Nashville's Songwriting Sweethearts


Book Description

“The story of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant is the story of towering artistic achievement wrapped in a love story so deep and so complete that the two are their own country song. Bobbie and Bill Malone are precisely the right match to tell this tale of love and genius.”—Ken Burns, Director, Country Music You might not know the names of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, but you know their music. Arriving in Nashville in 1950, the songwriting duo became the first full-time independent songwriters in that musical city. In the course of their long careers, they created classic hits that pushed the boundaries of country music into the realms of pop and rock. Songs like “Bye Bye Love,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Love Hurts,” and “Rocky Top” inspired young musicians everywhere. Here, for the first time, is a complete biography of Nashville’s power songwriting couple. In Nashville’s Songwriting Sweethearts, authors Bobbie Malone and Bill C. Malone recount how Boudleaux and Felice, married in 1945, began their partnership as itinerant musicians living in a trailer home and writing their first songs together. In Nashville the couple had to deal with racism, classism, and in Felice’s case, sexism. Yet through hard work and business acumen—and a dose of good luck—they overcame these obstacles and rose to national prominence. By the late 1990s, the Bryants had written as many as 6,000 songs and had sold more than 350 million copies worldwide. They were inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972, and in 1991 they became members of the Country Music Hall of Fame—a rare occurrence for songwriters who were not also performers. In 1982 their composition “Rocky Top” was adopted as one of the official state songs of Tennessee. The Bryants were lucky enough to arrive in the right place at the right time. Their emergence in the early fifties coincided with the rise of Nashville as Music City, USA. And their prolific collaboration with the Everly Brothers, beginning in 1957, sparked a fusion between country and pop music that endures to this day.




Nashville Sweetheart


Book Description

A bonus epilogue is now available in the e-book! Aubrey can’t outrun her past any longer… It’s at her door, and the cameras are rolling. Aubrey James ruled the charts as the queen of country for over a decade. She'd rocketed to fame in the shadow of her parents' death-both of them pioneers in Gospel music. But while her public life, high profile romances, and fights with Music Row execs made for juicy tabloid headlines, the real and private Aubrey has remained a media mystery. When a former band member betrays Aubrey's trust and sells an "exclusive" to a tabloid, the star knows she must go public with her story. But Aubrey's private world is rocked when the Inside NashVegas interviewer is someone from her past-someone she'd hoped to forget. All the moxie in the world won't let her run any longer. Sweet and thoughtful contemporary read Book 1: Nashville Dreams; Book 2: Nashville Sweetheart Book length: approximately 80,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs *Nashville Sweetheart was originally published as Diva NashVegas.




Heartaches by the Number


Book Description

Offers a fresh, inclusive, at times provocative way of listening to country music--one that champions innovation and tradition even as it challenges many of the genre's prevailing assumptions.




From Dixie to Rocky Top


Book Description

Listen as you read! From Dixie to Rocky Top: Book Playlist, now on Spotify. The first book to explore the history of college fight songs as a culturally important phenomenon, From Dixie to Rocky Top zeroes in on the US South, where college football has forged a powerful, quasi-religious sense of meaning and identity throughout the region. Tracing the story of Southeastern Conference (SEC) fight songs from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, author Carrie Tipton places this popular repertory within the broader commercial music industry and uses fight songs to explore themes of authorship and copyright; the commodification of school spirit; and the construction of race, gender, and regional identity in Southern football culture. This book unearths the history embedded in SEC football’s music traditions, drawing from the archives of the seventeen universities currently or formerly in the conference. Alongside rich primary sources, Tipton incorporates approaches and literature from sports history, Southern and American history, Southern and American studies, and musicology. Chronicling iconic Southern fight songs’ origins, dissemination, meanings, and cultural reception over a turbulent century, From Dixie to Rocky Top weaves a compelling narrative around a virtually unstudied body of popular music.




Waking Up in Nashville


Book Description

Country music might have started its life in the untamed Appalachians, but it was Nashville that took the raw sound and dirt-farm imagery and turned it into the glossy, glitzy, glamorous pageant it is today. Now the city has become synonymous with showmanship and spectacle and is truly the heart, soul and home of country music. In Waking Up In Nashville, seasoned traveller Stephen Foehr explores the city that spawned such musical giants as Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks, plunging hip-deep into its musical culture and sampling its unique heritage. Featuring colourful interviews with everyday people in the business as well as the stars, Waking Up In Nashville is the ideal travel guide for tourists and music fans alike.




Honky Tonk Hero


Book Description

Willie Nelson says, "Billy Joe Shaver may be the best songwriter alive today." And legions of fans agree. "Honky Tonk Hero" is the story of a man who not only walked on the wild side and lived to tell about it, but also got it all down in songs that many people consider to be some of the finest country songs ever written.




