Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller
Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller (St. Martin’s Press 2003) was a SIBA bestseller, 2004 SIBA Book Award finalist, and one of three finalists for the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. It’s an inventive and original book from Nashville singer/songwriter Chapman, who uses twelve of her most resonant songs as entry points to many of her life’s adventures. Not a memoir, but a map of the places Chapman’s been and what went through her mind as she was traveling there, this book is funny and tender, warm and exuberant.
From New Year’s Eve in 1978 when Jerry Lee Lewis gave Chapman advice on how to live life (“I mean it’s one thing when your mother says ‘Honey don’t you think you’d better slow down?’ But when The Killer voices his concern….”) to the time her black maid Cora Jeter took the seven-year-old to see Elvis, Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller goes to the moments when the influences on Chapman’s songwriting and psyche were cemented. And it winningly reveals how the creative process comes from life: one of Chapman’s favorite songs was written after waking up facedown in her underpants in her front-yard vegetable garden.
Revealing intimate rock and roll moments and memories of a South Carolina childhood, Marshall Chapman is a fresh voice firmly in the Southern tradition.
They Came To Nashville
Marshall Chapman knows Nashville. A musician, songwriter, and author with nearly a dozen albums and a bestselling memoir under her belt, Chapman has lived and breathed Music City for over forty years. Her friendships with those who helped make Nashville one of the major forces in American music culture are genuine and heartfelt, her insights unsurpassed. In her new book, They Came to Nashville (Vanderbilt University Press/Country Music Foundation Press, 2010), the reader is invited to see Marshall Chapman as never before: as music journalist extraordinaire.
Here Chapman captures the personal stories of musicians who have shaped the modern history of music in Nashville, from the mouths of the artists themselves. Their tribulations and triumphs are revealed against the backdrop of a forever-evolving Music City, as Chapman sits down with icons like Kris Kristofferson and Emmylou Harris, new stars like Miranda Lambert, and a dozen other top names to ask what brought each of them to Nashville and what inspired them to persevere.
The book culminates with Chapman’s heroic and hilarious attempt to schedule a proper interview with original Outlaw Willie Nelson. Instead, she’s brought along on Willie’s raucous 2008 tour and winds up on stage with him in Beaumont, Texas, singing “Good Hearted Woman.”
They Came to Nashville reveals the daily struggles facing newcomers to the music business—and the promise awaiting those willing to fight for their dream.
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Vanderbilt University Press
Country Music Foundation Press
October 2010
Foreword by Peter Guralnick
They Came To Nashville
Marshall Chapman knows Nashville. A musician, songwriter, and author with a dozen albums and a bestselling memoir under her belt, Chapman has lived and breathed Music City for over forty years. Her friendships with those who helped make Nashville one of the major forces in American music culture is unsurpassed. And in They Came to Nashville, the reader is invited to see Marshall Chapman as never before–as music journalist extraordinaire.
In They Came to Nashville, Chapman records the personal stories of musicians shaping the modern history of music in Nashville, from the mouths of the musicians themselves. The trials, tribulations, and evolution of Music City are on display, as she sits down with influential figures like Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, and Miranda Lambert, and a dozen other top names, to record what brought each of them to Nashville and what inspired them to persevere. The book culminates in a hilarious and heroic attempt to find enough free time with Willie Nelson to get a proper interview. Instead, she’s brought along on his raucous 2008 tour, where she winds up onstage in Beaumont, Texas, singing “Good-Hearted Woman” with Willie.