Description
Book SynopsisIn this touching memoir, Anita Faye Garner re-creates her remarkable upbringing. The Glory Road carries readers back to the 1950s South and the intersections of faith and family at the very roots of American popular music.
Trade ReviewThis is a story so central to the origins of country music: the marriage of Saturday night and Sunday morning, and the literal marriage of two musicians, sometimes at odds with each other creatively and personally. The song written by Fern Jones 'I Was There When It Happened' was performed around the world by my dad and the Tennessee Three, became the title of the memoir of Marshall Grant (the bass player in the Tennessee Three), and was revived yet again when I performed it every night on a recent tour I did with Ry Cooder. Anita Garner was 'there when it happened,' and her book tells us what we ought to know." - Rosanne Cash
"
The Glory Road takes us to an important cultural crossroad of America - where gospel met rockabilly, and Saturday night collided with Sunday morning in the late 1950s in the Deep South. It's also a very personal family story of a deeply religious preacher, Raymond Jones, whose wife, Fern, had a big voice and even bigger musical ambitions. Anita Garner's recounting of her parents' lives-their tensions and travails on the 'gypsy road' of tent revivals and recording studios-echoes one of her mother's most famous songs: 'I Was There When It Happened.'" - Dayton Duncan, writer/producer of Ken Burns'
Country Music"
The Glory Road touches several bases: southern culture, family life, the evangelical ethos, commercial music, migration, and spousal relations. It will appeal to both a general and specialized audience." - Michael T. Bertrand, author of
Race, Rock, and Elvis "I'll admit I didn't know the music of Sister Fern and The Joneses until now. So,
The Glory Road has introduced me to some exciting and important music. But, even more than that, the story itself will stick with me. I don't expect to forget these characters." - Burgin Mathews, coauthor of
Doc: The Story of a Birmingham Jazz ManTable of Contents
- Author's Note
- Chapter 1. Route 66
- Chapter 2. California
- Gospel Gypsies
- Chapter 3. All-Day Singing with Dinner on the Grounds
- Chapter 4. The Joneses Sing
- Chapter 5. Afterglow
- Chapter 6. Little Sinners
- Chapter 7. Queen of the Southern Transplants
- Chapter 8. Truths and Dubious Wisdom
- Chapter 9. Our House
- Chapter 10. Sister Fern Won't Go to Town
- Chapter 11. We Got Us a Baby
- Chapter 12. Daddy and the Doctor
- Chapter 13. The Other Babies
- Chapter 14. Raymond's Doll Baby
- Chapter 15. In the Garden
- Chapter 16. Hey Good Lookin'
- Chapter 17. I Was There When It Happened
- Chapter 18. Musical Pie Lady
- Chapter 19. His Eye Is on the Sparrow
- Chapter 20. Goodbye Again
- Chapter 21. Harmony in the Car
- Chapter 22. Tents
- Chapter 23. Revivals
- Chapter 24. Down on the Bayou
- Chapter 25. Junior and Them
- Chapter 26. Brother Daly's Gold-Plated Hallelujah
- Musical Houses
- Chapter 27. Age of Reckoning
- Chapter 28. The Pink House
- Chapter 29. Prodigal Son
- Chapter 30. Johnny Cash Will Make All the Difference
- Chapter 31. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
- Chapter 32. Down by the Riverside
- Chapter 33. Leaving Louisiana
- Chapter 34. California Kids
- Chapter 35. Nashville Nights
- Chapter 36. Fifties Farewell
- Chapter 37. Love Me Tender
- Chapter 38. Palm Springs
- Chapter 39. This World Is Not My Home
- Epilogue
- Gospel Gypsies Know
- Acknowledgments
- Credits
