Really hit this book hard the last week or so and finished it today. Boy is it a good read if you're into music history. I love the way that it was written - each chapter is 3-5 pages and is pretty much a little blurb or short story about a topic. Made it really easy for my short attention span to keep up.
There are a lot of great anecdotes from Charlie Louvin, and lots of famous people pop up along the way. Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Gram Parsons, George Jones (and cocaine!), Bill Monroe, Ray Charles, and others make an appearance as people who influenced or were influenced by the Louvin Brothers. Charlie was the sober brother, and as he tells about the "rock and roll" lifestyle lived by musicians you get the sense of how much it hurt for him to see his brother as well as a whole host of other country musicians fall victim to that lifestyle. The obvious contrast between that lifestyle and them singing gospel music was fun to explore.
He also spends a lot of time ruminating about growing up as a hillbilly (in his own words) in the south, and what effect the rural life and culture had on him and his brother. And he paints a very conflicted of his father who was very strict and cruel at times, but who he still had an appreciation for. It's interesting.
Charlie Louvin died 2 months after he finished writing this book, and he went out on a damn good note. Recommended if you're into country music specifically, but if you like music history or portraits of middle America and 1940s-60s culture, then this is for you.