Nashville Chrome: A Poignant Literary Tale of 1959 Country Music and Family Legacy

by Rick Bass

"Bass creates a slice of music history from the ground up, from the backwoods and front porches all the way to Elvis." — Los Angeles Times 1959: the Brown siblings are the biggest thing in country music. Their inimitable harmony will give rise to the polished sound of the multibillion-dollar country music industry we know today. But when the bonds of family begin to fray, the flame of their celebrity proves as brilliant as it is fleeting. In this arresting novel, acclaimed author Rick Bass draws poignant portraits of their lives, lived both in and out of the limelight. Masterfully jumping between the Browns’ once auspicious past and the heartbreaking present, Nashville Chrome is the richly imagined story of this forgotten family and an unflinching portrait of an era in American music. "An empathic, breath-catching, mythic and profoundly American tale of creation, destruction and renewal." — Kansas City Star
"Splendid . . . Rick Bass’s best. " — Dallas Morning News

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Music, Novels

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Rick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Houston, the son of a geologist. He studied petroleum geology at Utah State University and while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi, began writing short stories on his lunch breaks. In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes Bass, to Montana’s remote Yaak Valley and became an active environmentalist, working to protect his adopted home from the destructive encroachment of roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies and continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana, actively engaged in saving the American wilderness.

Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some people get Rick Bass, others don't. Just when I thought I did, I came across this one. Different, but also good. It has a quasi biography, quasi short story collection, quasi novel feel to it. What it does well (in keeping with his written works about everything from hunting trips to oil rigs to Rhinos mounted in gas stations to naked drifts in cold water streams to landscapes and prison cells) is get inside the heads of his characters. Exposing us all to the thoughts we've each had---then quickly buried as best we could, and rarely mentioned to anyone.

In this case, Bass displays those perplexing emotions through telling the story of a once famous, often forgotten trio of two sisters and a brother- the Browns. They rose out of the swamps and sawdust (literally) to achieve fame and then ride that wave down in three different ways. To any music fan, it is an interesting look into that world. Elvis is a quite involved character in the book- but it will likely be a different Elvis than you remember.

In our family, we presently follow The Avett Brothers with some fervor. There are so many of their quotes I could link to this book that I won't even start.....every chapter could be named a song......."Another is Waiting", "Down with the Shine", "Life", "The Clearness is Gone", "Skin and Bones", "Smoke in our Lights"......just about all the pretty girl songs (Avett fans will understand).

Bass' point, however, is not one that ties to music. The humanity on display is present in all walks of life. Musician, artist, author, insurance guy, preacher, teacher, dog walker.......the responses to life are more interesting than the life itself. For this reader, the connections were made. I would personally still recommend The Watch for any first time readers of this author, but this one would show you yet another example of how diverse a subject he can pick to still make his points.

[Paddy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why a novel? The Browns deserved better. The reader can't tell fiction from fact, it's more a faux ethnography than a novel. Although I'm a Cormac McCarthy fan (especially of Suttree), his opening quote that Bass employs is the best thing about this book. Bass uses a McCarthy-inspired style for the opening chapters that does not measure up by any means. Case in point: describing Arkansas woodsmen, Bass writes, "Many of them had become lithified to the world, with only the perspiration that sprang from them beneath the bright sun, and the occasional blood that leapt from them when injured, indicating they were still creatures of this world and not some strange half-machine beings themselves." After a hundred pages, I started skimming and jumped to the end, grateful to be returning this to the library.

[TC · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Show me don't tell me" seems like a rule the author has set out to deliberately ignore and flaunt, as the entire "novel" is more like a huge creative writing exercise in how to string together endless paragraphs of similes and reflections. No one really does or says anything; instead, the author spends pages describing the incident, the character, the moment, the sunrise, and everything else in terms that appear to put it all within its proper context of the entire universe and all of human history.

The "story" that all this hangs on--really, the author could glom this onto any human activity, or maybe even the activity of a cow or a parked car--is about the Brown family, a close harmony group who were popular in the 1950s and 1960s who lived a kind of Zelig-like existence, with nearly every name imaginable from that era spending a weekend hunting and fishing with them or stopping by for a bite of pie at their folks' restaurant in Poplar Creek, Arkansas. Elvis, Chet Atkins, Jim Reeves, even the Beatles are all on a first-name basis with the Browns. It was so ridiculous that I almost gave up half-way through, turning to the back to see how long I had; and there I found myself at the Acknowledgments page.

