Customer Reviews

Nashville Chrome

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I'm very embarrassed to say that until I read an article about this book, I had no idea who the Browns were, although I have the nerve to call myself a music fan. Immediately I downloaded the book and was transported into a world that I knew very little about, written gorgeously in a way that almost reads like total fiction instead of being based on the lives of very real people.

This is the story of the Browns, a family growing up dirt poor in Arkansas during the depression, surrounded by the sounds of lumber mills and woods which would finely tune their sense of harmony. It is the story of how young country music stars were locked into contracts that barely allowed them to survive while enriching their dubious agents. It is the story of how the lives of many of the famous names you will recognize (Gentleman Jim, Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, and a little band called the Beatles) and the Browns were interwoven as they were all starting out and paving the road to what we now know as the county seat of country music--Nashville. The book alternates between telling the story of the Browns' rise to fame and subsequent fall with glimpses of Maxine as she is now, craving the excitement and fame that her unbelievably unique talent had once wrought upon her. The author, who wrote the book based on interviews with the family, captures the essence of their fleeting flame with heartbreaking clarity.

While reading this incredibly poetic book, I was googling and youtubing like mad. I expected to find some of the Browns' music and hear that it had that tinny `50s quality that was pleasant but not exceptional. Boy, was I ever wrong. Rick Bass is 100% accurate in describing the liquid beauty of their voices and the singular quality of their sound. Their music gives me goosebumps, and Mr. Bass brought it to life on the page.

Thank you, to Rick Bass for writing such a smoothly harmonized book that truly captures the essence of the Browns, despite the fact that the book is a novel. And thank you to the Browns themselves for such beautiful contributions to music. I am now proud to call myself a fan of the Browns, and I suspect that a second wave of very well-deserved fame will be washing over them again, any second now. This book is the legacy that I think Maxine Brown has always craved, in addition to her musical one.

Strong recommend for any reader. If you are a music fan or a country music fan, then that is just gravy, because this is universal story of what struggling to succeed was like before the insta-celebrity of reality TV and the internet.

Years before Elvis Presley burst onto the scene, there were the Browns - Maxine, Jim Ed and Bonnie - who rolled out number one hits, topping the charts and capturing the attention of famous singers who eventually followed.

People came - Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly, and the King himself - just to hear them. "They came, they brushed up against the Browns, and then they went on their way - magic-brushed, and forged from a fire they sometimes didn't even realize they'd touch, though others of them understood right from the very beginning the nature of the raw talent they were witnessing."

In Nashville Chrome, the legacy of the Browns is explored - their longing for fame, the aftereffects of achieving fame, the recalibration of "home" with its myriad of meanings. The book is devoted to "truthiness"; Rick Bass quotes Ron Carlson in saying, "I try not to confuse the facts with the truth."

What he sets out to do is to unearth his truth and he does it with lyrical and often elegiac sensitivity. The Browns lived in simpler times... of small town growing-up, longings for love, dressing up for boys, cruel betrayals. Together as children, they sung three-part harmonies that were so smooth that they were dubbed "Nashville chrome." During an early performance, they naively sign an iron-clad contract with an exploitive, morally challenged manager who, in effect, "owns" them from that point on, paying them next-to-nothing and working them hard.

Rick Bass writes, "None of the Browns had a clue. They were like racehorses with blinders, thundering down the dirt track. There was a jockey lashing them, and the horses were dimly aware that there were people in the stands, but they knew nothing of where the track was going - whether it was straightening or circling in a loop - or of the consequences of their efforts and accomplishments."

The family eventually makes the acquaintance of a young and then-unknown Elvis; Elvis is drawn to the younger sister Bonnie and they enter into a sweet first love. Rather than lionize Elvis, this book humanizes him and chronicles this real-life friendship with unusual authenticity.

This is an exquisitely written book - a novel that jumps from the heyday of the Browns to the present, where Maxine - now aging, ailing, and yearning for her glory days - has never been able to obtain the serenity of her younger siblings. It's a psychologically-complex portrayal of a family "united in the desire to spill out onto the world and to change it before realizing that they each finally had to pull away." Kudos to Rick Bass for this incredible rendering.

Brief summary, no spoilers.

This book is a fictionalization of the lives the Browns - a country trio that dominated the country and pop charts back in the late 1950's. Never heard of them? I hadn't either, and I thought I knew quite a bit about music. As it turns out, The Browns were not only at the top of the charts, they were close friends and buddies with Elvis Presley, and even had the Beatles as fans. But they faded away during the 1960s, and are little known today despite having attained charting records that stand to this day.

What this book does is give us the background of Maxine, Bonnie and Jim Ed Brown, taking us from their impoverished upbringing in the backwoods of the deep south during the depression, all the way to the present, in their old age. In particular, we follow the thoughts and life of Maxine - the eldest sister and the most ambitious. The loss of fame was the hardest on her, and the scenes from her old age are emotional and poignant.

