Highways and Heartaches is filled with numerous stories about country music legends. If you enjoy the history of country music and its singers, this is the book for you.

This was an interesting book about Marty Stewart and Rickett's Skaggs. And how they traveled to these different places to play music. When they started out playing with all these famous bluegrass. People at different shows and different roadsides.. And showed how hard it was for their families to let them go. But they were very young at the time. And it was interesting because I learned a lot about how they form the bands and stuff like that.. I learned a lot about how they formed different bands through their career. And how they got to California and I I Emily And Graham parson also Influence them in music as well. Johnny cash also helped them along as well he left and played with them. Martin stuart started very young and he could play many different instruments. Ricky skaggs was the one who wrote a lot of the music for his band and he also played many different insurance as well. I couldn't imagine playing all these hawking talks and driving all these hours. Some of them were rejected to pills and alcohol. I like the title because it was also a hard day for them as well.. You learned a lot about this music. The backgrounds and how country music was changing from classic country to more of a modern rock type in the 70s and eighplease..

I wanted to read this book because, although it says "country" music, it is a history of bluegrass music and I grew up with it. My Dad played both guitar and banjo and every Friday night at our home people would gather, pull out the instruments and songbooks and sing and play both country and bluegrass tunes. They called these picking session "hootenannys". Now one of my brothers plays banjo in a bluegrass band.

It was fun to read about Ricky Scaggs and Marty Stuart playing from the time they were young boys. They were mentored by the legends of bluegrass music: Lester Flatt mentored Stuart while Earl Scruggs mentored Scaggs. The book described how the music grew and changed over time and the huge parts played by both Studart and Skaggs.

I was amazed at how fluidly the musicians picked up and played at the drop of a hat with another band and seemed to fit right in. Also, I was surprised at some of the rock artists these bluegrass stars ended up working with at times. I loved reading about Skaggs' great relationship with Emmylou Harris and how what he learned while playing in her 'Hot Band' helped in his music production skills.

A good book for anyone who loves music to read. It provides a perspective of how country/bluegrass music grew and matured and changed over time and yet the roots are still there forever.

Thanks to Hachette Books through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on August 8, 2023.

I wrote a review for Kirkus....not sure when it is coming out...but I liked this text quite a bit.
DOUG

I found it interesting to learn about the history of country music. There were many details I had never learned about before. I think this book would be specific for people who are country music fans; it is not for everyone.

I was a big fan of Marty Stuart as a teenager and this goes back into the history of him first performing bluegrass with the likes of Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Rodney Crowell, and Emmylou Harris. These singers who performed country in the 80's and 90's is a big part of my childhood and I was impressed this book gave a shoutout to Pam Tillis, my most favorite country music artist of all time.
This book also addressed racial tension in the South and how long it took to have justice served for three murdered black men. I am glad the family and community got closure.
I found it interesting that Marty Stuart also supports the Indian community, he is an all around good man and I hope all of their music and legacies live on as the country music of today becomes more "pop" every year. This is the good music, the music I line danced to as a teen and have good childhood memories. Bluegrass is what started it all and this was a very interesting book. I received an advance copy for my honest review.

This is a well-researched and very interesting book about two icons of country music — Ricky Skaggs and Marty Stuart. Both are incredibly talented musicians from the rural South, and both have come to symbolize the fusion of bluegrass and country genres in the 1970s and ‘80s. This is a fascinating account, although it tends to get bogged down with minute detail. Definitely one for true bluegrass music fans.