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In the closing pages of this book, Nancy Jones (or her ghostwriter, Ken Abraham, take your pick) writes "Now, regardless of what else you may have seen or read or heard, that's the cold hard truth about George Jones and me."

That summary bookends a disclaimer found in the beginning of Playin' Possum..., namely an "Author's Note" containing this disavowal  referencing Nancy's second (late) husband: "George always said that I would tell you anything and everything... so I have tried.  But I... have relied on other individuals to help me describe certain details that I didn't know."

Therein lies the rub...

Both Joneses- separately and together- have admitted to having experienced betrayals of trust, but a trust doesn't have to betrayed in order to be misplaced.

Based on Nancy's narrative, however, the reader has a gut feeling that Nancy knows that, her muse found elsewhere; its source a recent "spiritual" awakening that "has compelled me to share the rest of our story so that other people living with addiction or spousal abuse can find hope."

Fine and dandy, though there are a lot more time-tested, proactive and otherwise effective means to achieve that stated purpose.  But I digress...

Before Nancy Ann Ford Sepulveda Jones "got" religion she wrote another book, Nashville Wives: Country Music's Celebrity Wives Reveal the Truth About Their Husbands and Marriages (with ghostwriter Tom Carter).  In so doing, while the spotlight largely and appropriately shone elsewhere, Nancy didn't entirely exclude her own expertise from the mix of what most charitably might be termed unchallenged half-truths she extracted from those interviewed for that book.  In the Nashville Wives.. chapter about herself,  Nancy wrote "It would be unfair if I didn't apply the same rules of frankness to myself that I saw from other wives."

Is the other message of this book an admission that Nancy was not to be fully believed when being interviewed, dishing with Tom Carter and/or otherwise interviewing others about her and their experiences before (she got religion)?  The answer is found in the language of the overlapping material in both books, highly recommended precisely for that reason.

Two (curiously) male ghostwriters (Nancy does not indicate whether she approached Carter this go-round before contracting with Abraham) apparently failed to ask the question.

Both books would have more impact if either writer had been less intimidated.  While these are Nancy's narratives, memories can be refreshed and accounted for accordingly if the subject's second pair of eyes and ears fails to signal when narratives don't ring true.

In lieu of such assistance, Nancy’s approach to “the truth” is to anticipate skepticism and to answer her perceived critics.

To wit: “Some people might say ‘Oh, Nancy stayed for the money, or she stayed because it was George Jones, country music star.’

“That’s nonsense.

“There was no money for the first few years that George and I were together…”

Of course, no lawyer was going to represent The Possum pro bono and fighting lawsuits (even copycat and/or nuisance ones among those numbering three digits that George and Nancy knew would be dismissed) would be impoverishing.

However, while possibly doth protesting a little too much, Nancy conveniently omits passive forms of income (merchandising, royalties et al) that were imminent and otherwise wouldn’t require the final Mrs. George Jones to take a paying job nor sell the couple's multimillion-dollar property in order to pay the bills. 

In fairness to Nancy, her publisher's lawyers may have cautioned her editor, given the reality of the Jones' past legal history, expressing any nervousness they might have had about Nancy being more specific in several accounts that lack detail.  As examples, Nancy references (though not by name) George's "former manager from Roanoke" and an unnamed attorney (John Lentz?  Nashvillian Lentz also briefly served as Jones' personal manager.) 

Then again, Nancy mentions Jones' attorney Joel Katz by name.  She has no problem skewering Ronnie Gilley, treads lightly re: George's
publicist "Big Daddy" (a/k/a Kirt Webster) and mentions an employee by first name only.  

Strangely referring to Woody Woodruff as "one of our employees," Nancy seems dismissive of the prominent Williamson County legal and political power player in a manner akin to identifying Pope Francis as a member of the Catholic Church.

Nancy expresses admiration for an unnamed male Tennessean entertainment reporter "with ties to USA Today" whom she knew "fairly well" but identifies only as the writer (a guest in George's home during the interview occurring between 1983 and 2013) who asked about George's grandchildren and, having received a response that was more than the scribe bargained for, acceded to Nancy's demand "Don't you print a word of that. I mean it." ("'I promise you, Nancy.  I won't.'

("And he didn't.")

