Here are 95 books that Willie Nelson fans have personally recommended if you like
Willie Nelson.
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As a lifelong country music fan and musician, I absolutely love to read about the lives of country music stars. I began reading about the history of country music when I was twelve years old out of my interest in such performers as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and especially Jimmie Rodgers. There are quite a few really good books, so it was difficult to narrow down to five. But I think these can set anyone well along the road to learning about this uniquely American music and the colorful lives of its performers.
Hemphill’s book captures country music in the 1960s.
His portraits of country stars and the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium present vivid images. They are so artful that you feel you have yourself experienced the moment from the inside. This is really an excellent book in any category—a tour de force of nonfiction.
While on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, journalist and novelist Paul Hemphill wrote of that pivotal moment in the late sixties when traditional defenders of the hillbilly roots of country music were confronted by the new influences and business realities of pop music.
The demimonde of the traditional Nashville venues (Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, Robert's Western World, and the Ryman Auditorium) and first-wave artists (Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, and Lefty Frizzell) are shown coming into first contact, if not conflict, with a new wave of pop-influenced and business savvy country performers (Jeannie C. "Harper Valley PTA" Riley, Johnny Ryles, and Glen…
As a lifelong country music fan and musician, I absolutely love to read about the lives of country music stars. I began reading about the history of country music when I was twelve years old out of my interest in such performers as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and especially Jimmie Rodgers. There are quite a few really good books, so it was difficult to narrow down to five. But I think these can set anyone well along the road to learning about this uniquely American music and the colorful lives of its performers.
This memoir by Charlie Louvin of performing with his brother, Ira, distills country music’s unique midcentury flavor.
Growing up singing Sacred Harp harmonies, the Louvin brothers eventually made it onto the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. But being on top of the world could not keep Ira’s demons from dragging him down amid alcoholism and violence that lead to his wife shooting him and a tragic demise.
The beautiful and tragic saga of the Louvin Brothers - one of the most legendary country duos of all time - is one of America's great untold stories. Charlie Louvin was a good, god-fearing, churchgoing singer, but his brother Ira had the devil in him and was known for smashing his mandolin to splinters onstage, cussing out Elvis Presley, and trying to strangle his third wife with a telephone cord. "Satan is Real" is the incredible tale of Charlie Louvin's sixty-five-year career, the timeless murder ballads of the Louvin Brothers, and the epic tale of two brothers bound together by…
As a lifelong country music fan and musician, I absolutely love to read about the lives of country music stars. I began reading about the history of country music when I was twelve years old out of my interest in such performers as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and especially Jimmie Rodgers. There are quite a few really good books, so it was difficult to narrow down to five. But I think these can set anyone well along the road to learning about this uniquely American music and the colorful lives of its performers.
This book is particularly special to me. I have always been a huge Jimmie Rodgers fan and have loved Nolan Porterfield’s biography of him.
As important as Porterfield’s biography is, Barry Mazor’s Meeting Jimmie Rodgers shows the full impact of Rodgers's music while also updating his life story with newly-discovered information. This book, maybe more than any other, inspired me to write my book.
In the nearly eight decades since his death from tuberculosis at age thirty-five, singer-songwriter Jimmie Rodgers has been an inspiration for numerous top performers-from Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Bill Monroe and Hank Williams to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, and Beck. How did this Mississippi-born vaudevillian, a former railroad worker who performed so briefly so long ago, produce tones, tunes, and themes that have had such broad influence and made him the model for the way American roots music stars could become popular heroes? In Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, the first book to explore the deep legacy of…
As a lifelong country music fan and musician, I absolutely love to read about the lives of country music stars. I began reading about the history of country music when I was twelve years old out of my interest in such performers as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and especially Jimmie Rodgers. There are quite a few really good books, so it was difficult to narrow down to five. But I think these can set anyone well along the road to learning about this uniquely American music and the colorful lives of its performers.
Diane Diekman is an outstanding writer, her biography of Marty Robbins winning the 2013 Best Book on Country Music Award.
Great as that book is, her biography of Faron Young best captures the distinct colorful feel of midcentury country music. Its subject was a rounder from Louisiana, a contemporary of Hank Williams who really did live out a fast life.
