great artist and great man. I highly recommend this book.
Good research and balance.......2002-06-11
This book provides an excellent picture of Ernest Tubb. It's filled with detail about his life and his importance to the music industry, and it's an objective and balanced biography. The only thing I found odd was the lack of family interviews. I don't know how one can write a complete biography without talking to surviving family members.
Kind of depressing, but informative.......2001-08-10
An exhaustively detailed biography, written by the head of the Country Music Foundation, which tracks ET from his early struggling years, onto his heyday as one of Decca's main cash cows, and through his decades of hard work and gradual decline. The writing is almost as dogged and linear as Tubb was during his years on the road -- not terribly elegant, literary or evocative, but the research is solid, including countless interviews with band members, industry movers, and Tubb relations. An authoritative resource for anyone who would like to find out how Tubb helped form the sound of hard country honkytonk in the early '40s, and how he later helped boost the careers of musicians such as Hank Snow, Hank Thompson and Loretta Lynn, and how Nashville eventually let him slide out of sight. Many of the details seems too depressing and tawdry to me, but it's still the story of a great man's life...
Unbiased and well balanced....two thumbs up.......1998-08-23
Mr. Pugh's "Ernest Tubb: The Texas Troubador" offers a well balanced context of Tubb's life. The good times, hard times, his strengths, and weaknesses. My father, the late Vernon "Toby" Reese was one of the orignal members of Tubb's band in the 40's. I can recall his stories about Tubb when I was a child. Mr. Pughs book is right on target.
This Is The ultimate book on The Great Ernest Tubb.......1997-12-03
I have personally known the Tubb family and most of this I already knew so it was fun seeing what would be in the book and what would be left out and he left nothing out of the book. It gave you a very honet portait of this legendary man. It did not give a sugar coated picture. It was very informative and honest. Although I never got to meet the man just knowing what I know of him and his family. I'am sure that he would be proud of this book.
Average customer rating:
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Dance Halls & Last Calls: A History of Texas Country Music
Geronimo Trevino
Manufacturer: Republic of Texas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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The Handbook of Texas Music
ASIN: 1556229275 |
Book Description
Documentaries of over one hundred vintage dance halls and their communities are explored in Dance Halls and Last Calls. Many entertainers, booking agents, club owners, and country music fans were interviewed for this book. In a day when there was no competition from television or video players, these shrines gleamed proudly each weekend. Today a new generation of Texas music lovers has helped these halls enjoy a resurgence in popularity.
Book Description
Willie Nelson, Joe Ely, Marcia Ball, Tish Hinojosa, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Lyle Lovett...the list of popular songwriters from Texas just goes on and on. In this collection of thirty-four interviews with these and other songwriters, Kathleen Hudson pursues the stories behind the songs, letting the singers' own words describe where their songs come from and how the diverse, eclectic cultures, landscapes, and musical traditions of Texas inspire the creative process.
Conducted in dance halls, dressing rooms, parking lots, clubs-wherever the musicians could take time to tell their stories-the interviews are refreshingly spontaneous and vivid. Hudson draws out the songwriters on such topics as the sources of their songs, the influence of other musicians on their work, the progress of their careers, and the nature of Texas music. Many common threads emerge from these stories, while the uniqueness of each songwriter becomes equally apparent. To round out the collection, Hudson interviews Larry McMurtry and Darrell Royal for their perspectives as longtime friends and fans of Texas musicians. She also includes a brief biography and discography of each songwriter.
Customer Reviews:
Hudson nails it.......2000-12-28
Dr.Kathleen Hudson hit the perverbial nail on the head with her first book "Telling Stories Writing Songs" she went straight to the source, the songwriters and musicians to hear their stories about what it is to be a Texas musician and songwriter. She hit all the major influences of Texas music and introduced the world to some memorable characters.This is a great book for anyone interested in music or writing
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