This periodic newsletter commemorates the lives of Faron Young and Marty Robbins. Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story was published last year by the University of Illinois Press, and I’m currently writing Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins. This week marks the anniversary of the deaths of these great entertainers–Marty 26 years ago Monday and Faron 12 years ago today.

GEORGE JONES AND THE KENNEDY CENTER HONORS
The Washington Post article about George Jones and the Kennedy Center Honors included mention of having his head pounded against a concrete floor by Faron Young. I didn’t think George would say that and I knew of only two sources–my book and the person who told me the story, Lloyd Green. Near the end of the article was a quote from Lloyd, so then I knew he had been interviewed by the reporter. And once again I have to wonder–why do writers so often talk down to a country music audience? Morgan Freeman’s article didn’t include comments such as “Others are always saying the darnedest things about him.” I didn’t find sentence fragments in Barbra Streisand’s article. I suppose I should be grateful there was no toe-tapping and no boot-scootin’ in George’s article. Here’s an example of the intelligence level: “Jones calls his life an ‘open book.’ Doesn’t mean it’s always the greatest read, though. Take the chapter on Jones’s singing, which tends to make people weak in the knees.”

MOVIE AND AUDIO RIGHTS
I’m looking for connections to agents or producers who will help me turn “Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story” into a movie and an audio book. I own the rights and would appreciate any recommendations.

LETTERS
John Morris sends this note from Canada: “Keep those great news letters coming. As you know I am a huge collector of Faron’s music and movies and anything else I can find and I have gotten some rare items I’d like to tell you about. First one is Faron Young Sings The Best Of Faron Young Capitol 1960. What’s rare is the song ‘A Life Time Isn’t Long Enough’ is an alternate take not on the Bear box set and not on any album other than that one. The other is an EP on Sesac called ‘And Now.’ All these songs are much different versions from the Bear box set and again not on any album. Just thought I’d share my good news with you and if you put this in the news letter with all of Faron’s great fans. Hope I find more rare items like these.”

A Faron fan named Ron says, “If you check out You Tube, you’ll see that I put up many of Faron’s songs & I pushed your book a bit. I also covered a few of Faron’s songs myself. I’m on YouTube as Mrronniea. Thanks for the great book.”

Bob Sanchez, a fellow member of the Internet Writing Workshop, writes, “The other day I was in my local B&N here in Las Cruces and heard a customer at the Customer Service desk asking for your Faron Young book and mentioning your name. Cool, huh?”

Ferron Young says, “I loved the book on Faron and would love to see a movie made from your book. I’d be happy to even see the Bio channel do a piece about him. They can’t do a show about any of the other stars without talking about how Faron helped and all the people he gave a start too in the music business. He was one of the all time GREATS. Well enough about that, I wish you all the best with Marty’s book. I will read it when it hits the stores.”

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
I’d be delighted to make your Christmas shopping easy. Place an order on my Mary Kay site at www.marykay.com/ddiekman (gifts for men, women, and teens) and I will ship the products anywhere in the USA at no cost. Also, my two memoirs are available on my other site. A Farm in the Hidewood: My South Dakota Home at https://dianediekman.com/?page_id=3 is about growing up on a farm in 1963. Navy Greenshirt: A Leader Made, Not Born at https://dianediekman.com/?page_id=4 describes my career as one of the first female aircraft maintenance officers in the Navy. And, of course, Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story can be found in bookstores. I’ll send autographed bookplates to glue into those books.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.