And how does Nancy address the March  6, 1999 single vehicle accident that nearly killed her husband?  Very delicately.  No mention of Ricky Headley, let alone Jones' casual attire reflecting his certainty of the verdict when he entered the Williamson County's courtroom from which, having successfully "lawyered up," he emerged with a slap on the wrist.  (Bill Faiman was an honorary pallbearer at Pee Wee Johnson's funeral.)

Though Nancy Jones mentions Evelyn Shriver in  Playin' Possum..., she does not embarrass Evelyn by repeating Shriver's famously astounding defense of the reckless, alcohol-fueled disoriented driving that nearly killed her client, potentially taking others along with him.

While securing interview subjects for Nashville Wives... Nancy Jones set the agenda: "I told them I wouldn't tell everything about their marriages.  Their bedroom habits, for example, are nobody's business." 

Playin' Possum... arguably occasionally fails to adhere to those boundaries, but whether graphic descriptions constitute TMI or candor about some things so as to distract from a lack of candor about others is every reader's call based on how much they know, how much they think they know, how much they are in a position to know and how much they want to know.                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

While not specifically written for, let alone about, women in the music industry, Randi Braun's Something Major: The New Playbook for Women at Work has universal application.

Given the pronounced workplace inequities faced by the women of Music Row, with the Row's emphasis on box-checking and often skewed definition of leadership, Braun's book is particularly welcome and timely. 

Record Row has never been accused of being ahead of the cultural curve. Hence the rules of the "old playbook" ostensibly resist collective challenge among its inhabitants.That said, women who embrace Randi (Fishman) Braun's presentation of a revised and updated approach to how women present and represent themselves in the workplace would seem to have a leg up on the upwardly-mobile competition.

Braun's workplace self-help guide, while heavily-sourced, retains a conversational tone.  While acknowledging the familiar hot buttons that create obstacles to success (Think inner critic, imposter syndrome, what Bonnie Low-Kramen has termed "toxic femininity" et al),  the author provides "real life" relatable examples of what businesswomen encounter, how well they have handled these frustrations and, in some instances, the suggestion of a better approach, such as how to thrive, rather merely survive, courtesy of the "new playbook."

From learning the specifics of "three reasons brilliant women go off the rails" to the "new playbook"'s approach to building boundaries and "owning your message by writing better emails," Braun's handbook's emphasis on the tools of wellbeing ought to be utilized by, if they are not already incorporated into, the counseling services offered by MusiCares and the Music Health Alliance.

                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Best known as the focal point of The Anita Kerr Singers, the award-winning background group, so essential to launching and/or sustaining the careers of many of the pop and country hit makers of the latter half of the 20th century, Anita Kerr has never been one to brag about her accomplishments.

The Memphis-born (1927) musical prodigy took her piano lessons to a new level by age 10 when, doubling as a church organist, Anita wrote arrangements for a female vocal group featuring 14 classmates.  

While singing with her sisters on their radio show (a family tradition begun by their mother, who hosted a WHBQ radio show), Anita Grill, as the prodigy was then known, became a WHBQ staff musician. (Anita, a church and skating rink singer and organist, also worked at WREC Radio.)

At age 18, having graduated from parochial school the year before, the budding composer began perfecting her songwriting, moving to Nashville in 1948. 

In Nashville Anita found work at radio stations WMAK where, as a staff musician, she formed a five-piece vocal group.

Word caught on and Anita performed sporadically on Nashville’s WLAC Radio before coming to the attention of WSM Radio where she worked with an eight-piece vocal group, enduring the awkwardness of replacing the popular Alcyone Beasley after WSM’s Jack Stapp fired Beasley.

Decca Records A & R Director Paul Cohen hired radio announcer Al Kerr’s wife (since 1947) away from WSM and it was Cohen who named the incarnation of the vocal group that had survived personnel changes, The Anita Kerr Singers.  

Anita began playing sessions in 1949 and through the 1950s she sang background for singers ranging from Burl Ives to Ernest Tubb, traveling to- and-from recording studios in New York and an emerging recording center: Nashville.

Honing the composition aspect of her craft resulted in Dean Martin’s 1953 recording of Anita’s Til I Found You.

While in Music City Kerr played accordion on the Grand Ole Opry.  She and her now eight-piece vocal group soon became regulars on the Opry’s Prince Albert-sponsored show. 

Owen Bradley signed to Anita to Decca Records in 1951 and, by the time The Anita Kerr Singers won the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts competition, the singers were now a quart. 

