Customer Reviews

Fiddler's Curse: The Untold Story of Ervin T. Rouse, Chubby Wise, Johnny Cash, and The Orange Blossom Special (Revised and Updated)

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This book is a great read for anyone who is interested in bluegrass, early country music, or rural American life in the 1930s. It takes distant musical legends that we now take for granted and gives them faces and voices. It draws an unforgettable bridge between early 20th century itinerant traveling musicians and the teething early world of recording and radio. It reads like "O Brother, Where Art Thou", but with real-life musical pioneers and heroes.

When I got my copy of this book, I started thumbing through it, and the next thing I knew, it was two hours later and I was still glued to it! Until I finished it --and I read some parts twice just because they were so interesting-- the dishes went unwashed, the family went unfed, the house went uncleaned, the instruments went untouched (and that is hardly an exaggeration!). I certainly recommend it!

Reja Jager
President, Northern Illinois Bluegrass Association

I don't know what is more relentlessly compelling: the story of the "Orange Blossom Special" or the story of the man who wrote it.
In the end, of course, the stories end up being intertwined, and the author pulls both up out of the swamps of the Everglades and places them in the realm of legend. History was made by real people, and Ervin Rouse was about as real as you get--if you consider "truly strange" to be "real." But he produced from deep inside himself (real deep, it seems) one of the great tunes of our times. I love the story; I love the writing.

A big hooray for this book. I learned alot and have read it over and over. I tell everybody and anybody about this incredible story, whenever there is a mention of the Orange Blossom Special. The book comes with a CD. Loved that too! I cant find mine and need to replace it now. Here is the thing....there is another song..."Sweeter then the flowers"...which may be the most beautiful song in the world and thats on the cd too.

This book is special to my heart.