And it was on that Acknowledgements page that I read the subject of the story was, in fact, real: the Browns were a real group with real hits and a real influence on pop music, and really did know all those big names, even the Beatles. Only after I went to the website of Maxine, the oldest sister, did I realize that I too knew the Brown family, from their huge hit The Three Bells, about a man who lives his entire existence in a bucolic valley marking his life events with the ringing of the church's bell.

So some of this is true. Maybe even most of it. Knowing that rekindled my interest in finishing the book and changed my perspective from chortling at the ridiculousness of having the Beatles fly to Arkansas to learn harmony from The Browns to wondering just where the line is between truth and story here. In essence, this is a work of historical fiction.

But the wall of descriptive prose that passes for storytelling is still ponderous. The only redeeming quality is in the midst of all this bloviation, the author occasionally strings together a phrase or two that is memorable and quite beautiful. Near the end of the book, for example, he mentions Maxine fueling herself for an argument over her drinking by, well, drinking, and describes it as "fire in her veins, fire in her brain." So the author can turn an amazing phrase on occasion. It's almost worth wading through the gorp to read them.

It might be worth reading too, if you're already an aficionado of the mid-twentieth-century Nashville scene, and can find that line between fact and fiction easier than someone like me who is not. But on the whole I think this is just a wordy exercise.

[JD Waggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up on a total whim because I was driving out of Nashville and it's about Nashville and hey, why not. The story follows a trio of siblings who work their way through the rising country music scene in the 40s and 50s and it could have been really cool, but unfortunately Bass completely mishandled it.

The "show don't tell" image is because maybe (maaaaaybe) 10% of this whole thing is dialogue, and you know what you can't do with very little dialogue? Tell a long story. Especially tell a long story with characters anywhere near vibrant. I felt like I was reading a long essay of the author's delight in these people who never had the chance to be fully real to me because I only ever heard his voice rather than theirs. (Well, I heard the voice of the actress who read this on the audiobook; she was okay. Nothing exciting, but not unpleasant.) And the flashbacks between the aging Browns and their youth in stardom always felt disconnected, not in the chronological way that time swings like that inevitably must but in some way that evoked a sense of bored pity about the decline of fame rather than a sorrow with investment in the characters' shifts.

Which, that's a thing; this book was just depressing. It wasn't meant to be, but since I never connected to the characters and had nothing to go on in terms of emotive triumph other than Bass telling me there was emotive triumph, I ended up just feeling like I need to go hug my great-aunt who lives alone in her childhood house and sleeps on the downstairs recliner. I didn't feel as though some arc had been completed or that hope lay in the future for the Browns or the videographer kid.

Also, whoever produced this audiobook missed out on a ton of opportunities. Out of curiosity, I Googled the Browns and discovered holy crow, they were real. This is an imagined version of a true story, but neither the text nor the production really give it that feeling. Okay, Elvis is a secondary character, but all manner of stories have been written with fictional main characters moving among historical figures. I never got the feeling that it was real--and one of the huge things the audiobook missed was using real sound. It's an audiobook! Use the Browns' music as transition pieces or examples or something; let the reader know what the author means when he yammers insistently about the wholeness and peace their sound produced in its listeners.

So the story was interesting and I'm glad to have been introduced to this family and their music, but this could have been done with such strength and verve--I'm sorry that the Browns got undersold yet again. Well, as of 2016, Maxine is still alive. Maybe there'll be something better to commemorate her yet.

[Peggy Fake · Rating 1 out of 5]

So boring. So depressing. Basically the book (is it fiction or biography—you decide!) contains the inner musings: psychological, philosophical and even existential of a female singer, Maxine Brown. In her early years, her complex thoughts about the sounds of her backwoods environment and the natural harmony she and her siblings made together are somewhat interesting but eventually I realized that the book would never move beyond these inner reflections—only that the thoughts would become obsessive and then bitter. It’s written with an omniscient narrator perspective so other people are also doing their own musing. Towards the end, a precocious 12 yr old boy started filming her with elaborate concepts of scenes and definite ideas of filming choices which leads the reader to believe he has a specific final result in mind. The reader is subjected at length to more deep philosophical musings, this time of a 12 yr old, but this part of the book at least had some action and generated some suspense about whether the film would portray her negatively or positively and how would she react depending on this. The author doesn’t bother to describe the resulting film! And here’s the gut kicker: this book is about one very real Maxine Brown, still alive at time of publication! So this book portrays a real person negatively by fictionalizing her inner thoughts. What is the point? The few pretty sentences Rick Bass writes so well are wasted here.

