A pivotal member of the hugely successful bluegrass band Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, Dobro pioneer Josh Graves (1927-2006) was a living link between bluegrass music and the blues. In Bluegrass Bluesman, this influential performer shares the story of his lifelong career in music. In lively anecdotes, Graves describes his upbringing in East Tennessee and the climate in which bluegrass music emerged during the 1940s. Deeply influenced by the blues, he adapted Earl Scruggs's revolutionary banjo style to the Dobro resonator slide guitar and gave the Foggy Mountain Boys their distinctive sound. Graves' accounts of daily life on the road through the 1950s and 1960s reveal the band's dedication to musical excellence, Scruggs' leadership, and an often grueling life on the road. He also comments on his later career when he played in Lester Flatt's Nashville Grass and the Earl Scruggs Revue and collaborated with the likes of Boz Scaggs, Charlie McCoy, Kenny Baker, Eddie Adcock, Jesse McReynolds, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and his three musical sons. A colorful storyteller, Graves brings to life the world of an American troubadour and the mountain culture that he never left behind. Born in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, Josh Graves (1927-2006) is universally acknowledged as the father of the bluegrass Dobro. In 1997 he was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

In this first biography of legendary banjoist J. D. Crowe, Marty Godbey charts the life and career of one of bluegrass's most important innovators. Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Crowe picked up the banjo when he was thirteen years old, inspired by a Flatt & Scruggs performance at the Kentucky Barn Dance. Godbey relates the long, distinguished career that followed, as Crowe performed and recorded both solo and as part of such varied ensembles as Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys, the all-acoustic Kentucky Mountain Boys, and the revolutionary New South, who created an adventurously eclectic brand of bluegrass by merging rock and country music influences with traditional forms. Over the decades, this highly influential group launched the careers of many other fresh talents such as Keith Whitley, Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, and Doyle Lawson. With a selective discography and drawing from more than twenty interviews with Crowe and dozens more with the players who know him best, "Crowe on the Banjo: The Music Life of J. D. Crowe" is the definitive music biography of a true bluegrass original.

Like rock 'n' roll, bluegrass exploded out of a post-World War II atmosphere in which more Americans opened their ears to more different kinds of music than ever before. All around the country, musicians were searching for new sounds and approaches: country blues went fully electric in Chicago, bebop boiled over as jazz hit the hippest notes yet, and country music followed Hank Williams into newer, sexier, harder-hitting territory. The developments in bluegrass proved every bit as galvanic. In The Bluegrass Reader, Thomas Goldsmith joins his insights as a journalist with a lifetime of experience in bluegrass to capture the full story of this dynamic and beloved music. Inspired by the question "What articles about bluegrass would you want to have with you on a desert island?" he assembled a delicious, fun-to-read collection that brings together a wide range of the very best in bluegrass writing. Goldsmith's judicious selections include a fascinating combination of older, more obscure, and previously unavailable writings with pieces that are classics in the history of writing about bluegrass: Alan Lomax in Esquire, Mayne Smith's groundbreaking dissertation, Ralph Rinzler's Sing Out piece on Bill Monroe, and Mike Seeger's Folkways liner notes. The Bluegrass Reader also features writers as disparate as Marty Stuart, David Gates, and Hunter Thompson writing for such magazines as The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Muleskinner News. In an age where musical trends flit by like models on a runway, bluegrass has endured changes while faithfully checking its advances against the formative years. Goldsmith follows its history through three roughly twenty-year periods: from 1939 to 1959, from1959 to 1979, and from 1979 to the present. Goldsmith's substantial introduction describes and traces the development of the music from its origins in Anglo-American folk tradition, overlaid with African American influences, to the breakout popularity of Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss, and the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. He introduces each selection with a wealth of additional information, making The Bluegrass Reader both enjoyable and invaluable for new fans of the music as well as for its lifetime devotees.

From the author of the bestselling The Catcher Was a Spy comes an exhilarating exploration of the performers, places, and experiences which form country music--a genre which is uniquely and authentically American. 40 photos.


From the Hardcover edition.

In a signed copy of his autobiography, Waylon Jennings penned a personal note to his son, Terry Jennings, ending it with the words, "I did my best. Now it's your turn." It is with this spirit in mind that Terry has finished telling the true story of his father's remarkable, unvarnished life. Born when Waylon was a mere nineteen years old, Terry had an intimate view of his father's antics, as the two shared an incredibly close relationship. More like brothers than a father and son, by the time Terry was thirteen he was a regular on the road, smoking marijuana with his dad and observing the wild ways that laid the foundation of the infamous country-music sensation, "The Outlaws." When it came to "The Outlaws," Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson were active players in the debauchery, as Waylon led a reckless lifestyle centered around his music, hard drugs, and women. Critical acclaim, sold-out tours and mob-like pandemonium were unfortunately overshadowed by darker personal challenges he faced including multiple divorces, crippling debt, and severe depression stemming from his best friend Buddy Holly's premature death. Terry Jennings witnessed all of the above and was a willing participant. As he followed his father on the road he began working with the crew, managing Waylon's career and becoming his closest confidante. Despite their closenes, though, the rules of the road ultimately prevailed. Eventually Terry found himself nursing a drug habit that eclipsed his father's; more than once Waylon even stole Terry's girlfriends. While it is no secret that Waylon was no saint, this is an honest look at a loving and complicated father-son relationship that will resonate for generations of country music fans.