Anita, Louis Nunley, Dottie Dillard and Gil Wright expanded their recording repertoire to include jingles when Anita wasn’t writing arrangements for Roy Orbison, including the strings portions of Orbison’s biggest hits. 

In 1961, Chet Atkins (who Anita first met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry) hired Anita as an assistant A & R, signing the quartet to RCA Victor with terms of a contract that allowed them to continue to freelance for other labels.  This was only fair if, as alleged, Kerr did most of the work (for scale) while Atkins, Anita’s session producer largely in name only, would remain in the studio just long enough to sign the time cards that would result in a hefty paycheck for Atkins' “contribution” (Kerr was one of AFTRA’s founders), before leaving the group to essentially produce themselves while Chet headed out to the golf course.

When not recording in Nashville with Al Hirt, Brenda Lee, Ray Charles, Jim Reeves, Rosemary Clooney, Brook Benton, Pat Boone, and a host of other artists, The Anita Kerr Singers recorded their own albums in the countrypolitan style that was soon dubbed “the Nashville Sound.”

Moving from the fiddles and steel guitars that dominated traditional country songs, a sound that was dying at a time when rock ‘n’ roll was taking off, Kerr’s transition to the lush sound of stringed instruments, representing what Chet Atkins liked to call the sound of pocket change, meant adapting to self-taught studio musicians who, while they couldn’t read music, were able to read chords changes.

As the music because more sophisticated, Atkins received the credit, though he would correct those who failed to mention the roles Anita Kerr and Owen Bradley played in the development of the Nashville Sound.

One of the first women to produce country albums, Anita received her first Grammy nomination in 1963.

Another Grammy nomination followed in 1964 and, in 1965, the Anita Kerr Singers bested category competitors (most notably The Beatles), winning the year’s “Best Vocal Group” honors.

By the time of a repeat Grammy win in 1966, after 17 years in Nashville (working as her vocal group’s composer, arranger and leader), at Henry Mancini’s urging, Anita abruptly moved to California with her two children and second husband, Alex Grob.

Having given notice to Dillard, Wright and Nunley, none of whom had any interest in joining Kerr and family in the cross-country move, the vocal group disbanded (rebranding, with Priscilla Mitchell rounding out the quartet). 

Anita was not prepared for the lawsuit that followed when Dottie, Gil and Louis learned that Kerr would be using the erstwhile quartet’s name when she debuted on Lawrence Welk’s network TV show.

In 1968, having already begun the process of working extensively with Rod McKuen, Anita produced Pat Boone’s final Dot Records album. 

In 1969 Kerr signed with Dot and, by 1970, after years recording, notably for RCA and Warner Brothers Records and as the leader of the Anita Kerr Orchestra (Kerr was also known to record under pseudonyms), Anita moved to Europe.  

In 1970, heading the latest incarnation of the Anita Kerr Singers, Anita commuted from London’s recording studios (where she recorded for Philips Records and oversaw the production of a Royal Philharmonic concept album) to her home in Switzerland, where Anita and Alex were raising their then-preteen daughters.  

In 1974, Anita contracted with Word Records to compose, arrange and produce two albums on an annual basis. There were a total of nine such religious albums between 1975 and 1979.

In 1975, after writing a Hollywood movie score (Limbo) and recording seven albums for Philips, Kerr returned to Nashville.

There, Alex produced The Anita Kerr Singers’ final album of the ‘70s: Anita Kerr Performs Wonder’s (A vinyl salute to Stevie Wonder) and, in July of that year, Anita accepted an invitation to appear at the Tokyo Song Festival.

Two collectors’ items followed: Anita’s 1979 album (with Harry van Hoof and Pieter van Vollenhoven) titled Together and her 1981 BBC Radioplay album With Love. 

Whether working at Switzerland’s Montreaux Recording Studio (1975-1979) or commuting from studios in London, Los Angeles and Nashville during the ‘80s, Anita remained active as an arranger and songwriter.

In 1992, Anita Kerr received a NARAS Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Music.

Having outlived Gil, Dottie and Louis, at 94, Anita is a survivor for all of the reasons Barry Pugh suggests in a narrative abundantly in Kerr’s own words, supplemented by the memories of those with whom Anita has been associated.

With a forward by Burt Bacharach, this 285-page paperback features everything from Anita Kerr’s own practical guide to success in her polymathic disciplines to the story of why she refused to do an album with Frank Sinatra.

