Nashville Babylon: The Uncensored Truth and Private Lives of Country Music's Stars

by Randall Riese

Scrutinizes the lives and lies of the most beloved, notorious, and colorful of country's headliners

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History

290 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1988

Reviews

[Jonathan Rice]

Unabashedly trashy, which is a genre I sometimes enjoy reading although I frequently feel ashamed later. I don't know a lot about the various personalities covered but few of the book's "revelations" struck me as particularly scandalous. One thing that I strongly object to about the book is that the author goes into lurid detail about the gruesome deaths of various country music stars in car and plane accidents, etc. It's one thing to go into graphic detail about the violent deaths of whatever sort that were self-inflicted by the stupid behavior of the deceased. That, I would argue, is fair game, especially if said stupid behavior is something that others might be inclined to do -- e.g., driving drunk. It's a very different thing, however, to show no respect for country music celebrities who died through no fault of their own -- even if their personal lives were not exemplary. So I think Randall Riese is a jerk for, e.g., callously describing the crash site where Patsy Cline died. Patsy Cline may well have had various "scandals" in her life but none of these were in any sense the cause of her tragic death. So back off, Randall Riese and show some respect for the dead.

[Commodore]

My main gripes are A) where is Keith Whitley?! His alcoholism killed him the year after this was published, but it wasn’t like it came out of nowhere, and B) my previously gripe of not going over the Dolly Parton is in a long term lesbian relationship better.
It’s a weird book I bought at a used book store for $7. It kind of helps you square the circle as an outsider, that country music can and has excused extreme drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, cheating, and very slimy management (and occasionally even outright glorifies this stuff), BUT still thinks of itself as wholesome and Christian-based, to the point that they rigidly control their stars’ public image and think themselves a cut apart from their record label brethren in LA and Detroit. I actually think the title harkening to Hollywood Babylon as kind of smart in this instance, but it was probably only to grab a few more sales by association.

[Mick Meyers]

Don't put your daughter/son on the stage Mrs Worthington,or so the song goes.with stardom in any sphere comes the threat of hangers on willing to indulge the stars to curry favour.sometimes fate also takes a hand. This is the flip side of stardom written with a black /cynical sense of humour.

[Darren]

I borrowed this book from a neighbor. I enjoyed reading this book. Not really a fan of country music but didn't realize all the controversy with popular country music stars that were listed in this book. It took me a while to read this book because I was only reading a bit per day.

[Anne Walker]

This outdated, sensationally-written book with lots of poorly-captioned photos was so fun to skim and hard to put down!

[Garrett Cash]

Imagine if Cracked.com did a book of country music history and you would have something like this highly entertaining and even informative ride through the nasty side of Nashvegas.

[Muffy Kroha]

Just as good as Hollywood Babylon only Hillbilly Style!

[Brittany]

THE BEST BOOK!

[Gwenn]

not as juicy as I wanted it to be, but filled with some great photos.