{"id":1214,"date":"2018-12-31T16:14:58","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1214"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:14:58","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:14:58","slug":"lone-star-reviewsmichelle-newby-nbcc-99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1214","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Lone Star Reviews<\/span>Michelle Newby, NBCC,<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n
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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

>> archive<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0Gary P. Nunn writes about his life in music<\/h1>\n

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Gary P. Nunn is considered one of the founding fathers<\/span> of the Austin music scene that evolved in the 1970s as a blend of country, rock, jazz, and folk and spawned such iconic figures as Willie Nelson, Michael Martin Murphey, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Waylon Jennings.<\/p>\n

Nunn was there from the start, usually playing bass or piano or organ, singing backup, and even opening up his home where visiting musicians could crash.<\/p>\n

And he started writing songs \u2014 the best known of which was \u201cLondon Homesick Blues,\u201d which includes the memorable chorus, \u201cI want to go home with the armadillo, good country music from Amarillo and Abilene; the friendliest people and the prettiest women you\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLondon Homesick Blues\u201d would become the theme song for the Austin City Limits<\/span> TV show from 1977 to 2004.<\/p>\n

Nunn, now 72, has published his memoirs, appropriately titled At Home with the Armadillo<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Greenleaf Book Group, $24.95 hardcover).<\/p>\n

The 320-page saga begins in Oklahoma, where Nunn was born and lived until his family moved to Brownfield when he was twelve. He started playing music in junior high and caught on with several West Texas rock bands before moving to Austin in 1967 to attend the University of Texas and study to be a pharmacist.<\/p>\n

Music soon won out over pharmacy. Nunn played and sang with Murphey and Walker, traveling around the country and even overseas.<\/p>\n

It was on a trip to London with Murphey that Nunn composed \u201cLondon Homesick Blues\u201d on a cold, drizzly, miserable day. \u201cI never imagined at the time that anything would ever come of it!\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

Well, it did. Many songs later, now even a book has resulted from it.<\/p>\n

Nunn is also an avid photographer, and he said he relied on his photographs to help stir his memories in writing the book. Oddly, the book doesn\u2019t include any photos, but Nunn has talked about a book of photos as a future project.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s ever a second edition of At Home with the Armadillo,<\/span> the publisher might consider adding an index because Nunn\u2019s narrative mentions so many musicians that he played with over the years. An index would be a handy reference.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> has been writing his Texas Reads column since 2002, focusing on Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/p>\n

>> <\/span>Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit<\/a><\/span>erary Life<\/span><\/h1>\n

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Maverick Books<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-5953-4807-7 (also available as an e-book), 304 pgs., $32.50<\/p>\n

November 7, 2017<\/p>\n

The datelines are Mobeetie and the Boquillas Crossing, Cotulla and Paducah, <\/span>Comfort and Aurora (the Roswell of Texas), Bigfoot (named for Bigfoot Wallace) and Indianola, Canton and Hawkins. The subjects are as disparate as Temple Lea Houston, Italian prisoners of World War II, water witches, and aliens. There is cowboy poetry in Alpine, Chataqua in Waxahachie, the Sanctified Sisters of Belton (a commune whose book collection became the Belton Public Library), the world\u2019s only beauty salon\/bookstore (Beauty and the Book), man-heads buried in Malakoff, Port Arthur trying to talk Hollywood into blowing up its downtown, and that time the Marx brothers were arrested for playing cards on Sunday in Nacogdoches.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Flatiron Books<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-2500-5891-1, (also available as an e-book), 384 pgs., $27.99<\/p>\n

February 6, 2018<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly in Texas was there enough space for so many second acts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Family\u2019s Search for the American Dream is the best kind of history.<\/span> The microcosm of a family story (anecdote) illustrates the macrocosm of a place and time (demographic). In Bryan Mealer\u2019s<\/span> account, his family\u2019s history begins in 1892, when \u201ctrouble between the moonshiners and revenuers\u201d motivated his great-grandfather to leave a Georgia hollow behind to join his brother in Texas, where he landed in Hillsboro. By 1909, motivated by the boll weevil, the Mealers lit out for West Texas, along with many others who \u201cpulled their teams across the 98th meridian and entered the American West,\u201d eventually finding their way to Big Spring, where oil has been discovered, refineries has been built, and a fifteen-story hotel is rising. >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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introducing LONE STAR LIT\u2019S NEWEST FEATURE<\/span><\/h1>\n

LONE STAR LISTENS interviews\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Author interviews by Kay Ellington<\/span><\/h1>\n

2.4.2018\u00a0 \u201cQueen of Christian suspense\u201d DiAnn Mills on creativity, Christian fiction \u2014 and coffee<\/h1>\n

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DiAnn Mills is a bestselling Texas-based author<\/span> who creates action-packed, suspense-filled novels in Christian fiction \u2014 and has sold more than 2.5 million copies of them. Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and have been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers\u2019 Choice, and Carol award contests. <\/span>Library Journal presented her with a Best Books 2014: Genre Fiction award in the Christian Fiction category for <\/span>Firewall.<\/span> She spoke with us via email about her latest book, High Treason,<\/span> launching this week, and her life as an author.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where did you grow up, DiAnn? What was that like; and how do you think it may have inspired you to write later in life?<\/p>\n

I grew up in Bucyrus, Ohio, a rural community. Many of those years were on a small farm. We had a creek flowing through our property, and lots of animals. The pastoral environment gave me lots of quiet time, nestled in nature. I\u2019ve always created story, and my growing-up years paved the way to create. >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events<\/span><\/a><\/span>Bookish Texas<\/span> event highlights\u00a0 2.4.2018 <\/span>>> GO this week\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK<\/span><\/p>\n