Complete with a plethora of photos, discographies, lists of awards, compositions and songs with which Anita was associated (be it a as singer, writer, producer, arranger or a combination of these contributions), Barry Pugh offers a detailed labor of love for Anita and her astonishing body of work.

With all of this tender loving care, it’s hard to believe anything has been left out.  However, the addition of an index, should this self-published book be updated, is highly recommended.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

With forewords by Mick Foley, John Gibbons and Suzanne Alexander, the author establishes from the beginning that where and how readers recognizes the Brooklyn-born, Italian son of a family with “Mafia” connections- be it from his own connection to wresting, baseball or country-music- that identification will serve as an introduction to this polymath’s range of interests and career changes.  

John Thomas Arezzi was introduced to wrestling as child of ‘60s TV, skeptical of the sport’s authenticity shortly thereafter, but convinced the “professional” variety was “fake” when, in 1972, he bought a ticket to a Shea Stadium match. 

Far from disillusioned, however, Arezzi became a member of a wrestling fans’ organization and the networking teen found himself bonding with other wrestling fans like Mike Omansky, a future RCA Records exec and grandson of future Family Feud host, Richard Dawson.  (Not long after, Arezzi was a house guest in Dawson’s Beverly Hills home.)

Having made inroads into the worlds of journalism and photography, while attending a Boston junior college Arezzi was bitten by the music bug even, as “Mr. Wrestling,” he was hosting early editions of Pro Wrestling Spotlight on the college radio station.   Following junior college graduation, Arezzi continued his education at Emerson College, where the sports fan, whose interest extended to baseball, dreamed of doing play-by-play for the New York Mets as he hosted the college’s TV station’s sports reports. 

Photographing ABC’s Good Morning America host David Hartman’s son, Sean with Johnny Bench almost led to Arezzi’s joining ABC Sports.  That missed opportunity led to another stint as a wrestling trade magazine writer and yet another, where- billed as “John Anthony”- Arezzi realized an additional dream by getting into the ring for his first mat match with Dusty Rhodes (i.e. Virgil Riley Runnels, Jr., not to be confused with RCA Records’ artist [Perry Hilburn] “Dusty” Rhodes).

Music industry followers won’t need to ask why Arezzi left a job with Morris Levy’s Roulette Records, landing a behind-the-scenes job, during the early 1980s, with the Mets’ organization's North Carolina farm team.   

The self-described “nutty New Yorker” wasn’t done with the music business, however.  Not when, while still in North Carolina with the Mets organization, Arezzi befriended- and booked- a struggling singer who would join him in drinking and doing drugs: Patty Lovelace.

Returning to New York where he took a job as an ad salesman, Arezzi moonlighted as Loveless’ manager (a stage surname he created for the woman with whom Arezzi was, at that point, in love), planning to record her in the Big Apple.

The two even made it to Nashville, but the personal and business relationship began to fizzle out at that point which partially explains why “You won’t find John Alexander (or John Arezzi, for that matter) in any biographical information on Patty Loveless.”  

Similarly, the Great American Country (GAC) cable TV network’s former director of music marketing and the Black River Music Group ex-vice-president of strategic marketing details professional relationships resulting in his advancing the careers of Sarah Darling and Kelsea Ballerini, setting the record straight in the absence of having received the credit due him from an industry best typified by the ingratitude of others he names including Country Music Association CEO Sarah Trahern. 

From managing to avoid proximity to the WWF sex scandals (reminiscent of the more recent victimization of Olympic gymnasts by their team doctor) at a time when his involvement in the pro wrestling community was his calling card, to, during his Music Row forays, being able to steer clear of the implosions of acquaintances (Mindy McCready, Cyndi Thomson and Jeff Bates), Arezzi regales and informs readers in this 286-page cautionary tale of professional sports and country music.

Clement, the famed music and film producer, arranger, performer, studio owner and novelty songwriter, is the first of many Music Row stalwarts, country-music industry icons and characters Peter introduces, or reintroduces (e.g., Cash, Pride, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, et al) as the case may be, to readers in remarkably rapid succession.  (Cooper artfully manages to cram in an astounding number of observations, experiences and insights into his 243-page narrative.  Kudos are also in order,  in a cost-cutting era of publishing, for inclusion of an index.)   