Which is how I can describe this whole novel. I was not that interested in the subject matter of this book, but a friend gave it his highest recommendation so I thought I'd give it a try. The writing is a wonder. Truly. The scenes are so well described, we can see, smell, taste and even feel them. And the ability of the author to so believably get inside the minds of characters in adolescence up to old age is impressive.

This is just a beautifully written story. There are so many exquisite passages, that I wouldn't know where to begin to excerpt. Here is just one short example :

"Floyd was born in 1895. Parts of three centuries separate the then from the now, the beginning of his life and the trailing-away of hers, and yet the sound wave of him, the disturbed energy of his presence and actions in the world, will not fade. A hundred and fifteen years separates where he began and where she is now, and what she remembers when she thinks of her father is not so much the fights of adolescence over control and suspicion, boundaries and rebellion, or his heroic labors in the forest, trying to scrape together a living, but the quiet dark spaces of early evening, the relative silences when he would come in from the mill, smelling of sawdust and diesel, and would go to the cabinet and take down his bottle and pour his first small glass of whiskey."

I hope this book gets a big audience, and I know that I will be picking up some of the author's past works. He is incredibly talented, and I am so glad and that I was able to experience this book because it really was a reading high for me, and it's going on my all-time best reads list. It's that good.

Fascinating historical fiction from Rick Bass that examines the heights and depths of American music through the lives of Maxine, Bonnie and Jim Ed Brown - whose early success as a singing trio coincided with the rise of their friend Elvis Presley. "Nashville Chrome" (2010) is an emotional journey written with haunting lyricism. Bass' third novel represents a masterful change of pace while creating an evocative cultural landscape. Highly recommended.

It probably takes being able to remember large radio consoles or "transistor" radios that sometimes had to be turned just right for reception of the radio station you wanted to follow to really recognize this group. They were wonderful harmonizers.As this book so beautifully tells, those harmonies were a result of working in their daddy's sawmill. The singing of the saw blades always let them know how sharp or dull the blades were and their very lives depended on keeping a blade sharp and in its proper alignment. They sharpen the blades themselves. This is the theory of how they developed their fabulous "ear" for harmony because these children worked in the mill for their father who could be a fearsome drunk. He ruled his children with an iron if unsteady hand. The Browns, as they were known,sang such sweet harmonies and were such great performers that they were soon a draw in radio and the recording industry. Elvis was even attracted to their sound and became a good friend but betrayed them; probably because he like them was in the thrall of an unscrupulous agent/manager.This is a novel based on a true story but because of the time involved, it does ring true. There are probably many similar stories of family groups that were not as well known as the Browns.From their extreme poverty to great success that did not translate into great wealth for them there was some happiness in their later lives although Maxine, the most ambitious, would never be satisfied until someone made a movie of their lives!

Rick Bass' "Nashville Chrome" is a work of fiction featuring almost exclusively real people. Ostensibly about the wildly successful family group The Browns who were a mainstay of the country, pop and folk charts in the 1950s and 1960s, the novel is a meditation on fame, the desire for fame and the choices and changes we make in the pursuit of or, sometimes, the spurning of it.

And yet it's power is tremendously diminished by framing the story with the Brown family (Maxine, Jim Ed and Bonnie) when it reads as if the main character, the one making the writer's primary point, is Elvis Presley, who became an unofficial member of the Brown family long before he became "The King" and their primary chart competition once he became "The King" taking music in new directions that ultimately made the music of the Browns irrelevant. The sections concerning his extended courtship of younger sister Bonnie and their estrangement as his success/fame snowballs are the heart of this book and the most compelling.

But Mr. Bass has chosen to frame this novel as primarily the story of oldest sister Maxine Brown, long after the glory days of the group but still hungering for a return to her former fame. This is especially odd considering that she has already published her own memoir. Mr. Bass mentions this memoir in his acknowledgments saying "For true-life details, facts, and events, see Maxine Brown's "Looking Back To See." The framing device of her putting up a note on a supermarket bulletin board looking for someone to make a movie out of her life and its being answered by twelve year old "filmmaker" Jefferson Eads simply does not ring true.

In addition, brother Jim Ed Brown, their vocal anchor and the only one of the three siblings to achieve success after the end of the Browns era, is barely more than a cipher until after he comes out from under the shadow of his sisters

In fact much of the novel feels false if only because when it is making it's points it is lyrical, beautifully written and believable, but the remainder is superficial, facile and unsatisfying because momentous things happen so easily that it seems a form of American magic realism. Whereas the Ozark Mountain location that was home to the Brown Family would be a perfect milieu for magic realism, the details of their professional roller coaster ride are underwritten as if it was an every day occurrence in the music business. It's as if we've repeatedly heard these stories told in the lives of other stars and, this being a novel, there was no need to belabor the historical facts for the reader.

For a novel called "Nashville Chrome" (which I assumed was a play on Nashville Brass), Nashville is barely present in the book other than in the personage of musical genius Chet Atkins and yet it is Chet Atkins as the musician and friend rather than the representative of the town and sound he almost single-handedly created.

