Back in April, I wrote the following about Diana White in this post when I knew very little about her. In the previous post to this one,...

During the course of research for Pluck, a very few, small references to David’s friend Diana White popped up from disparate sources....

So, why, you might ask, might Pluck never have been written without John Lomax's participation? Well, first, he's a walking encyclopedia...

In a city full of legendary figures, John is a bit of a legend himself. He has worked for, with and/or is friends with some of the...

When I look back on the trajectory of David's life, I often wonder what might have happened after he got to Nashville if John Lomax III...

I'm cheating on this blog post. I have been down an unexpected rabbit hole for the last two weeks, so I thought I would do this quick...

Linda Sack was not only a close friend of David's, she was hand-selected by him to become one of four members he envisioned as the...

Several people have asked how I was able to write a biography of someone whom I had never personally met, so this last of three posts...

In 1988, Frets magazine, "The Magazine for Acoustic String Musicians" featured a smiling Richard Thompson on its cover. It also...

One of the best experiences in the research for Pluck happened whenever I found an obscure source that opened many more lines of...

Remember the old Reader's Digest recurring series, "My Most Unforgettable Character"? Well, Neal Hellman is in my Top Ten list of most...

Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music recently held its 75th Anniversary Party, and I felt fortunate to be invited. It was a most...

If you're not sure what a "Nudie suit" is in the context of country music, you might want to read here before you start reading this...

There was hardly a piece of research for Pluck that didn't yield useful information for telling David's story. Ironically, one of the...

Today I want to write to you about this lovely woman, Nancy Barker. She is one of the reasons that the subtitle for Pluck reads, "The...

Crawling back from the misery of a very bad cold, I have been catching up with emails. A few in particular came from Tom Harleman who...

One of David's most endearing songs is "Sarah", based on a real person named Sarah Melton. He loved the 1911 backstory so much that he...

In my last post, I wrote about "The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood". I heard it for the very first time earlier this week. Bob Force had...

The researching and writing for Pluck was a gargantuan learning experience on a number of levels. And the learning continues, thanks to...