Armed with all of the nearly-singular rights and privileges befitting the young Tennessean entertainment reporter he once was, Peter enjoyed a backstage pass to the dazzling panoply of unvarnished, behind-the-scenes conversations and events before ubiquitous media-training could sanitize many of them.

Why Cooper even got to co-write with Don Schlitz before leaving the morning daily (grind) amid administrative changes, layoffs and all the newspaper business changes that aren't supposed to stifle, nor otherwise impact, talented, creative self-starters, but often do.

As a reward for the trust, well-earned industry-wide adulation and respect Peter continues to enjoy- without objection even from a once-offended Lee Ann Womack- what is now a permanent pass to the parade has been issued to the Grammy-nominated music producer in  Cooper's current capacity as the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's senior producer, producer and writer.  (Peter moonlights as an industry-validated songwriter, musician and senior lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.)  

While a fan might not have washed his/her hand for days, if afforded the luxury of a handshake from the King of Country Music, Peter Cooper has enjoyed a degree of access that, he reveals, landed him a “prize possession” (that evidently means more to Cooper than any swag bag): Roy Acuff’s last tube of Super Polygrip Dental Adhesive, even as “I won’t tell you the name of  (The) New York Times best-selling author who gave it to me.”

While keeping us in blind-item suspense, Peter entertains readers with appropriately-placed asides about events that, he suggests, don’t necessarily warrant entire chapters.

Cooper's  knowledgeable command of subjects like click tracks makes such subject matter of interest to readers who may not be musicians, aspiring or otherwise.

While Peter doesn’t write much about his early life (he makes a passing reference to his stepmother), Cooper notes in his narrative that when he moved to Nashville, while still a young man, the native South Carolinian was warned that meeting his heroes could lead to disappointments warned him.

Peter had been down that road when, as a 14-year-old baseball fan he met major league baseball great Warren Spahn, winner of 363 games- more than any other left-handed pitcher in the history of the game. 

Spahn’s response to an admiring teen's polite request for an autograph?   A loud, cursing refusal!

In contrast, Cooper’s take on country-music artists, songwriters and others is that the bigger they are, the nicer they are.

Many of his colleagues will agree with him, but, as with most generalities, there are notable exceptions.  The very existence of the fabled code of the road, to which Cooper alludes (and which deserves to be the subject of a book all its own),  gives rise to the hush-hush environment that discourages, and makes it appear unseemly, for Nashville reporters who value their press passes to name names and dates that otherwise provide the proof, when those in a position to do so abuse their authority.

Anyone who has read Crook & Chase: Our Lives, the Music and the Stars (Charlie and Lorianne’s 1995 career retrospective, penned with ghostwriter Mickey Herskowitz) can’t help but notice why Nashville’s entertainment news and TV variety hosts would never be so candid as to assure the certainty that they’ll never have lunch in this town again. 

Indeed, amid all of the gushing about, and name-dropping of, the country stars of the day, Crook & Chase reserved their less-than-flattering comments about celebrity guests on their show to those who were not based in Nashville and who had little, if any connection, to the country-music industry.  

Warren Spahn has been conveniently dead since 2003.  But the safety of candor without repercussions is not so much my point as is the fact that those of us, with not only print and broadcast credentials, but years of greater experience covering country-music, its legends and wannabes, than Lorianne, Charlie and Peter, realize a chasm; the contrast between the way those who naively live in a bubble are treated by gatekeepers and celebs alike, versus the disregard and dismissal those of us of lesser visibility have been known to experience from those who feel no incentive to so much as acknowledge, let alone assist, us as messengers of their messages.  (In a sexist  industry, Lorianne's being married to the her show's producer might have had a little something to do with the show not being called Chase and Crook.)

False intimacy begets hagiography among those victims of the bubble in which high-profile, Music Row journalists and media personalities are ensconced, oblivious to the fact that, as anointed Nashville royalty, they are first among equals.

The late Tom C. Armstrong, another Music Row polymath, knew this.  As he once confided to me about a prominent Music Row executive: “He’s just being nice to me because he thinks I can do something for him.”

Peter Cooper is one of the most likable (as opposed to “likable enough”) people I know.  When people treat you well it's easy to believe they treat everyone that way.  You might have to dig for dirt in order to find it.  (Knowing the truth of  a statement  intellectually amid  quite different  personal experience makes for cognitive dissonance.)   See?  (As Jimmy Martin would say.)  There's that bubble again... 