A Nashville Collection


Book Description

From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck comes Nashville Dreams and Nashville Sweetheart, the stories of two talented young women with a gift, a dream, and something to prove in one of the hottest cities in America. “Packing witty dialogue, quirky characters, and a rocking country vibe, her story will make you laugh as it plunges you into the world of today’s country music industry.” —Christianbook.com Nashville Dreams The best songwriter in Freedom, Alabama, is about to go pro in Nashville—or go down in flames. Robin Rae is never more herself than when she’s singing one of her songs on the front porch . . . but she’s never more terrified than when she’s about to sing one onstage. Nevertheless, Robin knows it’s high time she set her sights on Music Row. Freedom, Alabama, is no place for a songwriter to run down her dream—stage fright or no. She isn’t the first to make the leap. Robin has known more than a few would-be stars whom Nashville has chewed up and spat out—including some big names from Freedom. So when she finds herself on deck at the famous Bluebird Cafe within a week of arriving in Music City, she can hardly believe what’s happening. With the lights going up and the specter of stage fright looming over her, this small-town gal is about to get a lesson in what it takes to make it in the music business. Will a gifted young woman let her dreams be smothered by fear . . . or will love teach her to open her heart and shine in the city where stars are born? Nashville Sweetheart The media mystery that is superstar Aubrey James is about to be unraveled—one memory at a time. At thirty years old, Aubrey James has been at the top of country charts for over a decade; but as the daughter of gospel icons Ray and Myra James, she was in the public eye long before her own success. Aubrey James knows Nashville stardom. Though her parents’ untimely death gave Aubrey the kind of tragic legacy that Nashville royalty is made of, she would have preferred keeping her family . . . and the faith she lost somewhere along the way. Now she exists in a guarded, private world, letting nothing in, not even love. But when her music director betrays Aubrey’s trust with a smear campaign of tabloid interviews, the star knows the time has come to go public with her private story for the first time. And when her Inside NashVegas interviewer turns out to be a man from her past—a man she’d hoped to forget—this interview gets complicated fast. The music diva’s guarded heart is about to become a distant memory. Nashville Sweetheart is a wild ride through the whirlwind of Nashville stardom, the political show that is the music business, and the secret faith that can fortify even the most tragic family ties. *Nashville Dreams and Nashville Sweetheart were originally published as Lost in NashVegas and Diva NashVegas.




From Here to Nashville


Book Description

From Here to Nashville is a contemporary romance novel with a country music theme. Can Music Really Bring People Together? Rachel Hardy dreams of being a successful country music singer in Nashville's Music City, four thousand miles away from her lonely life in Dorset. When Jackson Phillips, an independent record label owner, encourages her band to audition for a nationwide 'Open Mic' competition, she decides they have nothing to lose. But when she starts to fall in love with Jackson, the stakes suddenly get higher and she finds herself with a great big dilemma on her hands. Should she abandon her dream and take the easy way out or should she leave the life she has always known behind and take a gamble on a man who has personal demons of his own? Follow Rachel and Jackson as they learn to trust in love again and to see whether music really can bring them together. 'This book gives what we want from a contemporary romance, escapism with... a story that is interesting and which maybe isn't quite as predictable as you might expect.' TheTBRPile.com




Billboard


Book Description

In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.




Live in Love


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this refreshing and inspiring memoir, Lauren Akins, the wife of country music star Thomas Rhett, shows what it’s really like to be “the perfect couple” fans imagine, and reveals what it actually takes to live in love, stay in love, and grow together. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PARADE When country music star Thomas Rhett won the ACM Award for Single of the Year with “Die a Happy Man,” his wife, Lauren Akins, was overjoyed. Her childhood best friend and now husband was being anointed the hottest new star in country music—for a song he had written about her. He was living his dream. Lauren was elated, but she was also wrestling with some big questions, not the least of which was, How can I live my own life of purpose? Lauren Akins never wanted to be in the spotlight, but as Thomas Rhett made his relationship with Lauren the subject of many of his hit songs, she was tossed into the role of one of America’s sweethearts. Revered by fans for her down-to-earth ease and charm, her commitment to humanitarian work, and the pure love she exudes for her family, Lauren has never shared her side of their story—full as it’s been with deep love, painful loss, tremendous joy, and a struggle to stay grounded in faith along the way—until now. In Live in Love, Lauren shares details about her childhood friendship with Thomas Rhett, explaining how they reconnected as young adults. She offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the challenges of being married to her best friend, who just happens to be a music star, and the struggle to find her own footing in the frenzy of her husband’s fame. And in heart-wrenching detail, she opens up about her life-changing experiences doing mission work in Haiti, and then in Uganda, where she met the precious baby who would become their first daughter. From sharing the romance of their handwritten wedding vows to the challenges they faced as they adjusted to the reality of becoming first-time parents, Live in Love takes an intimate look at one couple’s life—and opens a window into all of our journeys on the path to self-discovery. Live in Love is a deeply personal memoir that offers inspiring guidance for anyone looking to keep romance alive, balance children and marriage, express true faith, and live a life of purpose.