ANNIVERSARY OF BOOK RELEASE PARTY FOR FARON’S BIOGRAPHY
It’s already been four years since we gathered at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville to celebrate the release of Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story. (Thanks to David McCormick for organizing such a wonderful night.) The Country Deputy musical reunion hosted by Darrell McCall on the Ernest Tubb Midnite Jamboree, and broadcast on WSM Radio and around the world on the Internet, was beyond anything I had dreamed. When I decided in 1999 to write Faron’s biography, I chose 2007 as far enough in the future to give me time to figure out how to write a biography and actually do it. After attending the Tillman Franks birthday concert in Shreveport in 1999, I knew I wanted to put together a band of former Country Deputies as part of my book release celebration. But besides not knowing how to write a biography, I didn’t know anyone in the music or publishing businesses, had published nothing to give me author credibility, and didn’t know how to find Faron’s band members–or even who they were. (more…)

This periodic newsletter commemorates the lives of Faron Young and Marty Robbins. The University of Illinois Press is publishing Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins in February 2012.  Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story was published in 2007 and will be issued in paperback in February 2012.

Publication Update: I have mailed the corrected page proofs of Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins back to the publisher. I’m now finishing the index and will send that off this week. My sister said reading the chapter about Marty’s death made her want to reread it, in the hope the ending would change and Marty would still be alive. (more…)