Johnny Bush Book and CD

Hi All!

This post is late because I decided to sleep in this morning to try to kick this slight "sick" feeling I have had lately. It seems to have worked. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Today I finished reading Johnny Bush's book, Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk. As you might remember, I met Johnny at the SD meeting in San Antonio. At that time I bought his book. I love reading and really like reading about interesting people. Well, Johnny is certainly interesting!

This book tells the story of Johnny's life as told by Johnny. He unflinchingly tells about the good times and the bad times. His good decisions and his bad decisions. Along the way he also relates the story of the Texas Honky-tonk: the place and the culture. Not being native to Texas, this is an entire side to the state that I have never before known.

Johnny talks about his rise in the Texas music scene right along-side country music greats like Willie Nelson and Ray Price. Included in the book are pictures of Johnny and other music makers including Willie, Ray, Charlie Price, and Bob Wills. I must admit that I had never heard of many of the people Johnny rubbed elbows with but I am trying to fix that omission in my music knowledge!

If you are a fan of country music, or good auto-biographies, I would highly recommend this book. It is an entertaining read and, as I have proven, you don't need to have a real knowledge or appreciation on the Texas country music scene to appreciate the book. I really chuckled over some of Johnny's experiences and I even stopped reading to tell Hubby about some of the more amazing and/or shocking tales. I really enjoyed the book.

My enjoyment of the book was only enriched by borrowing the CD from Lori (who bought it from Johnny the same time I bought the book).

I had never heard any of Johnny Bush's music prior to the meeting where he sang two songs for us. In fact, it wasn't until I got SD that I had even heard of Johnny Bush and that was only by reading a list of "famous" people who had SD.

As a lover of all kinds of music, I really, really enjoyed this CD. I popped it into my CD player as I drove to class after meeting Lori and I also listened to it all the way home. Then, I loaded it onto iTunes and listened to the whole album once more. My toes were tapping and I found myself singing along to a couple tunes on the second hearing. One, Pancho and Lefty, even made it into my dreams last night. I woke up singing the chorus. Hubby was a little annoyed at the early morning singing but, I think Skor enjoyed the serenade!

If you are a music lover, go out and find this CD. You can get it from Johnny's website at http://JohnnyBush.com

The book and the CD together make a terrific package introduction to the Texas Country music scene or, if you are already a fan, a wonderful reminder of what country music used to be!

Trisha

Voice Update: Well, my throat hurts a bit today. I am hoping it isn't a real sore throat coming on! My voice is doing well but I don't feel like talking much because of the slight twinge I get when I talk. Tonight I am going to a Deaf event so I won't have to talk too much. I need to get those exercises and massage up to "hyper" speed to get things working.