As one of the best-known honky tonkers to appear in the wake of Hank Williams's death, Faron Young was a popular presence on Nashville's music scene for more than four decades. The Singing Sheriff produced a string of Top Ten hits, placed over eighty songs on the country music charts, and founded the long-running country music periodical Music City News in 1963. Flamboyant, impulsive, and generous, he helped and encouraged a new generation of talented songwriter-performers that included Willie Nelson and Bill Anderson. In 2000, four years after his untimely death, Faron was inducted into the Country Music Hall of…
My research and writing about music, particularly country and other Southern genres, began with the "Louisiana Hayride", a radio barn dance in the post-World War II era that launched both Hank Williams and Elvis Presley to prominence. From there, I turned to the long-running PBS music showcase Austin City Limits, which now names a huge music festival as well. In both projects, understanding music encompassed larger contexts of region, media, and meaning, all of which bear on understanding Dolly Parton as a musician and songwriter; as Appalachian; as a recording, TV, and movie star; and as a global cultural icon. I’ve never known life without Dolly Parton in it. Of this, I’m glad.
This book is a classic. Along with the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Country recordings and Bill Malone’s Country Music, U.S.A., my own interest in writing about country music began here.
When a senior scholar advised that country music lacked “respectability” as an academic topic, this book was among the small set of works that sealed my confidence to do what I wanted and figure it would all work itself out (Dolly does what she wants, too!).
In compiling biographical profiles of women in country music, this book also filled in a whole portion of history typically glossed over in most country music writing up until that point. It likewise planted seeds for future research and writing on the history of women in the genre, which continues to bear fruit today.
From country's earliest pioneers to its greatest legends, this work documents the lives of the female artists who have shaped the music for over 200 years. Through interviews, photographs, and primary texts, this work weaves a complex tapestry of personalities and talent. It gets to the heart of the special bond female artists have with their audiences. People seeking to understand the context out of which mega-stars such as Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks emerged should look no farther than this guide. Some of the women discussed include Dolly Parton, Wanda Jackson, Patsy Montana, Alison Krauss, Martha…
As a lifelong country music fan and musician, I absolutely love to read about the lives of country music stars. I began reading about the history of country music when I was twelve years old out of my interest in such performers as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and especially Jimmie Rodgers. There are quite a few really good books, so it was difficult to narrow down to five. But I think these can set anyone well along the road to learning about this uniquely American music and the colorful lives of its performers.
Patsy Cline’s story is one for the ages, and Ellis Nassour brings it to life in this book.
This one has all the tragic elements of country music—Patsy Cline endured heartbreak, abuse, car wrecks, and so many more challenges. And she channeled all of it into some of the greatest music ever.
Earthy, sexy, and vivacious, the life of beloved country singer, Patsy Cline, who soared from obscurity to international fame to tragic death in just thirty short years, is explored in colorful and poignant detail. An innovator—and even a hell-raiser—Cline broke all the boys’ club barriers of Nashville’s music business in the 1950s and brought a new Nashville sound to the nation with her pop hits and torch ballads like “Walking After Midnight,” “I Fall to Pieces“ and "Crazy.” She is the subject of a major Hollywood movie and countless articles, and her albums are still selling 45 years after her…
I’m a student of biography. Artists, musicians, and comedians are what I read about. I crave to know what makes a great artist tick, how their ideas develop, and why they choose to pursue their craft at huge personal expense. I’m motivated to write more of my own. These biographies are informative, entertaining, and engaging reads, well worth your time. It’s a challenging and frustrating process to tell an artist’s story. Yet their roots, their influences, and how they shake up popular culture make for greater insight into our humanity. Artists take risks and I’m always impressed by the boldness of their vision.
I love to read biographies that are detailed, critical, and smart. Considering the number of biographies available about music legend Hank Williams, Ribowsky’s informative style and sensible writing strips away the veil of myth and gets down to contextual facts. His biography of Williams tells the story most people already know, yet he creates a fresh, vibrant tale of a truly great musician, troubled by poor health, an oppressive mother, and a drinking problem that took him to the edge. Ribowsky puts all of Williams’s quirks into perspective by writing a well-rounded and empathetic biography that leaves all others in the dust.
After he died in the back seat of a Cadillac at the age of twenty-nine, Hank Williams-a frail, flawed man who had become country music's first real star-instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr. Having hit the heights with simple songs of despair, depression and tainted love, he would become in death a template for the rock generation to follow.
Mark Ribowsky weaves together the first fully realised biography of Williams in a generation. Examining his music while re-creating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, he traces the rise of this legend-from the dirt roads of Alabama to…
As the Director of the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University, I’m excited to stay on top of all that’s being done in the field of Texas Music and let me assure you that it is a great way to spend one’s days. Texas music and culture reflect the state’s diverse and contested past, and every month, it seems that there is not only a new artist appearing on the stage to sing her or his truth but a writer helping us to understand how those truths fit into the larger narratives of Texas history.