When taking the high road comes naturally, it is nothing if not a blessing.  I’m reminded of Claude King’s 1970 hit, Mary’s Vineyard in which the protagonist weaves a narrative of seducing three sisters.  He brags about ignoring an implied threat from the young beauties' father who “don’t know” and “I ain’t gonna tell him” about what the suitor and his harem are up to.  The idea, served up with equal parts sexism and machismo being that the patriarch believes “he’s raised three little angels” and “I think that’s fine.”  

I hasten to add, should it not be already clear, that Nashville’s music industry is truly full of wonderful people, many of them mentors, who have no more than to be themselves to be on their best behavior.  

Still, we all make mistakes.  As I was more focused on content than typos when presented with the rush review of galleys for one of my books, I felt it somewhat unfair when a reviewer, who could find no (other) factual errors in my book, indicated that I misspelled Eddy Arnold’s name.  (I  responded to the review by indicating that, of the several mentions of Eddy in The Best of Country: The Official CD Guide, only one rose to the level of the otherwise embarrassingly inaccurate “Eddie.”)  

So I offer the following with a hope that the first edition of Johnny’s Cash… (clearly one of the best- if not the best- book I’ve read all year) will sell so well that Cooper’s publisher will find it worthy of more pressings and an opportunity to add a few minor edits in the process:  In Johnny's Cash..., the “Eddie” gremlins took possession of correct spellings of the first Mrs. Johnny Cash’s name turning Vivian into “Vivien,” while elsewhere the word “fist” becomes “first.”  (I pray for same attention to detail when proofing my own manuscripts.  Repeat:  This is neither a challenge nor invitation.  Something about people who live in glass houses, overreliance on spell-checkers, old age, congenital eye disease and other assorted excuses for carelessness…)

Too, Peter details (Mr.) Johnny Cash’s being initially misdiagnosed as having Parkinson’s disease, indicating that “we still don’t know” the source of Cash's palsied loss of dexterity.  (Was it not “autonomic neuropathy,” along with a handful of contributing maladies, that ultimately claimed  the Man in Black?)

On a related note, while Peter references Kris Kristofferson’s incorrectly being led to believe that his increasing memory loss could be attributed to dementia, a second edition of Cooper’s book would include the welcome news that Kris’ symptoms abated once he was apparently given, and treated for, the correct diagnosis: Lyme disease.

Reading the first edition of Johnny's Cash..., music historians and fans alike will be treated to Peter Cooper's literally retracing Hank Williams’ final ride.  For, after having hopped in the car and been privy to Hank’s journey in a way, even in the age of interstate highways, Williams’ biographers have not, Cooper advances the suggestion that, historical accounts to the contrary, Hank Williams may not have taken his last breath in Oak Hill, West Virginia on January 1, 1953.

But Cooper breaks from investigative reporting when he takes, at face value, oft-repeated claims by Tom T. Hall, including the one that Hall arrived in Nashville on January 1, 1964.

Ralph Emery, known for a photographic memory, kindly provides the time line that indicates his good friend Hall’s account is not factually possible.

Further, Tom is the first to admit that he is “not very good with dates.”

Peter will find further confirmation of that by talking with current Tennessean entertainment reporter Cindy Watts.  Watts was initially dismissive of my post-publication insistence that, on one occasion writing about Tom, she had her facts wrong- Watts’ having gone to "Hall's people"- until I produced public records that forced a retraction. 

And perhaps because Hall has been so successful at creating his own image, full of demonstrably-provable falsehoods stated and repeated so often they are uncritically accepted as fact, I respectfully disagree with Cooper’s suggestion that Tom’s song, The Man Who Hated Freckles is Hall’s “only song of overt judgment.”   

It’s a good idea, in general, for writers to steer clear of absolutes, and, in particular, when at least a couple of country-music writer/historians have referenced in their writings (see Nick Tosches' Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock 'n' Roll  and Stacy Harris' Kosher Country: Success and Survival on Nashville's Music Row) the lyrics of another Hall-penned (recorded but unreleased) polemic: I Was Born in A One-Nigger Town.   

Even Hall, joining Charlie Worsham, John Prine, Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Hank Williams, Jr. and the late Porter Wagoner in contributing blurbs for Johnny’s Cash…, when pressed, has been known to concede as much.  

I trust that Peter Guralnick, who wrote the forward to Johnny’s Cash… would agree.