eBook More Memories epub

I have read all of Ralph Emery books and they have given me a different way of looking at country music and the stars that make country music, I grew up with country music and it's a great hobby for me.

Anyone who remembers the old TNN show Nashville Now will find this book a must-read. It provides helpful insight into Ralph Emery's career, person, and show. You can catch clips of the show on youtube. The pics were wonderful and brought back memories of the show.

Interesting book, repeats some stories from book 1.

Written by the #1 deejay in America, this follow-up to MEMORIES is full of big names, not just in country music but government officials and bigwigs from California, like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. The photo section is spectacular as the stars pictures were in their prime and full of their success, actually in thrawl of talking to a deejay when it should have been the other way around. Actually, he had the power to make or break a newcomer in the music business.

He talks about his early days in radio when he and others in his profession had personal contact with listeners to "the occasional point of real involvement." They were gentlemen back then and considered a part of the community, which they usually were, on par with the church minister. He called himself the face-less chatter to the working men and women of Franklin, a small town outside of Nashville where he met his destiny at WSM. In small towns, you can still call to request a song; on some stations in a town the size of Knoxville, some have a request time, as those did in my teenage years here. I guess some customs never get old, but the network deejays feel it is beneath their 'professionalism.' The truth is they tape their shows or are not in the position to insert a request, with some exceptions. It makes them the same as false prophets in a church, as their 'job' is to play what their listeners want to hear and not the personal choice of a corrupt traffic reporter who knows nothing about good music.

Earlier this year, Rodney Crowell (popular back in the 1960s) performed a free one-hour program in which he parodied his former father-in-law, Johnny Cash. I took a really good photo of him -- looking right at me! Proud to have fled the projects of Houston, Texas, to meet Rosanne Cash in L.A., he felt he had it made as a cocky kid. According to this book, he eventually wrote and produced some of the biggest songs ever recorded by John Cash. Good going, Rod Crowell. His upcoming performance at the Tennessee Theatre will not be free.

A local historian mused in one of his weekly columns about our largest movie place (of olden days) being called 'theatre' instead of theater. This book will tell him that Nashville had their own Tennessee Theater where NARAS staged the Grammy Awards only once and the prestige it brought to the Athens of the South. He gives all the details about Jim Reeves's fatal airplane crash: Reeves' memorial service was dotted with some of country music's biggest luminaries of the day, including Eddy Arnold, Chet Atkins, Red Foley (Pat Boone's father-in-law), Skeeter Davis (Emery's first wife), Floyd Cramer, Ferlin Husky, Webb Pierce, Justin Tubb, the Jordonaires and Don MacNeil of Chicago. The governor of Tennessee, Lamar Alexander, caused a stir when he sold the state's Lear Jet for $745,000 and replaced it with a gas-guzzler King Air; he mentions the fact that Alexander became the dumbest U. S. Secretary of Education.

There are big names from Box Car Willie to Justin Boot (a joke) listed in the Index, even Lincoln (concerning the Southern war shymn, "Dixie"). Others included in this volume include Billy Ray Cyrus, Roger Miller, Tammy Wynette and hubby George Richey, Patsy Cline (her songs just won't die as she did -- they linger on way past the time they tell, who'd think about walking after midnight these days?), Glen Campbell, the Oak Ridge Boys, and Alabama. Being a well-known celebrity in his own right, (I met him once out at the July 4th singing at Centenniel Park -- I hope he didn't think I was Ruth when I declined his offer of a kiss!) he can and does tell things as they were. No problem, just fun to remember how things (good and bad) were then.

By Natalie - March 18, 2008
I have had little respect for Emery since I've heard and read about how rude he was to Gram Parsons in a interview in the 60's, which carried over to the way Gram Parsons was treated when he performed on The Grand Old Opry. It shows just how narrow and closeminded he could be toward a new talent trying to make it, who didn't meet his criteria. Like he is one to judge talent. Gram Parsons was a great talent, and his music still carries. He really didn't need a nod from Emery, of all people. By the way, Gram's Nubie suit hangs in the Country Music Hall Of Fame after all. He loved county music.