[Carol Bakker]

I started this book knowing nothing about it — but it had Nashville in the title, and I was headed to Nashville.

I became more curious about the Browns as I read. I did an internet search. Gracious, these are not fictional characters! When I discovered that this was a *novel* written about recently living people (the siblings died in 2015, 2016, and 2019), it was a hard stop for me. Even though I enjoyed the writing and the narrative of the small part I did read.

[Lynne Perednia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rick Bass has written glorious, thick, rich and deep stories and nonfiction about the West, as well as The Diezmo, a slim novel about a band of would-be militia conquerors of Mexico sent by Sam Houston on a mission that goes horribly wrong. So it was a surprise that he went to the deep South and to music for his latest novel, Nashville Chrome (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010). It's a fictionalized account of the Browns, a sibling trio who created remarkable harmonies that pioneered American music, and their relationships with everyone from Elvis and, in passing, Johnny Cash, to Chet Atkins and Jim Reeves.

The writing about music and harsh survival is beautiful. So are his depictions of family relationships, as complicated as any layered harmonies created by the siblings in their music. But, as with all fiction based on real people, there are times it's highly uncomfortable to read and wondering what's real and what was manufactured to make a point with the storyline takes over being led by the narrative itself. Bass thanks Maxine, Jim Ed and Bonnie, the three Brown siblings, still alive, in his acknowledgements, adding to the uncomfortable factor. Oldest sibling Maxine, the magical one who is left all alone, makes for a sad central figure but doesn't have center stage often. Many of the big events in their lives happen offstage or in such oblique terms after tons of foreshadowing that those who read propelled by plot alone will be disappointed.

Bass uses the story of the Browns to write about how people connect, either in harmony or not. He writes about people who take, such as Elvis and a very young filmmaker at the end of the novel, and even Maxine, and those who give, such as the Browns' mother Birdie and always-happy sister Bonnie, and even Maxine. There is meditating on greatness and the hunger for it, and "the heartlessness of ambition" as Maxine realizes when old even while still craving recognition.

Life is a search for harmony and most of life is a metaphor in the novel. A lot of passages are ending up in my chapbook.

[Debie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was chosen by my bookclub. It's doubtful I would have read it otherwise. Though there were some interesting parts, overall I really struggled with the author's style. The third person Omniscient Narration made it hard for me to get attached to any of the characters. The almost total lack of dialogue made the story too dry for my tastes as well.

Flowery prose seems to be this author's strong suit, and some of the imagery was beautiful. But many parts were clunky and read like a thesaurus had thrown up on the page. He also seemed to be carried away with excesses analogies, often using conflicting ones to describe the same scene.

The story itself was also difficult for me to care about. The Browns were a real live singing group, but after some simple fact checking, it appears not much of the book was based on real events. For example, the book refers to their many number one hits, where a quick internet search revealed they had only one. It appears the book isn't simply a fictionalized biography, but rather almost totally fiction story that just borrows very loosely on a handful of characters who existed in real life. This bothered me - I would have much rather he used fictional characters than write such a book about people who are still living, but bears such little resemblance to their real lives.

[West Hartford Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rick Bass has written a compelling fictional account of the lives of the Browns, country music stars of the 1950's. Told from the point of view of Maxine, oldest of the three siblings, Bass alternates between the present and the past, giving us pictures of the group's days of fame and stardom, their life as a family and most poignant, Maxine's sense of loss at the end of her career. So believable are these characters that I wanted to hear them sing - thank heaven for YouTube!

