PAUL HEMPHILL (1936 2009) was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and attended Auburn and Harvard Universities. In addition to long work as a sportswriter and columnist at the "Atlanta Journal," he was the author of several collections of journalism, novels, and memoirs, including, among others, "Too Old to Cry," "King of the Road," and "Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son." Hemphill returned to country music in 2005 with "Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams." Hemphill served on the faculties of Emory University, Brenau University, and the University of Georgia, where he taught writing. DON CUSIC is a historian of country music and a professor of music business at the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business at Belmont University. His many books include "Saved by Song: A History of Gospel and Christian Music" and "The Cowboy in Country Music: An Historical Survey with Artist Profiles.""

It's the first 'real' book written about our music. The people, the songs, the places, all come to life in these pages.--Bill Anderson, singer, songwriter, and Grand Ole Opry star

The best book ever written about country music.-- "Chicago Sun-Times"

A first-rate book . . . that reads as smoothly and sparklingly as a bluegrass breakdown.--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt "New York Times"

All these years later, the Prologue ['Friday Night at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge'] reads as though it happened last night.-- "Country Music magazine"

A rich, raw slice of American life.-- "Los Angeles Times"

To say Hemphill is writing about country music is like saying Hemingway wrote about boxers and fisherman. What Hemphill writes about is America, and he has done it here with the incisive feel and the fine sure language and that very special knack of keeping his subject alive in print that so many of us strive for but so few of us achieve. A damned fine reading experience.--Joe McGinnis "Life magazine"

Anyone ever exposed to country music--which means nearly everyone--will go for the book the way Uncle Joe goes for bacon and grits.-- "Publishers Weekly"

A marvelously honest look at music that deals with what people--real, live truck-driving, factory-working, beer-drinking people--feel about life.-- "Louisville Times"

From the first words of its preface--spent submerged in the smoky haze of Tootsie's on a rowdy Friday night thick with booze and the kinds of aspirations that Music City can both foster and crush--The Nashville Sound is nothing short of captivating and essential to understanding the genre, whatever its boundaries may have been, or will be."--Steve Haruch "Chapter 16"

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Pub date: 2015-04-15

Length: 296 pages