An often-times gloriously written story that is always an easy read (despite Mr. Bass' love of comma clauses), "Nashville Chrome" ultimately fizzles out at the end, much like the career of The Browns. And for those of you not familiar with them beyond their biggest him "The Three Bells," the German record label Bear Family has released an 8 CD package of their recorded output which includes over 240 songs. You may not remember them or you may be too young to have heard of them but they were major international stars with famous admirers like Elvis and the Beatles. It's a shame a novel based on their lives wasn't as satisfying as their music was and remains.

To be honest, I picked the book up at the local library because I liked the cover. It gave me that same feeling I get when I put on some Johnny Cash or Patsy Cline. It's a perfect cover because that's exactly what I got when I started reading.

Bass conjures up those American back roads that feel to be lined with twangy notes, perfect pitch, and long lost bars of music. He does it well. I caught myself once, after closing the book, unconsciously brushing flecks of sawdust from my shirt. His sense of time and place could almost carry the book all on their own. But they don't.

What I found most engaging was the effective way he drew you right into landscapes, both physical and internal. When I'm not traveling through the dense woods up around Poplar Creek, I am traveling along Maxine's internal landscapes in much the same way. In this way, the book reminds me of recent Dylan recordings like, "Modern Times." It's as if you are literally traveling along the lines that lightly separate worlds, inside and out.

Additionally, Bass does an achingly painful job of expressing what it is to be old. And forgotten. His detailed description of Maxine planning out a trip to the grocery store, and the worry and fear it swirls around inside her makes you look at the elderly a whole lot differently. To attempt to unlock memories long lost with Maxine is equally gut wrenching. He is able to strike nerve after nerve.

I hand no idea that the Browns were real at all, and immediately looked up some of their recordings. I wasn't able to see or feel in the recordings what Bass feels. The actual songs made me long for the songs Bass gave me. I liked his take on them better than the real thing. It's like that with music, though. I'm always disappointed when someone can't hear or feel what I'm getting from an artist or song. It must be this way for Bass. It hardly matters. It's a great read, rich with complex characters and touching, life-defining moments. Great, great stuff.

Chris Bowen
Author of Our Kids: Building Relationships in the Classroom

NASHVILLE CHROME

My parents must have enjoyed the Browns music because my entire life I have walked around humming/singing THE OLD LAMPLIGHTER or THE THREE BELLS aka LITTLE JIMMY BROWN. Never did I know who sang the songs, when they were popular, I just sang them. It was a pleasant surprise when reading NASHVILLE CHROME to find out who did sing the mystery songs I have been singing - quite badly, I may add - for so many years.

Based on interviews with the family and also fictional, Rick Bass gives the reader a bird's eye view into the lives of the three Browns. Born and raised in the deep rural area of Arkansas, the little Brown kids had voices that could make grown men weep. Maxine, Bonnie, and Jim Ed could sing the phone book and make it a beautiful harmony!

Told primarily from Maxine's point of view, we travel back in time to when the Browns were getting started and their path to fame. Along the way they meet many of the big names, Elvis just to name one. Oh, and a little group called The Beatles you may have heard about. They appeared on Ed Sullivan and American Bandstand, but their journey into stardom was filled with struggles and problems along the way.

Rick Bass writes like a dream. For example -- "The days and nights pass through her like light through a pane of dark glass." Or -- "The Browns' tempered harmony was soothing, and it healed, for a little while, the wounds of whoever listened to it - ". And - "At a show in Little Rock, she went blind. She had been having a ferocious headache for days, but had been pushing through. She had to be led from the stage and driven straight to the hospital, where doctors found an infected tooth; upon their removal of it, her sight returned, slowly at first, but then with full capacity, and for days afterward she marveled at how beautiful the world looked, and at the miracle of a second chance."

Join the Browns as they grow up, find fame, love, success, meet other famous people, deal with heartbreak and just plain living. Find their songs on the computer and listen to their beautiful and glorious voices and listen to what you may have been missing. The Browns will make your nights a little brighter --

Thank you.

Pam

Besides Jane Austen and Kafka, the only other author I've read ALL of is Rick Bass. I thought this new book of his might take me away from what I love about him -- acute observation of wilderness and heart-wilderness, wisdom, compassion, the West -- but it did not. Yes, this book seems wildly different than his previous work, but I wasn't dissapointed. In fact, I find myself caring about a set of people and a place that I frankly haven't been that interested in. Which is to say: fans of Bass will stay fans of Bass.

Rick Bass' Nashville Chrome is an entertaining and interesting novel that tells the story of the Brown family, real-life country singers from the 1950s. The story of the Browns is surprising in that they were quite popular, quite famous, yet now fifty-plus years later are all but forgotten. Bass tells the story with a lyrical style that I frankly found a bit too self-conscious and forced, almost clunky. If a lyrical narrative style appeals to you, or if you want to learn a bit about the music scene of the 1950s and early 1960s (there are cameo roles for Elvis, the Beatles and other notables of that time), give this novel a try. It is moves quickly and does not get bogged down in any one time.