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first started reading "Nashville Chrome," I didn't know The Browns were an actual group. I think it's to Rick Bass's credit he was able to merge fact and fiction so skillfully I wasn't sure how much was true and how much was made-up and was compelled to research whether Maxine, Bonnie, and Jim Ed really existed. With any Bass book, one can expect artful and often lyrical prose, and this one is no different. There is always the close attunement to nature, and in "Nashville Chrome" some of the most evocative scenes are the early ones occurring in the Arkansas woods at The Browns' father's sawmill. I think this is an important book not only because it helps to show where the roots of modern music--everybody from Elvis to The Beatles to Michael Jackson--came from, but more generally it examines the urge to make art. Unlike many books about musicians, "Nashville Chrome" isn't about a singer who burned out but about a family of singers who faded away and how this slow decline impacted each of them. As the trio finally go in different directions, Bass follows Maxine, the most driven of the three. Her ambition was partly due to financial circumstances but also because she craved the fame. The appearance of Jefferson Eades, the documentary filmmaker, near the end of the book is an interesting choice. In some ways, he's a stand-in for Bass himself, demonstrating how art feeds other art. Admittedly the book lacks a strong dramatic arc, as other reviewers have noted. The Browns' success is in little doubt, and, aside from an injury to Jim Ed's hand at the sawmill, there's not much conflict. Maxine's alcoholism is, for the most part, summarized. The issue may be one of scope: even given the space of a novel, it would be difficult to effectively dramatize three separate life stories. Bass is left to skip over periods of time (for instance, we never learn how The Browns extricate themselves from their first manager) and is also forced to summarize various events. Once The Browns leave the limelight, the book seems to lose its momentum. Nevertheless, I admire Bass's ambition, and I thought he did a great job of bringing the characters to life, particularly Maxine, Jefferson, and a young Elvis.

[Mrs Hadson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel masquerading as a biography masquerading as short stories masquerading as gospel. Any of us that are rockabilly, early rock and roll or blue grass music history fans will immediately love and hate this book. The writing style of this author is unique and engaging and I LOVED it but I can absolutely see how it might be confusing to some.
The story follows the meteoric rise, exploitation, exposure, fracture and fall out/fall up of The Browns. (Musical trio from the 1950’s) Please take some time to go listen to their music… it is real and wonderful. I had to take a star off as my history minded, biographer brain struggled with the various storylines and never knowing what was fact, interpreted and imagined BUT it was still an amazing read.

[Twistedtexas]

Ack- Love Rick Bass but I couldn't get through this one

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

cool and I don't normally care about musicians. at least not the Elvis kind

[Leo W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grew on me

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic matter is actually quite interesting, but the way Rick Bass deals with it and the narrative tools he uses, just do not speak to me. There are certainly examples of good language in this novel, but that is not the rule for all of the book. The Brown's story is really interesting and I would have preferred to only follow the story of their career.
As harsh as it sounds, I couldn't have cared less about "present-day Maxine", all the chapters set later in Maxine's life lead up to a somewhat conciliatory ending, but for me, they could've been left out.
Too often it feels like you're reading the script of a documentary embellished by flowery language.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years before Elvis Presley burst onto the scene, there were the Browns – Maxine, Jim Ed and Bonnie – who rolled out number one hits, topping the charts time and again.

People came – Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly, and the King himself – just to hear them. “They came, they brushed up against the Browns, and then they went on their way – magic-brushed, and forged from a fire they sometimes didn’t even realize they’d touch, though others of them understood right from the very beginning the nature of the raw talent they were witnessing.”

In Nashville Chrome, the legacy of the Browns is explored – their longing for fame, the aftereffects of achieving fame, the recalibration of “home” with its myriad of meanings. The book is devoted to “truthiness”; Rick Bass quotes Ron Carlson in saying, “I try not to confuse the facts with the truth.”

What he sets out to do is to unearth his truth and he does it with lyrical and often elegiac sensitivity. The Browns lived in simpler times… of small town growing-up, longings for love, dressing up for boys, cruel betrayals. Together as children, they sung three-part harmonies that were so smooth that they were dubbed “Nashville chrome.” During an early performance, they naively sign with an exploitive, morally challenged manager who, in effect, “owns” them from that point on, paying them next-to-nothing and working them hard.

Rick Bass writes, “None of the Browns had a clue. They were like racehorses with blinders, thundering down the dirt track. There was a jockey lashing them, and the horses were dimly aware that there were people in the stands, but they knew nothing of where the track was going – whether it was straightening or circling in a loop – or of the consequences of their efforts and accomplishments.”

The family eventually makes the acquaintance of a young and unknown Elvis; Elvis is drawn to the younger sister Bonnie and they enter into a sweet first love. Rather than lionize Elvis, this book humanizes him and chronicles the real-life friendship with unusual authenticity.

