Customer Reviews

Ernest Tubb: The Texas Troubadour

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Mr. Pugh's "Ernest Tubb: The Texas Troubador" offers a well balanced context of Tubb's life. The good times, hard times, his strengths, and weaknesses. My father, the late Vernon "Toby" Reese was one of the orignal members of Tubb's band in the 40's. I can recall his stories about Tubb when I was a child. Mr. Pughs book is right on target.

I have personally known the Tubb family and most of this I already knew so it was fun seeing what would be in the book and what would be left out and he left nothing out of the book. It gave you a very honet portait of this legendary man. It did not give a sugar coated picture. It was very informative and honest. Although I never got to meet the man just knowing what I know of him and his family. I'am sure that he would be proud of this book.

This book provides an excellent picture of Ernest Tubb. It's filled with detail about his life and his importance to the music industry, and it's an objective and balanced biography. The only thing I found odd was the lack of family interviews. I don't know how one can write a complete biography without talking to surviving family members.

Ernest Tubb (1914-84) was born dirt poor in Crisp Texas. During the Depression the lad toiled digging ditches; picking cotton; selling beer and singing for a matress company! Tubb toiled in rowdy Texas honkey-tonks and on small wattage radio stations. Ernest worked hard and finally got a spot on the Grand Ole Opry in 1943. Ernest Tubb sold millions of records. The tall Texan helped countless entertainers in their career development. He assisted among others: Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Hank Thompson, Skeeter Davis, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Cal Smith, Jack Greene and many others. He made over 4,000 on stage appearance, started and hosted the Ernest Tubb Record Shop Midnight Jamboree and recorded such classic country tunes as "Waltz Across Texas,"; "I'm Walking the Floor Over You,""Thanks a Lot." and countelss others. Tubb sold millions of records and was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame and was a wonderful ambassador of gaining country music respectability. Tubb's muscial idol was Jimmy Rodgers the singing breakman who died of TB in 1933. Tubb instituted the Jimmy Rodgers Festival in Meridian Mississippi; he was a friend of Mrs. Rodgers and was allowed to use Rodger's guitar on his gigs.
The Texas Troubadour fathered eight children having two wives Elaine and Oleane. Both of these marriages ended in divorce. He had trouble with alcoholic binges, heavy smoking and could exhibit a terrible temper. He was no saint. Yet Ernest Tubb was basically a kind man who helped others throughout his long career. He was one of the first entertainers to call his music "country" instead of "hillbilly. Tubb perfomed everywhere from Carneige Hall in New York to Nashville's Grand Ole Opry to a famous tour of Korea along with Hank Snow.
The author of this small print 323 page biography is Ronnie Pugh who is Head of Reference at the Country Music Foundation in Nashville. He has done a thorough job of researching Tubb's almost 50 year career through extensive interviews with musicians and family members who knew E.T. He also has provided the best discography available of all the thousands of Tubb songs on records. The book also contains rare phots of Ernest Tubb and his Texas Troubadours.
This book is a sine qua non for the general public and country music scholars wanting to examine the life of Ernest Tubb. He is the man who brought the honky-tonk sound and electric guitar music to the Grand Ole Opry. A legend and a kind man was Ernest Dale Tubb!

Ronnie Pugh has done an excellent job of describing a Country music legend. He told many of the ways that Ernest Tubb helped the Country music industry, and gave what I think is a fair and accurate account of the man himself. This book is a must for any Ernest Tubb fan, and for anyone who wants to learn more about this great artist and great man. I highly recommend this book.

I ordered this book for my Mother. It arrived quickly, and was exactly what she wanted. She is thrilled with it. Excellent price and service

It is very interesting reading about one of my relatives. He was a troubled a young I feel, did very well in his music business. It's an easy read; the words are a nice size. Some books have the words so tiny you can't read them. I recommend this to all.

I highly recommend this book. Ronnie Pugh has the inside scoop on all things Nashville and he has written one fine book here. The book takes one from Ernest's humble beginnings through his desire to be a Jimmie Rodgers clone. His association with Carrie Rodgers, the widow of the singing brakeman is covered in this book.

There is a personal glimpse inside Ernest's early days on radio and his struggle to be all that he could be in a hard scrabble world of country music.

There are many humorous stories in the book about the long trips and the pranks the characters would play on one another just for entertainment.

This book gives the reader a complete look at Ernest Tubb the Texas Troubadour from the beginning to the end. Too bad there was so much greed within the family concerning Ernest's personal items, but that is often the case when someone passes away.

It is a known fact that Ernest helped many young stars to realize their potential and gain them the access to those that could further their careers. Ernest was never one to brag about helping others and did so because of the warm hearted person he truly was.

Please give this book a try and I believe you will be glad you did.

An exhaustively detailed biography, written by the head of the Country Music Foundation, which tracks ET from his early struggling years, onto his heyday as one of Decca's main cash cows, and through his decades of hard work and gradual decline. The writing is almost as dogged and linear as Tubb was during his years on the road -- not terribly elegant, literary or evocative, but the research is solid, including countless interviews with band members, industry movers, and Tubb relations. An authoritative resource for anyone who would like to find out how Tubb helped form the sound of hard country honkytonk in the early '40s, and how he later helped boost the careers of musicians such as Hank Snow, Hank Thompson and Loretta Lynn, and how Nashville eventually let him slide out of sight. Many of the details seems too depressing and tawdry to me, but it's still the story of a great man's life...