Three Chords
And The Truth

Hope, Heartbreak, and
Changing Fortunes in Nashville


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Review by Edward Morris

If you're passionate about country music, the only reason you'll have to lay this book aside before you finish reading it is to call friends and relate some of Laurence Leamer's more provocative revelations and insights. Although he is in no way a sensationalist, Leamer has managed to ferret out a lot of new -- and sometimes embarrassing -- details about stars, would-be stars, record executives and the country music business in general. Fans and students alike will appreciate the author's portrayal of how this seemingly folksy business really operates and how much of it hinges on quirks of personality.

There are plenty of big names chronicled in the book, including Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, Alan Jackson, LeAnn Rimes, Emmylou Harris, Brooks & Dunn, Vince Gill, Wynonna, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Patty Loveless. But instead of relying entirely on "legends" and "superstars" as his subjects, Leamer adroitly demonstrates that anyone who is deeply involved in country music symbolizes something quite important about its nature. Thus, we find ourselves as fascinated by his stories of the artists and songwriters who have tried mightily and failed as we are are about those who smile out at us regularly from national magazine covers.

Garth Brooks
Shania Twain
Alan Jackson
LeAnn Rimes
Emmylou Harris
Brooks & Dunn
Vince Gill
Wynonna Judd
Mary Chapin Carpenter
Patty Loveless
To hold his account together, Leamer ties it to the 1996 Fan Fair. (This annual event, which started in 1972, lures tens of thousands of fans to the state fairgrounds in Nashville for a week of virtually nonstop shows by major and rising country stars.) He pinpoints what his subjects are doing while this affair is in progress and then branches out to explore their careers and characters. It is a wonderfully effective unifying device, and it imparts a feeling of immediacy that would otherwise be hard to achieve in such a far-ranging work.

Leamer had extraordinary access to his subjects, visiting them in their homes, watching them in recording studios and hanging out with them at parties and backstage. But in spite of this degree of intimacy, he mercifully spares us that egotistic insider tone that routinely blights celebrity reporting.

True-believers in the unwavering congeniality and wholesomeness of country stars are in for a shock. Without making his darker discoveries the focal point of his accounts, Leamer nonetheless reveals numerous examples of duplicity, infidelity, cynicism, unbridled ambition, arrogance and betrayal of friends and fans. Still, these traits are nicely balanced by evidences of hard work, dogged devotion to others, unwavering honesty, tender-heartedness and artistic integrity. Not surprisingly, Leamer illustrates that these apparently contrary qualities often co-exist within the same person.

In conveying the depth and complexity of country music performers and the record company chiefs who control their careers, "Three Chords and the Truth" is a valuable book. It's an immensely readable one as well.

Edward Morris, a journalist living in Nashville, was formerly country music editor for "Billboard."

©1997, ProMotion, inc.

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