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List Price: $14.95 | | Publisher: Centerstream
Salesrank: 139233
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| Our Price: $9.57 |
| Used Price: $10.34 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
One of the most bizarre stories in all of popular music is the history of "Orange Blossom Special," arguably the century's best-known fiddle tune. The man credited with its ownership, Ervin T. Rouse, endured tragedy, alcoholism and mental illness. He spent his last years fiddling for tips in isolated taverns at the edge of the Everglades, and died all but unknown. The man who claimed co-ownership, Chubby Wise, achieved fame as the seminal fiddler of the bluegrass genre, but struggled to overcome personal demons and to heal the scars of childhood abandonment and abuse. Johnny Cash, the tortured superstar who made the song a mainstream hit, quietly championed Rouse and earned the enmity of Wise. This trio's disparate legacies are here told - and forever linked with the legendary diesel steamliner. "Fascinating ... a compelling story told in an artful and human way. The writing reads like the best fiction." - Gainesville Sun
Fiddler's Curse: The Untold Story of Ervin T. Rouse, Chubby Wise, Johnny Cash, and The Orange Blossom Special (Revised and Updated) Reviews:
Wraps bluegrass, country music, and the itinerant 1930s into one fascinating package 
2007-07-31 - 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
Fascinating piece of Americana
2007-07-25 - 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.
