FARON YOUNG, FIFTY-ONE YEARS AGO:Â Faron returned to Fort McPherson, Georgia, for a surprise performance at General Bolling’s retirement dinner on July 29, 1955. This was eight months after Faron’s discharge, during which time he’d acquired a band, had a number one record, and made his first movie. The Special Services Officer, who formerly worked […]
Laurie Matheson, Acquisitions Editor at the University of Illinois Press, told me my revised manuscript looks terrific: “tight and clean, and the tone is just right.” A big thank you to Sandy Cooper in Kansas for reading the manuscript and advising me where to cut. Her advice helped me condense 33 chapters into 24. I’m […]
The University of Illinois Press will publish “Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story” in the summer of 2007. Please forward this weekly newsletter to anyone who might be interested in reading it, and send an e-mail to al******@*****on.net if you have questions/comments about Faron Young. This will be my last newsletter for a […]
The University of Illinois Press will publish “Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story” in the summer of 2007. Last night I finished cutting words from the manuscript and got down to 1700 words below the 100,000 maximum assigned in my contract. I’ll need those words to write my acknowledgments page and photo bylines. […]
I’m immersed in editing the manuscript, and what a job! I cut 8 of 33 chapters by inserting pieces of them into other chapters. Although I got the manuscript down to 95,000 words, I was shocked to count up the endnotes and find 10,000 words there. A biography should have good source information, but something’s […]
My friend in Kansas fulfilled her mission of finding 15,000 words for me to cut from the manuscript. I’m using her advice to combine chapters and condense, condense, condense. This is now my fourth draft of the book, and I’ll be spending the next several weeks on the rewrite. FARON YOUNG, FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO: Faron […]
The University of Illinois Press will publish my biography of Faron Young in the summer of 2007. The book’s new title is “Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story.” Please forward this weekly newsletter to anyone who might be interested in reading it, and send an e-mail to al******@*****on.net if you have questions/comments about […]
My big news is that Illinois University Press will publish Faron’s biography next summer (2007), first in hard cover and then eventually in paperback. My final manuscript needs to be turned in by the end of June. I’m still looking for photographs for the book, and waiting for some permissions to be granted.
The year 1996 brought a triple whammy for me, first with the death of my nephew, then the suicides of Admiral Mike Boorda (the Chief of Naval Operations) and Faron. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of my nephew’s funeral, and I post this article in Cody’s memory: http://ddiekman.tripod.com/id50.html. FARON YOUNG, FIFTY-ONE YEARS AGO: Faron and […]
FARON YOUNG, FORTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO: On April 24, 1958, Faron recorded “Alone With You,” a song that eventually spent an amazing 13 weeks at the top of the Billboard chart. Can you imagine the same song being number one for three months? Roy Drusky quit his disc jockey job in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and followed his […]