Looking for a cool place to get a tattoo, see some pin up girls, check out some classic cars, get married on the Queen Marry and catch some great Americana music this summer? Then head over to the Iron-N-Ink Tattoo and Kustom Culture Festival in Long Beach, CA June 6-8.

On the bill is Wayne Hancock, The Blasters, Dale Watson, Rosie Flores, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Junior Brown, The Lonesome Spurs and much more.

Dixie Lullaby  : A Story of Music, Race, and New Beginnings in a New South (Free Press/Simon & Schuster) by Mark Kemp

Kemp is a native of South Carolina and born in 1960 and came of age at the time the civil rights movement kicked into the high gear and the old Jim Crow order of the South was breaking down. During a time when kids are trying to find their identity it was even more difficult for a son of the South during those turbulent times.

Kemp found refuge in the then burgeoning Southern rock bands, led by the Macon, Georgia’s Allman Brothers Band and followed soon after my Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Charlie Daniels Band, Black Oak Arkansas, Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot, the Marshall Tucker band. Though also infatuated with many of the British Invasion bands these other bands were
tapping subject matter in styles that working class white Southerners could use to help the transition of identity in the New South.

The seemingly paradoxical identity, what Patterson Hood of the Drive By Truckers refers to on the bands opus “Southern Rock Opera” as the “Duality of the Southern Thing” manifested itself in a generation of young Southerners that are both proud of their environment but ashamed at the history that haunts it. Kemp grows to reject Southern music and much of his heritage, moves to New York City where he lands, and due largely to drug problem loses, his dream job at Rolling Stone Magazine. Kemp’s personal journey is nicely paralleled with his Southern travels with his Dad and interviews with musicians and
key individuals like Charlie Daniels, Warren Haynes of the Allman Brothers Band and Gov’t Mule, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ed King and so many others. Some of the highlights of the book is the conversations with Phil Walden, former manager for Otis Redding and the Allman Bothers and founder of the fabled Capricorn Records and his 1992 interview with testy Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson who apparently bristles at the Southern Rock moniker.

I’m within a few years of Mr. Kemp and grew up in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, and I can attest that the stories in “Dixie Lullaby” ring true to experience in leaving the South for New York City (as Kemp did) and carrying a sort of defensive pride for my roots. This comes out most prevalently was what I like to call the “ugly sister effect.” I can talk shit about Texas all day long (corrupt politicians abuse of the death penalty for one), but it makes me mad when others not from the South, and sometimes never been South of the Mason/Dixon, talks trash about the region. Like I can say my sister’s ugly (she’s not though, sorry sis) but by god if you do you’ll get your ass handed to you. Complex, no?

Dixie Lullaby is a great piece of Southern cultural history well told.

Something else to to do if you;re headed to the Americana Music Conference.

Nashville, TN (October 16, 2007) - Sherry Bond, the daughter of the late Johnny Bond, will unveil her father’s newly published book, 30 YEARS ON THE ROAD WITH GENE AUTRY, in the SunTrust Community Room at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum at 1 p.m. on Friday, November 2. This free event includes a discussion of the book (led by Sherry) and a live music performance by Ranger Doug of Riders in the Sky, followed by a book signing in the Museum Store.

Bond, an Oklahoma-born singer-songwriter, was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame (1999) and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1970).  He was a gifted entertainer and comedian who joined Autry’s entourage in 1940 as part of the Jimmy Wakely Trio.  Johnny appeared on countless radio programs and numerous films; performed as a country artist in his own right (”Hot Rod Lincoln”); and wrote hits such as “Cimarron” and “Ten Little Bottles.”

Published by Riverwood Press and the Beverly and Jim Rogers Museum of Lone Pine Film History, the book is a boon to lovers of the “Western” in “Country and Western” music.  Tales of the road; insights into the long Bond and Autry association; and Autry’s personal side are explored in a warm, conversational style.  Johnny’s admiration for Gene is evident; priceless photographs abound; and this memoir offers us, finally, a wealth of information on both men - and the times they shared.

Buy the book here.

Johnny Cash’s first wife, the late Vivian Liberto Distin, will have her book I Walked the Line: My Life With Johnny posthumously released on Sept. 4 by Scribner Books. Before her death in 2005, Vivian told her story to TV producer Ann Sharpsteen, who shares an author credit on the book.

Vivian describes Cash’s early career, how June Carter entered their life and Vivian and Johnny’s divorce in 1966. Vivian is the mother of Cash’s four daughters. One of the daughters, Kathy Cash, says, “This book is the greatest part of my mother’s legacy as a wife, a grandmother, a matriarch, a mother and, most important, a woman in love.”

The book is based on thousands of letters exchanged by the couple before their marriage while he was overseas with the Air Force, co-writer Ann Sharpsteen said.

“The letters really reveal the real man, unclouded by drugs. Letters were his dreams, fears, a variety of subjects, fidelity, alcohol, faith. It’s like reading someone’s diary,” Sharpsteen said.
Kathy Cash, one of Johnny and Vivian’s daughters, said her mother visited her father in 2003 to tell him she wanted to do the book.

“He said, ‘Vivian, if anyone on this whole earth should write a book it should be you,”’ Kathy Cash said.

Distin was portrayed by Ginnifer Goodwin in the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line. According to Kathy, the portrayal was inaccurate and unfair to her mother. John Carter Cash, Kathleen’s half-brother and executive producer of the film, responded that he understood her concerns

Adam Lee Davies at Time Out London has reviewed Graeme Thomson’s Bio of Willie Nelson “The Outlaw” and given it 5 out of 6 stars. I’ll review the book myself once I get my hands on it.

Lyle E Style (yes that is his real name) is a country singer/songwriter from Canada that wanted to know more about the life of Roger Miller he found books on the singer/songwriter scarce. So he did what anybody would do…persuade some of the most famous country artists to spend time with him to talk about memories of Miller and wrote his own damn book, Ain’t Got No Cigarettes: Memories of Music Legend Roger Miller. And it’s a gem!

Buck Owens, Bobby Bare, Roy Clark, David Allan Coe, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson are just a few of the legends that took time to talk to Style about Roger and two things seem to be universally agreed upon by all parties, Roger was a genius and he was loved by all of them. Sure he was an addict (amphetamines and coca-cola) and pissed away a lot of money (sending Lear jets from Las Angeles to Nashville to pick up Bar-B-Que!) but all the stroes and with fond memories.

I had vague memories of driving around with my mom in her huge Olds Delta 88 and hearing Roger’s songs playing endlessly on the radio. For a stretch you couldn’t escape his songs - “Dang Me”, “King of the Road” and “Husbands and Wives.” These songs were as ubiquitous as Ashlee Simpson or The Black-Eyed Peas are today…but without sucking.

Roger Miller passed away far too young, at the age of 56, in October of 1992, of cancer.
He left a legacy that shines in the heart of all the old-school Nashville outlaws and legends that still remember him warmly.