The Last Letter

Bill and Bobbie Malone: exploring the heart of country music

Country Music USA

I got the book as a Christmas gift the year it came out in 1968. It was arguably the first definitive history of country music. Being richly illustrated, I dipped in, first looking through wonderful photos from the early days.  Finally, and reluctantly, I started reading. I could not put it down. At the time, old-time string band music, bluegrass and what I considered to be authentic folk music were the musics I loved best. However, I never had much use for the Nashville sound or country music radio. Somehow, this book brought country music to life for me in a new way.

The author, Bill C. Malone understood the soul of country music. Sure, the industry was full of  hype but that was just part of a deeper story, the love of making music to fight hard times. I loved the book and it broadened my appreciation of the totality of the genre.

I was thrilled when I finally met Bill Malone in 2005 when he came to lecture at Utah State University. I got to sit down with him for an interview where I asked him if there was a single song that was responsible for his lifelong devotion to the country music story. As it turned out, he did have a song, an unlikely number, about love gone wrong. It was titled, “the Last Letter.” He called it a “cry in your beer song.” When I hear it I’m surprised by how direct and vulnerable the sentiments are in this old song. I’d forgotten what a masterful job Taki Telonidis did editing together this segment for our Western Folklife Center series, What’s in a Song, broadcast on NPR’s Sunday morning news show.

LISTEN TO Bill Malone and “The Last Letter,” HERE

Bill Malone grew up on a cotton-growing tenant farm near Tyler, Texas. I didn’t know until I met him that he was not only a scholar but a musician. To be a good historian you need to be able to organize, synthesize and articulate research. When passion for the subject is added to that mix you get the retelling of history in living color. Bill has that ability. I suppose that is why Ken Burns contacted Bill when he compiled his PBS series on the history of country music.

Bill is a Professor Emeritus of Tulane University. After writing his best-selling Country Music USA he went on to write other books about the history of country and western music. Since 2008 he has focused on contemporary artists he considers important to the music he loves. The first, Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens (2008). The next, Music from the True Vine: Mike Seeger's Life and Musical Journey (2011). The most recent are collaborations between Bill and his wife Bobbie, Nashville's Songwriting Sweethearts: The Boudleaux and Felice Bryant Story (2020). Coming out soon, Traveler: The Musical Odyssey of Tim O’Brien (2022). And currently, they are working on a book about Ranger Doug Green of Riders in the Sky.

Hiking with Ranger Doug Green near Moab, early eighties

Bill and Bobbie called me a few weeks ago to interview me about my long friendship with Doug Green. They also interviewed me for the Tim O’Brien book. Of his biographies, both Hazel Dickens and Mike Seeger are gone now but Doug and Tim are still holding forth as gifted singers, musicians, and luminaries.

left to right. Tom Carter, Mike Seeger, Hal Cannon, just a few months before Mike’s death

Leonard Coulson just unearthed this postcard from Mike Seeger. This prompted this weeks BOOST. We miss Mike and all the ways he inspired our music.

I’ll end this weeks BOOST with links to favorite songs from each, but first I want to share a burning question I posed to Bill Malone yesterday.

Why do your recent books focus on friends and heroes of mine, Doug Green, Tim O’Brien, Mike Seeger and Hazel Dickens (she’s the only one I did not know personally) rather than the stars of country music? For many, the folks listed above are footnotes of country music and are hardly household names. I admire your choices but would love to know why you picked these people to tell their story, their histories? 

This was Bill Malone’s answer.

I tend to write about people whose music I love, and I seldom hear anyone on mainstream or Top Forty country music that I like. I enjoy musicians who perform beautifully, but who have a respect for and a sense of roots. Hazel Dickens is roots personified; Mike Seeger was a master interpreter of many traditions; Tim and Doug have taken older materials and made them contemporary.

Hazel Dickens singing “Aragon Mill”

Mike Seeger performing “Walking Boss”

Tim O’Brien perform “Suzanna” by Hal Cannon

Ranger Doug Green with Riders in the Sky yodeling “Back in the Saddle Again”