The People and the Music—Bluegrass and Country, That Is!
Barbara Martin Stephens met Jimmy Martin in 1953 when Martin was working with Bill Monroe. She lived with Jimmy Martin from 1953 until 1966. Her story of that relationship was told in a book that the University of Illinois Press put out in 2017, titled Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler: My Life with Jimmy Martin, the King of Bluegrass. This new book details another side of Barbara’s story—her work as a booking agent on Music Row and for the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Barbara Martin Stephens started working as a booking agent when she was with Martin and would work in booking and management for fourteen years. She was the first female booking agent on Nashville’s Music Row and during those years she met, managed, booked, socialized and became life-long friends with a who’s-who of Nashville’s singers, songwriters, instrumentalists, agents, publishers, and managers. The stories she tells about life on Music Row during her years there—not to mention her time at the Wheeling Jamboree and Louisiana Hayride—are fascinating and paint a vivid picture of the bluegrass and country music scene during an incredibly interesting time in history.
While all music fans have read stories about the stars of bluegrass and country music—and this book has plenty of those stories—a different, and often neglected, side of the music is also presented here. These are the stories about the people behind the scenes. Barbara tells us about many of the most prominent publishers, booking agents, managers and songwriters of the day. She worked with them on a daily basis, knew them well and became good friends with many of them. To read the recollections of someone who was right there in the thick of it during this important period in the history of music in Nashville helps make it all come to life in a way that I don’t think could be expressed by a writer or biographer that was not part of the scene.
Many of the people that are highlighted in this book are some of the most interesting and colorful characters who were part of the music scene in the 1950s and 60s and many of them were the star-makers of the day. In the first section of this book you will read stories about Billy and Ruth Grammer, Cowboy Jack Clements, Happy Wilson, Don Light, Stan Hitchcock, Buddy Lee, Hurbert Long, Dave Barton, Buster Doss, Billy Walker, Lucky Moeller, Jack Andrews, Smiley Wilson, Bob Neal and many others. These are the folks who helped make your favorite recording artists and performers famous.
In the second chapter of the book Barbara features the “Women Behind the Scenes.” These women were the wives, secretaries, assistants and others who had jobs working on Music Row. We meet John Hartford’s wife Betty Harford, Jim Glaser and his wife Jane, Jim Reeves’ secretary Joyce Jackson, and John Kelly and Herbert Long’s secretary Libby Griggs. We also meet Corky Wilson—who worked with Charlie Lamb, Ric Records, Decca Records and Surefire Publishing. Corky also did some copyrighting work for Bill Monroe.
In Chapter 3, titled “Singers, Songwriters and More,” we learn about Donna Darlene and Shot Jackson, Doug Kershaw, Jim Rushing, Bob and Birdie Lee Smith, Merle Kilgore, Louisa Branscomb, Grant Turner, Carl Belew, and Wilma Lee Cooper and her sisters Jerry Johnson Colmus and Peggy Leary. There is also a section of this chapter featuring the stories of Ginger Boatwright, Jimmy Payne, Billy Hunter, Dottie Swan, Charmaine and Marty Lanham, Johnny and Jeanette Williams, and Ronnie Reno.
Additionally, there are sections at the end of the book about the music business today, a tribute chapter with Barbara’s memories of Bill Emerson, Sonny Osborne and J.D. Crowe, and at the very end, Barbara throws in some of her favorite recipes and pages of Photo Memories. Of course, peppered throughout the book are stories of people like Jimmy Martin, J.D. Crowe, Paul Williams, Sonny and Bobby Osborne, Jim and Jesse McReynolds, Bill Monroe and other bluegrass heroes that Barbara has known over the years.
If you are like to read about all aspects of the history of bluegrass and country music, this is an very interesting read and a must have addition to your music library.
