Glory Road

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1950s
1950s Music
A01=Anita Faye Garner
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Author_Anita Faye Garner
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Blues
Blues Music
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=APB
Category=ATC
Category=AVGD
Category=AVGL
Category=AVL
Category=BGFA
Category=DNBF1
child performers
COP=United States
Country
Country Music
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Dot Records
Elvis Presley
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Fern Jones
gospel
Gospel Music
gospel quartets
Governor Jimmie Davis
Jimmie Davis
Johnny Cash
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
Racial Segregation
Rockabilly
segregation
softlaunch
southern gospel
Sun Records
Tent Revivals

Product details

  • ISBN 9780817320911
  • Weight: 520g
  • Dimensions: 152 x 231mm
  • Publication Date: 13 Apr 2021
  • Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
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Stories and songs from a childhood spent in a vanished world of revivals and road shows
 
Anita Faye Garner grew up in the South-just about every corner of it. She and her musical family lived in Texarkana, Bossier City, Hot Springs, Jackson, Vicksburg, Hattiesburg, Pascagoula, Bogalusa, Biloxi, Gulfport, New Orleans, and points between, picking up sticks every time her father, a Pentecostal preacher known as 'Brother Ray,' took over a new congregation.
 
In between jump-starting churches, Brother Ray took his wife and kids out on the gospel revival circuit as the Jones Family Singers. Ray could sing and play, and 'Sister Fern' (Mama) was a celebrated singer and songwriter, possessed of both talent and beauty. Rounding out the band were the young Garner (known as Nita Faye then) and her big brother Leslie Ray. At all-day singings and tent revivals across the South, the Joneses made a joyful noise for the faithful and loaded into the car for the next stage of their tour.
 
But growing up gospel wasn't always joyous. The kids practically raised and fended for themselves, bonding over a shared dislike of their rootless life and strict religious upbringing. Sister Fern dreamed of crossing over from gospel to popular music and recording a hit record. An unlikely combination of preacher's wife and glamorous performer, she had the talent and presence to make a splash, and her remarkable voice brought Saturday night rock and roll to Sunday morning music. Always singing, performing, and recording at the margins of commercial success, Sister Fern shared a backing band with Elvis Presley and wrote songs recorded by Johnny Cash and many other artists.
 
In her touching memoir The Glory Road, Anita Faye Garner re-creates her remarkable upbringing. The story begins with Ray's attempts to settle down and the family's inevitable return to the gospel circuit and concludes with Sister Fern's brushes with stardom and the family's journey west to California where they finally landed-with some unexpected detours along the way. The Glory Road carries readers back to the 1950s South and the intersections of faith and family at the very roots of American popular music.
Anita Faye Garner enjoyed a long career in radio, on the air in San Francisco and Los Angeles and as host of nationally syndicated shows, The Great Starship and Something Special. She was an announcer for decades for KCET-TV in Hollywood, PBS for Southern California. She won the 2009 John Steinbeck Short Story Award, and her work appears in Saturday Evening Post's 2015 Great American Fiction anthology.

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