When I read a book, I want more than information (altho’ I do love information!). I like a type of impartation…something that will change me, transform me, help me see something spectacular, or at least in a new way.
Nashville Chrome, a new historical novel, by Rick Bass, does all this.
If you love music, and especially “Older” country, you will delight in this book. The story is about Jim Ed Brown, and his sisters, Maxine and Connie. Much of the setting is in Arkansas, where their parents run a saw mill to keep food (and drink!) on the table. As the youngsters grew and continually harmonized the lights and “chrome” of Nashville, glitter, twinkle, and beckon. We delight in reading how their lives intertwined with the great musician Chet Atkins, and singers Jim Reeves, Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, the Beatles and many, many more. There were several hit recordings, but the most famous was “The Three Bells” an old French song that had plaintiff lyrics about “Little Jimmy Brown”.
Overall, I would say the childhood chapters of this novel will mesmerize you.
Is it possible that Daddy Floyd, who runs the saw mill actually sharpens the blades by listening to the perfect pitched voices of his three singing children?
Is it true that the secret to the quality of Floyd’s lumber lies in the fact that his fully tempered saw is sharpened perfectly and only because his offspring can discern pitch?”
Is it a fact that Jim Ed, Maxine, and Bonnie not only have high caliber solo voices, they have a harmonic resonance that is unreachable by any other singing group and indescribable by most people?
Read more: their complexities of fame, the celebrity that did not last very long, where they are now.
Rick Bass writes a terrific, true and fictional book.
Oh yes, and if you really, really, listen, you may actually hear the song that starts, “Oh the chapel bells are ringing….”
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