I had heard from my Memphis connection that Chilton was playing guitar in The Panther Burns, a rockabilly band led by singer Tav Falco. It seemed to me that the man who had written and sung Big Star’s “Kanga Roo,” “The Ballad of El Goodo,” “September Gurls,” “Daisy Glaze,” and “Thirteen” — famous songs now but virtually unknown in 1980 — surely couldn’t be moving among us in any known or normal form.
In Chet Atkins: Mr. Guitar, Don Cusic makes the case for the East Tennessee-born musician, producer, and record-label executive as the emblematic guitarist of the 20th century. Don Cusic will appear at the 2025 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 18-19.
Barry Mazor’s Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story explores Phil and Don’s famously fraught relationship, their struggles with the music business, and the origins of their unique sound. Barry Mazor will appear at the 2025 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 18-19.
In Charlie Peacock’s memoir Roots and Rhythm: A Life in Music, his take on the music business moves in tandem with his autobiography, which documents a spiritual quest that continues to this day. Peacock will discuss Roots and Rhythm with Jason Moon Wilkins at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville on June 14.
The conceit of Geoffrey Himes’ In-Law Country: How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, and Their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music, 1968-1985 is that a group of ambitious country and pop musicians found a way to make country even more adult than it had been previously.
In Cocaine and Rhinestones: A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Tyler Mahan Coe explains how the two greatest singers in country music history balanced conservatism and innovation in a blatantly commercial genre. Coe will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.