This is an exquisitely written book – a novel that jumps from the heyday of the Browns to the present, where Maxine – now aging, ailing, and yearning for her glory days – has never been able to obtain the serenity of her younger siblings. It’s a psychologically-complex portrayal of a family “united in the desire to spill out onto the world and to change it before realizing that they each finally had to pull away.” Kudos to Rick Bass for this incredible rendering.

[G.K. Wuori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nashville Chrome, Rick Bass
I remember from somewhere back in the sixties a song called, “Little Jimmy Brown,” kind of a sappy thing that did become something of a hit. It was sung by a group called The Browns: Maxine, Bonnie, and Jim Ed. What I didn’t realize until I was well into this book was that it was a novel about the real Browns. They came from hardscrabble roots with daddy Floyd a logger and momma Birdie rather nondescript. But they had talent and began to make it big. Unfortunately they were in the hands of a talent agent who ripped them off royally for a good many years. But they loved the singing, loved the touring, made many friends amongst the “names” of country music – Elvis Presley, being one, with whom Bonnie had an affair; Chet Atkins, Jim Reeves. The novel, though, is mostly about Maxine and her reminiscing, in her older years, about all they had done. Maxine, though she is getting old and has battled cancer and other ailments, wanted those years never to end, but Jim Ed got himself a girl who could sing and they became a duo on the circuit, while Bonnie found herself a doctor and found as well great contentment managing their country house and gardens. At one point, Maxine posts a notice on a supermarket bulletin board saying that a famous singer is looking for a film producer to do a film of her life. What she gets is a kid who is passionately involved in learning the film trade. It may seem a come down, but in the end he manages to construct a beautiful bit of a film as a school project. Maxine, encouraged, tries one more time to get Jim Ed and Bonnie out on the road but they will not do it. Really, it was a good story but I was still left scratching my head as to why Bass thought the Browns were worthy of a book. Yes, they influenced a lot of musicians in their time, but the same is probably true of anyone who makes it big in just about any field – you don’t make it big unless you have something unique, and if you have something unique there will be followers and imitators. About the only complaint I have about the book is that it is grossly overwritten. Bass thanks a good many editors at the end for their help, but I don’t think he had quite the right one.

[Marlène · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consciente que Nashville Chrome est un roman, je m'engage dans la lecture d'une histoire qui me paraît rapidement remarquable. Qui ne serait pas curieux de découvrir des contemporains des Beatles, de Johnny Cash ou d'Elvis dont l'impact et l'influence, non seulement sur la Country Music mais sur le développement de la Pop (oh eh, on ne râle pas, je le dis sans honte, je considère les Beatles comme les Maîtres de la Pop) ou du Rock, ont été aussi remarquable que le fait que leur disparition de la surface de la Célébrité.

Mais voilà, l'écriture de Rick Bass est sublime, poétique et une réflexion en elle-même sur le destin, l'environnement et son influence ainsi que celle de la famille, la solitude bien sûr, ici personnifiée par Maxine, l'aînée des Browns poussée par la force extrême de son talent, son don. Cette plume, elle rend trouble et confuse la frontière entre fiction et réalité, et y ajoute une dimension tragique et terrible.

Au-delà du témoignage sur la pauvreté rurale de la Grande Dépression, sur l'industrie musicale impitoyable des fifties & sixties et de la naissance de la grosse machine que l'on connaît aujourd'hui, Nashville Chrome m'a enveloppée d'un tourbillon d'émotions, sur fond des bois et marécages de Poplar Creek, de l'Arkansas et d'autres paysages spectaculaires de la Nature étasunienne.
Un livre surprenant dont la lenteur et la chronologie non-linéaire recèlent une véritable profondeur.

Rick Bass renvoie à Looking Back to See de Maxine Brown pour discerner la réalité de sa fiction, et me voilà envisageant d'ajouter un nouveau livre à ma liste déjà bien longue...

[Andy Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nashville Chrome is a novel about the Brown family, a country music family trio from Arkansas. that were popular in the 50s. The background of the novel about growing up in rural Arkansas was just great, weaving together a geographic, natural and social background is what Rick Bass does best.

