Earthy, sexy, and vivacious, the life of beloved country singer, Patsy Cline, who soared from obscurity to international fame to tragic death in just thirty short years, is explored in colorful and poignant detail. An innovator?and even a hell-raiser?Cline broke all the boys' club barriers of Nashville's music business in the 1950s and brought a new Nashville sound to the nation with her pop hits and torch ballads like ?Walking After Midnight," ?I Fall to Pieces? and "Crazy." She is the subject of a major Hollywood movie and countless articles, and her albums are still selling 45 years after her death. Ellis Nassour was the very first to write about Cline and did so with the cooperation of the stars who knew and loved her?including Jimmy Dean, Jan Howard, Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, Roger Miller, Dottie West, and Faron Young. He was the only writer to interview Cline's mother and husbands. This updated edition features not only a complete discography and a host of never-before-published photographs, but includes an afterword that details controversial claims about her birth, the battle between Cline's siblings for her possessions, the amazing influence Cline had on a new generation of singers and, in Cline's own words from letters to a devoted friend, her excitement as her career soared to new heights and her marriage descended to new depths.

Lucy Hatch's boyfriend shocks her when he receives a surprise visit from his daughter, Denny, whose existence he had kept hidden, as they all embark on a life full of new experiences, revelations, and opportunities.

A collective biography of the women who shaped early country and western music

Full-tilt, hardcore, down-home, and groundbreaking, the women of country music speak volumes with every song. From Maybelle Carter to Dolly Parton, k.d. lang to Taylor Swift—these artists provided pivot points, truths, and doses of courage for women writers at every stage of their lives. Whether it’s Rosanne Cash eulogizing June Carter Cash or a seventeen-year-old Taylor Swift considering the golden glimmer of another precocious superstar, Brenda Lee, it’s the humanity beneath the music that resonates. Here are deeply personal essays from award-winning writers on femme fatales, feminists, groundbreakers, and truth tellers. Acclaimed historian Holly George Warren captures the spark of the rockabilly sensation Wanda Jackson; Entertainment Weekly’s Madison Vain considers Loretta Lynn’s girl-power anthem “The Pill”; and rocker Grace Potter embraces Linda Ronstadt’s unabashed visual and musical influence. Patty Griffin acts like a balm on a post-9/11 survivor on the run; Emmylou Harris offers a gateway through paralyzing grief; and Lucinda Williams proves that greatness is where you find it. Part history, part confessional, and part celebration of country, Americana, and bluegrass and the women who make them, Woman Walk the Line is a very personal collection of essays from some of America’s most intriguing women writers. It speaks to the ways in which artists mark our lives at different ages and in various states of grace and imperfection—and ultimately how music transforms not just the person making it, but also the listener.

Newly expanded to include work from recent years, Honky Tonk is as evocative and irresistible as the music itself.

One of the most beloved country music stars of all time gives us the first collection of her lyrics and, in her own words, tells the stories that inspired her most popular songs, such as "Coal Miner's Daughter," "Don't Come Home A' Drinkin'," and, of course, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl." Loretta Lynn's rags-to-riches story--from her hardscrabble childhood in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, through her marriage to Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn when she was thirteen, to her dramatic rise to the top of the charts--has resonated with countless fans throughout her more than fifty-year career. Now, the anecdotes she shares here give us deeper insight into her life, her collaborations, her influences, and how she pushed the boundaries of country music by discussing issues important to working-class women, even when they were considered taboo. Readers will also get a rare look at the singer's handwritten lyrics and at personal photographs from her childhood, of her family, and of her performing life. Honky Tonk Girl: A Life in Lyrics is one more way for Lynn's fans--those who already love her and those who soon will--to know the heart and mind of this remarkable woman.