This is one of the books that had me inserting an unsolicited “did you know that...” into just about every conversation I had while reading it. Terry Allen is a singular visual and musical artist whose story exemplifies what a rich and contrarian place Texas is.
I knew something of what I might find in a Terry Allen biography, and yet there’s so much more: 1950s Lubbock wrestling promoters and Thai psychedelic bands, David Byrne and Marcel Duchamp, and, most compellingly, the lifelong love of partners Terry and Jo Harvey Allen. I cannot imagine many authors up for the task.
Brendan Greaves expertly delivers as one of those rare characters who understands that Allen’s roles in fine art and country music are not only on equal footing but of a piece. Greaves also oversaw the masterful reissue of Allen’s iconic albums Juarez and Lubbock on Everything, which makes it all…
Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Allen himself, his family members (including actor and poet Jo Harvey Allen, his wife and artistic partner of more than sixty years), and his many notable friends, colleagues, and collaborators (from musicians like David Byrne and Kurt Vile to artists such as Bruce Nauman and Kiki Smith); full access to the artist's home, studio, and voluminous journals and archives; and over twenty years of collaboration and friendship with Allen, author Brendan Greaves limns a revealing portrait, as deeply researched as it is intimate, as provocative as it is poetic, of a singularly multivalent storyteller…
As the Director of the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University, I’m excited to stay on top of all that’s being done in the field of Texas Music and let me assure you that it is a great way to spend one’s days. Texas music and culture reflect the state’s diverse and contested past, and every month, it seems that there is not only a new artist appearing on the stage to sing her or his truth but a writer helping us to understand how those truths fit into the larger narratives of Texas history.
If the Armadillo World Headquarters is one central node of countercultural country music in Texas, Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnics was the other. Where the Armadillo closed down in 1980, though, Willie’s picnics persist as an annual institution to this day. Author Dave Thomas has extensively researched the phenomenon and crafts its half-century history well.
The resulting volume is a riveting account that uses the sun-baked Texas ritual as a launching pad for stories encompassing all of America. A newspaper journalist, Thomas has an eye for detail and an ear for turns of phrase that kept me turning the pages long after I should have turned out the lights. If you ever wanted to read about a sort of country music, Woodstock Groundhog Day, this is that book.
In 1973, a forty-year-old country musician named Willie Nelson, inspired by a failed music festival the year before, decided he was going to hold his own party. He would stage it in the same remote and rocky field where the previous festival had withered. And he’d do it in July: not the hottest part of the Central Texas summer, but “damn sure close enough,” according to music journalist Dave Dalton Thomas. As unlikely as it seemed in 1973, Willie kept the event going, minus a year off here and there, for half a century.
Beyond a passion for yachting and flying, sharing adventures in memoir is my true passion. For better or worse, the soul cannot return from a hair-raising adventure as the same person. From roller skating across France as a teen, to sinking ships, being circled by pirates, or surviving an airplane crash, writing these stories brings true action to the pages. Writing memoir also forces me to learn and share life lessons so others won’t have to do it the hard way. Reading true adventures and memoirs lets me share the soul of my fellow travelers for a moment, and live that adrenaline high from the comfort of a reading chair.
Amazing true adventures are the heart and soul of memoir. As Jimmy Buffet and his crew plan a seaplane adventure to celebrate his 50th birthday down Latin America, across to Colombia, and further into the Caribbean, I was ready to read the depth of stories the likes of which might inspire so many of my favorite songs. The adventure was lost on me when he followed the seaplane by jet, meeting the crew in Costa Rica. Further south, they ran into “trouble in Cartagena.” As a boat captain and pilot with Colombian pirate experience, I was looking for stories of real, relatable trouble. Good stories, but the grit I was looking for from a Jimmy Buffet adventure wasn’t there.
For the millions of fans of Jimmy Buffett's music as well as his bestselling books, Tales From Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant?, here is the ultimate Jimmy Buffett philosophy on life and how to live it. As hard as it is to believe, the irrepressible Jimmy Buffett has hit the half-century mark and, in A PIRATE LOOKS AT 50, he brings us along on the remarkable journey which he took through the Southern hemisphere to celebrate this landmark birthday.
Jimmy takes us from the legendary pirate coves of the Florida Keys to the ruins of ancient Cartegena. Along the…
