Sample the first chapter below.

That someone was country music legend J. Claude Caruthers.

When said philosophical nugget was scratched into his autobiography, Nashville’s Shakespeare, Caruthers had no idea how true it was. He just thought it sounded cool.

Recently, that genius swallowed every ounce of the singer’s energy until he was a sleepwalking shell of a man. The exhaustion was so powerful, so numbing, he barely noticed Judy yanking off his scruffy boot.

See, Claude hadn’t slept for more than a week because that genius was currently suffocating beneath the greatest artistic achievement in Nashville history. Well, at least since Willie Nelson sculpted a Venus de Milo from rolling papers soaked in Coors beer.

When that boot finally slipped free, J. Claude’s tour bus was pounding down the road. Nighttime highway lights peeked through crushed velvet curtains and disappeared across the carpet. The singer’s bedroom occupied the cruiser’s rear and was draped from ceiling to floor in purple. It’d been nearly thirty years since the quarters were redecorated and they had barely been cleaned during that span.

Judy popped off the boot and fell backward onto Claude’s bed. The publicist, several decades younger than the wrinkled star, was a leggy dream with soft red hair now spread across the pillow. This was a treat since her locks were normally twisted up like a tight coil of copper wire. J. Claude oozed a long glance at her tiny feet, thin ankles and girlishly small hands. The five-time Country Musician of the Year made a big show of licking his lips.

Claude’s black sideburns were fading grey and his bones ached. But the songster didn’t notice when his heart got to beating like that. He assumed the handsomeness discussed in Nashville’s Shakespeare—rugged good looks that made the Marlboro Man feel “downright gay”—were responsible for Judy’s seductive tumble. His mind’s green lights flashed to crank up that famed Caruthers Charm.

Even though the exhausted flesh around them was puffy and discolored from insomnia, his eyes managed to sparkle with jumping jacks of trouble. “Take off your dress,” he said. “Stay a while.”

“No, thanks, my dress is fine,” she glowered and stood, finding sea legs as the bus swayed. Judy swept crumbs and cigarette ash from that blue cotton dress with a sigh. “Some days, Claude, you are like gum in my hair.” She tossed the boot in his direction.

“Oooh, that sounds kinky. I could get into that.”

Purple braided ceiling tassels, coated in three decades of nicotine, beat into the publicist’s head. Her stomach tensed. When J. Claude’s eggplant bedspread, violet wallpaper and lilac carpet mixed with the bus’ motion, she still ached with nausea, even after all these years.

Judy wanted to deliver a Hall of Fame scowl. She wanted to make Claude cry. Instead, she settled for her natural reaction of pity, marveling at her boss’ face, weathered by decades of smoky clubs and all-night gigs. “You have an interview. His name is Martin Dobson. He’s riding along until we get to Nashville. I’m going to patch him over to you.” She pointed at the dilapidated intercom system that was pretty hot shit back when the bus was new.

“Aw, relax,” J. Claude hopped down from the window seat. His strut was cracked and dry with beef jerky stiffness. His every movement was a faded copy of its once suave self. “Sit back down on the bed. Let’s me and you have a one-on-one business meeting first.”

The singer eyed a pinpoint scar on her nose: the telling remains of a long-removed piercing. Caruthers wondered once again if it was a diamond stud, a cute little hoop or a chrome ball. Who knew, because the carefree girl who once fit behind a nose ring was long gone. In her place was a woman strict with schedules, marketing agendas and Billboard chart figures.

Her only carefree moments were spent attached to a coffee cup. Strong, black java left a flavor in her mouth. She loved that taste.

“How about you act like a decent human being and let Mr. Dobson into your lair?” Judy’s face bunched and her arm made a dramatic swoop.

Claude’s bright green eyes lit with possibility, the way they always did upon discovering yet another distraction from life’s work. “I put the lay in lair, if you know what I—”

“Claude,” she clapped her hands for attention.

