Outlaw

Outlaw by acclaimed author Michael Streissguth follows the stories of three legends as they redefined country music: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.Streissguth delves into the country music scene in the late '60s and early '70s, when these rebels found themselves in Music City writing songs and vying for record deals. Channeling the unrest of the times, all three Country Music Hall of Famers resisted the music industry's unwritten rules and emerged as leaders of the outlaw movement that ultimately changed the recording industry.Outlaw offers a broad portrait of the outlaw movement in Nashville that includes a diverse secondary cast of characters, such as Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell, Kinky Friedman, and Billy Joe Shaver, among others.With archival photographs throughout, Outlaw is a comprehensive examination of a fascinating shift in country music, and the three unbelievably talented musicians who forged the way.

Reviews

Riveting -- Wall Street Journal "A biting, in-depth chronicle of Nashville's most tumultuous era told through the voices of iconic artists who used their music to accomplish significant changes in the music industry." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Offers a look at the how the 'outlaw' music of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson shook up Nashville in the late '60s and '70s... Author Streissguth has country music bona fides: He also wrote Johnny Cash: The Biography. -- USA Today A riveting look at how how three Texans joined forces to liberate Nashville from its company-town ways in the 1970s. It is a small group portrait, tightly focused and well told by Michael Streissguth. -- Wall Street Journal Outlaw is an entertaining, authoritative account of Nashville's rebel years. -- popmatters.com "Compulsively readable..." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) Streissguth goes widescreen with this look at the social and musical ferment that produced the Seventies outlaw-country movement... [he] skillfully portrays Sixties Nashville's studio politics and their gradual loosening up, alongside a city where post-Sixties social change took its time arriving. -- Rolling Stone