It was a bit jarring to read the development of their singing success with real life characters such as Elvis Presley featured prominently. I was turned off when in the novel the younger sister dated Elvis and broke up with him in favor of a local boy, thinking to myself that such a fanciful and unrealistic turn took away from the early real life character of the book. However, at the end of the book you learn that the Browns were real people and the sometimes narrator, Maxine Brown, cooperated with the story. And Maxine's sister did indeed date Elvis. I wish I had known that when I first read the book

The book features flashbacks with narratives from present day Maxine who is now in her 80s with a thinly disguised portrayal of Bass himself as a young teenager who makes a "documentary" about Maxine Brown. Bass's description of that teenager was of course Bass's perception of himself at that age with hints as to how that teenager would turn out--I thought that was some of the more interesting parts of the book.

On balance, a nice read

[Garlan ✌ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Rick Bass' short fiction. His stories are almost all southern gothic with a touch of the fantastic about them. That doesn't always translate well into longer fiction, but Bass nailed it in this one. A few of the chapters read as if they were short stories (and probably were), but the author managed to pull them all together into a very good, cohesive story.

This story is about the country musical group of the late 50's - early 60's, The Browns. I'm not a country music fan, never have been, but I still found the story to be very engrossing, offering an intimate inside look at fame and family ties. The main storyline belongs to Maxine, the eldest of the trio, and her burning ambition for fame. Bass is able to portray his characters with honesty and empathy, revealing their innermost thoughts and fears.

I'd read a review somewhere stating that Bass was basically copying Cormac McCarthy's style in this story, but I didn't get that impression at all. He does make frequent use of similes and some hyperbole, but this story is definitely Bass' story. Its like a lot of his short fiction in style. If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Bass, I highly recommend "The Watch", "Platte River" and "The Hermit's Story" in short fiction, and I also highly recommend this novel.

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this book through the podcast of The Write Question http://www.mtpr.net/program_info/2011... a weekly literary program from Montana Public Radio that features writers from the western United States and on which Rick Bass talked about the genesis of this novel and working with the Browns. ( I definitely recommend listening to the interview for a lot of insights). He readily admits he had some trouble with this book, since the siblings are all still alive. I am a big fan of Bass, especially his non fiction Montana books; his writing flows and he has a marvelous command of language and images. But this book is a strange hybrid and didn't really work for me as a novel. It didn't seem to have a dramatic center, as it goes back and forth between the past and present. That said, the story of The Browns is a great one. I am not quite old enough to remember them on TV and was amazed to learn of their influence on so many singers, especially Elvis and the Beatles. I have since spent a bit of time on YouTube watching them perform and looking at Maxine's web site. I hope she gets her wish and someone makes a movie of their life (and Bass's book) because their story and music deserves Big screen treatment.

[Kristina Harper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, a fictional look at the lives of early Elvis-era country singers, the Browns, who had a new and unique sound and really founded country music in its best form, makes beautiful use of the language but was difficult to read. First -- and it seems silly to mention -- it was physically difficult: a volume small in size and dense with a tiny font. I really had to strain to see it, which made comprehension a challenge, and which is something publishers ought to keep in mind. It must save them money in production costs but it does the reader no favors. The story itself was fascinating, as these people, so integral to a uniquely American style of music, were people I had never heard of. I am a little too young for their heyday, but apparently that heyday was short enough that they had faded from the public consciousness before I started listening to music. They were great friends with Elvis and Chet Atkins, and taken advantage of in the worst way by an unscrupulous promoter. But the book bounced around in time and by character perspective, and I found it difficult to fully engage in. It is worth a try, though, for anyone interested in American music history and, like I said, beautifully written.

[Annette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based loosely on the lives of the Brown family country singers - it's a very depressing look at the lives of this family as they grow up with a very special gift under very tough family circumstances. Three siblings that could sing in perfect harmony, who were well known in the country music area, but never quite made it to the "big time" - always just a step behind those who have become country legends.

You'll recognize a number of famous country musicians - how they came in and out of the family's lives, the hard life of growing up with alchoholism, what happens after fame and basically acceptance of who you are.

The author is good when he is telling a story, but he tends to philosophize a lot in a very descriptive way - the overall story is interesting, but the reason I gave it two stars is not just the wordiness, but it left me feeling very sad for the family. Of course not every book has a happy ending, but this made the main character seem pathetic and she has so much to be proud of in her life (but maybe I was just reading it with the wrong attitude).