A shocked trail of cigarette smoke slithered from his lips.

“It’d be good for publicity if you spoke man-to-man.” She snatched a thermal coffee mug off a shelf and drank. Closed eyes. And breathed.

The guitar strummer painfully thumped onto the mattress. A skeleton of springs showed through the bed. He propped himself against a wood paneled wall where several holes had been patched with dull silver tape.

“No time,” he lifted Rusty from the floor and plucked a sour G chord. It seemed his guitar could never make up its mind about staying in tune, constantly wobbling back and forth.

Rusty, J. Claude’s maple acoustic, had seen better days. Caruthers refused to have any crew member so much as change a string since the Alice-to-Gwendolyn tour of the early 80s. Three decades of spilled beer, honky-tonk smoke and filthy finger picking covered the instrument in a thin layer of tar. “Now Judy, maybe you’re one of those mentally retarded kids I donate so much money to, but if not, you should know I’m writing the most important damn song of my life here. Probably the most important song the world’s ever known. Silent Night, Ground Control to Major Tom, Footloose, they’re nothing compared to this and you know it. Quit trying to distract me.”

“Those kids aren’t retarded, they’re orphans. And you’ve been writing one song for three years,” her voice was bored, tired of arguing this fact every day. “And I really doubt it’s more important than Silent Night.” She shook her head and in a deep grumble whispered: “Probably not even Footloose.”

Claude offered the grungy guitar to Judy. “You want to try and be Nashville’s Shakespeare?” He tipped back his cowboy hat as if he and the redhead were nearing a gunfight. The hat carried as much gunk as the guitar and its snakeskin band was shredded. Caruthers was careful not to tip things too far and expose his bald spot.

Judy popped a shallow laugh. “Nobody calls you Shakespeare but you.” She swayed with the bus’ movements and waited for an answer.

“Somebody must, I mean it’s airbrushed on the side of the damn bus.”

Her eyes rolled and she shifted shoulder blades. Caruthers kept the room hot and the dress clung to her moist skin.

Judy took another relaxing breath and a quick coffee sip, reminding herself this was the life she’d chosen. There probably were better publicity jobs out there, but something kept her on board. Maybe it was when Claude showed frequent glimmers of innocence, those little dashes of sweetness once in a while. Or maybe it was because his artistic powers were still carved from granite. Love him or hate him, Claude was fun to watch up on stage.

The result is an approachable, lovely memoir brimming with humor and humanity, one that never loses its voice even as it navigates matters of divorce, addiction, death, and brain surgery. Cash has a novelist’s sense of detail, a keen ability to choose the most telling memories and convey them in the most artfully economical fashion. She treats her subjects (including herself) charitably, never painting them into corners, always allowing for their foibles and complexities.

Through it all, she’s her own woman, smart and urbane as heck but with sense enough to laugh at herself and obvious affection for the family that produced her, and the happy home life she has gone on to create for herself as an adult.

This isn’t just a great Rosanne Cash memoir. It’s a great memoir, period, recommended equally to those interested in Cash’s life and career and to those who just love to read great writing.

You can read an excerpt here (via American Twang) or order the book from Amazon.

If the mention of respectability in the subtitle of Jeffrey J. Lange’s Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly leads you to expect a reception-based account of what was happening in country music between 1939 and 1954, think again. This book is not so much about how the public perception of country music changed during those years as it is about how the music itself changed to maintain and expand its audience in the midst of great societal tumult. As the World War II era permanently changed the lives of country music’s rural southern base, the music adapted and followed its listeners – into the big cities, up North, out West, overseas, and through changes back home. Simultaneously, it shed some of its rustic qualities, subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) modernized its sound, and reached out to new audiences everywhere it went to become a major player on the national scene.

If it sounds like the genre was spreading itself a bit thin – or trying to be everything to everyone – it’s important to note that one monolithic country music did not go everywhere. Lange identifies six distinct subgenres and traces the changes within each over the fifteen-year period. Different subgenres served different audiences and stretched the field of country in different directions.

The subgenres defined by Lange are progressive, western swing, postwar traditional, honky-tonk, country pop, and country blues. The progressive subgenre is made up of performers who experimented with modernizing the older traditions in the years leading up to the war. After the nationalization of country music during the war, which rightly gets its own chapter, two subgenres arose to reaffirm the music’s southern roots. Postwar traditonal (including early bluegrass) appealed to the rural southern folk back home while honky-tonk spoke to the sense of dislocation felt by those transplanted to urban areas. Western swing and country-pop each in their own way embraced urban influences, while country blues was a step toward what would soon become rock ‘n’ roll.

Lange structures his argument around those classifications, but the meat of the book is what happens within each chapter. He maps the development of each subgenre through a series of 6-10 key acts, using the personal and musical paths of specific performers to illuminate larger trends. The acts featured are a mix of the usual suspects and a number of more obscure selections. Lefty and Hank show up, but so do four other Hanks, Pee Wee King, the Shelton Brothers, Cliff Bruner, and a host of others whose names you don’t often encounter.

The author’s extensive research into each act’s recorded output shines as he traces changes in their music over time (instruments entering and leaving the mix, shifting lyrical interests), situates them in the context of what their contemporaries were doing, and weighs their lasting contributions to the musical form. Resisting the tendency to figure all change as sellout, Lange points out ways in which nearly all of the performers subtly experimented with and modernized their sound during the time period. Biographical and historical research provide generous support and context, but this book is at its most distinctive when it is carefully attending to the music itself.

Although Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly does make a strong case for 1939-1954 as a pivotal time in the history of country music, it is not a perfect book. The argument sometimes meanders and repeats itself. Chapters tend to flit through ten performers in the space of thirty pages, with no subheadings to break up the text. This can get a bit dizzying, especially when you’re trying to remember a detail about one of the dozens of acts you’ve encountered. Or when the Delmore Brothers suddenly reappear 180 pages later and you have to jump back to the beginning to remind yourself of their history. I’m glad I read the book once, but I can’t see myself reading it straight through again. For me, its lasting value will be as a reference book, a ready source of perspective on some of the major figures of the era.

For anyone who has ever lumped ‘all that old music’ together, Smile provides worthwhile insight into the diversity and importance of country music at a critical time in its – and the world’s – history.

Check out Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly at Amazon.

A fateful encounter with the country music section of a university library some months ago set me on a book-buying mission which never quite turned into a book-reading mission. As a result, I have a shelf half-full with country music books constantly reminding me of my sloth and ignorance. That shelf is the inspiration for the newest addition to the Country California lineup, a series of decidedly unhip book reviews which will hopefully become a valuable resource for those interested in furthering their country music education.

A few preliminary thoughts on the series:
- I’m a student, not an expert, so…
- Reviews will be ungraded. I want the emphasis to be on what a book can and cannot offer you, not whether it is good or bad in my opinion.
- Publication schedule will be sporadic. I’m not a speed reader.
- I’ll shy away from biographies and autobiographies a bit because those are usually the books most likely to be covered by other outlets.
- Current books might be featured, but the focus will be on older works.  Starting this series in 2008 with a singleminded focus on what’s hot and new would mean ignoring decades of research that have laid the groundwork for what’s happening now.
- Most reviews will include an Amazon link. If you’d like to pick up the book and support the continuation of the series at the same time, purchasing through that link will kick back a bit of money to help me cover future book purchases for the series.  I only mention this now so that I won’t have to beat you over the head with it in every review.
- Recommendations are welcome, but understand that I’m already starting out 10+ books behind, so it will probably be a while before I get around to featuring anything that isn’t already in the queue.

This should be a fun way to spread the word about what’s available in the literature, get some discussions going among those who have already read some of the books, and motivate me to work through my bookshelf.  The first review is coming your way soon, so stay tuned.