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Critics disagreed somewhat over the success of Nashville Chrome, a fictionalized account of the Browns' life story and the burden of fame. All acknowledged that Bass is a master of his craft--from his storytelling abilities to his beautiful, lyrical prose. Here, his descriptions of the Arkansas swamps and the natural world shine. Yet reviewers diverged on a number of issues. A few thought that the best parts of the novel chronicle Maxine's present-day life--and her transition from an ambitious young star to a defeated, regretful old woman. Some, however, thought these sections tedious. Others complained that Bass never really gets inside the Browns' music. Despite these flaws, Nashville Chrome pays the Browns their due--and brings their music and times back to life. This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very fine novel, or novelization of real events. Unfortunately, the potentially appreciative audience is pretty small. I know most of the words to Pop-a-Top and all the words to the Dollar General Store jingle, but that kind of information rarely comes in handy while reading an attempt at serious literature.

This is a retelling of the (not-well-known) story of the Browns. It's about Jim Ed, Bonnie (one of Elvis' girlfriends) and particularly Maxine who, in her autumn years, has never figured out how to give up on her fame even though it's 50 years in the past. From what I know, it's an accurate depiction of how the country music business worked in the 50s and 60s. The Browns brush shoulders with everyone from John Lennon to Little Jimmie Dickens--with Elvis playing a major role.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed reading this novel about the singing group of the 1950's, early 60's, the Browns. It brought back memories of the music that was popular when I was growing up as well as defining the roots of music today. Although it is fiction, it is historical in nature.

I did go on Maxine Brown's website to learn more and listen to some of the music on youtube. That was fun and interesting. I wrote Maxine a note on her Facebook page and she responded! That is always exciting for me that someone would actually take the time to write back. She did remind me that the book is fiction and that I should read her book to find out the real truth of her life and the journey of her brother and sister and herself as they moved from the backwood of Arkansas to the top of the country music charts. I plan to find a copy of that book and read more.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rick Bass is to the novel what the indie label is to music. He isn't looking to movie mountains or make some grand profit, but instead to be as artful and true to story as he can.

Reviews of this book that miss the point that fiction can spring from a true story must miss a great deal in reading, as every story has it's fictions.

The writing is gorgeous. The opening scenes where the set up of family bonds are illustrated really worked for me. In particular, the ways the siblings can hear the harmony seemed deep and lovely.

Maxine Brown was such an interesting narrative voice. Her belief, the nuances of it, and the way Bass tailors his ending is very powerful. I loved the juxtapositions.

But, I wished we'd heard more from the other voices. Maxine is hard to like, and the reader gets to know her best.

[Tim Sniffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historical fiction written as American folklore. Rick Bass's lyrical narrative style fits this kind of story perfectly, and he walks a tightrope between storytelling and mythology, creating a unique novel that goes far beyond simply fictionalizing history. Only once did he seem to stumble, but that character introduction turned into one of the novel's best subplots. Bass tends to be a stronger short story writer who usually writes about lives out in the wilderness, but his out-of-comfort-zone choice to write about the musical career of The Browns trio, how they helped create the Nashville sound, and what their gift did to their own lives allows him to push against his own limitations and paint an unexplored territory with an unexpected perspective. A blindsiding book that isn't your normal reading experience.

[Deon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nashville Chrome by Rick Bass takes us on a wild ride to a time before rapper MC Hammer told us “You Got The Power”. A time when a young truck driver shocked a nation by showing that raw power with his swiveling hips and curled lip, Presley would be called King. The face of music was about to change. Jerry Lee was pounding the ivories and howling to the moon, and the Brown family rose to stardom with a sound so pure, so full of life and yearning, that it reached right down in the soul. Roots in the south, a dad who loves the bottle too well, and hardscrabble poverty shape them. Fame brings its own debts to pay. This is the life story of the very real Brown Trio, but it is far more, it is also the story of a music revolution that started in Nashville Tennessee. Rick Bass hits all the right notes in Nashville Chrome.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rick Bass' recasting of the Brown family story may lack the creative stretch that Michael Ondaatje brought to his version of Buddy Bolden's life. But Bass had more information to work with and the challenge of not overplaying the Elvis connection. He navigates both deftly.

In the end, Bass tells a powerful story of family, educates the reader about a corner of the music world much ignored these days and animates the challenges, thrills and pitfalls and fame, all while maintaining the dignity and human essences of his characters. He even introduces a most unlikely figure late in the day, call him a budding artist, without missing a beat. His descriptions of nature, here the backwoods of Arkansas, are typically moving.