"A Song To Kill For" by Billy Edd Wheeler

"A Song To Kill For" is Billy Edd Wheeler's only novel. Wheeler is best known as a songwriter and playwright in addition to also having done some performing in the field of country music, having been a popular after dinner speaker for many years. This novel was self-published under the label Infinity Publishing which is virtually non-existent on the internet. They have been defunct since October 2023. I purchased this copy from Amazon and it was publication on demand. I'm not certain if Infinity which had been primarily a children's book publisher was an imprint of Amazon, or if it might have been owned by Wheeler and later sold to Amazon. While this is a self-published novel,Wheeler has a lenghty history as a playwright having written at least nine plays, several of which were produced for quite a few years as outdoor dramas around the southeastern US and Midwest. Wheeler also wrote several songs which were major hits as performed by others. Those songs include "Jackson" which was a signature duet for Johnny Cash and June Carter; "The Reverend Mister Black" which was a hit for the Kingston Trio;"Coward Of The County" which was a massive hit for Kenny Rogers; and, "Coal Tattoo" which has been recoreded by numerous artists with history in the Appalachian Coalfields including Kathy Mattea, The Kingston Trio, and Jim Croce. His well received plays include ""Hatfields and McCoys", "Young Abe Lincoln", and "Johnny Appleseed". It shouldn't surprise anyone to know that his greatest impact as a writer came in the area of playwriting since he held a masters degree in playwriting from Yale University in addition to his bachelors degree from Berea COllege. This book is worth reading even though it is not a great novel. It is funny, fairly well plotted, and has some well developed characters including the protagonist Gabriel Leatherwood who seems to, at least in part, to have been an alter ego of Wheeler himself. Leatherwood is a native West Virginian who is a musician and songwriter who traveld to Nashville only to have several of his early songs stolen by the lead villian who is the owner of music publishing company. Leatherwood decides to take on the company and its owner along with a sizeable cast of lesser villians who assist in his crimes including murder. Along the way, Leatherwood is lucky enough to fall in love with a beautiful female attorney, get invited to the White House to perform, and survive a rather graphic attempted murder by one of those villians. In the end, he marries the heroine, saves his songs, becomes rather wealthy, and chooses to return to Appalachian West Virginia with the woman of his dreams. I repeat, the book is worth reading especially if you are a musician of the country persuasion, an Appalachian, a writer,or if you enjoy crime stories and mysteries. It is not a great novel or a perfect novel. But it is worthy attempt at a first novel by a gifted writer in other areas of the arts.

Love Must Be Forgiven

 

 

Sometimes, I get some ideas which are not fully hatched.  As I recall, I was wondering if I could have ever been a country songwriter when I produced this which I now consider just to have been bad poetry.  I was trying to write a country lyric with a hook.  For those who have never heard that word, a hook is a repeated line in a song.  The most memorable hook line in a  hook song that I can think of is from "Baby, Don't Get Hooked On Me" by the great songwriter Mac Davis.  As I recall the story I heard him tell once about the song, he was in a dry spell with writing and hadn't produced anything significant in a while.  He said he was talking with his producer or music publisher one or the other about the problem and that person, whomever they were, suggested that Mac write a hook song.  So he sat down and wrote "Baby, Don't Get Hooked On Me".  It was a massive success.  The song reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts in September 1972, spending three weeks as the number 1 song on each chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 8 song of 1972.  That is the best story about a hook song I have ever heard and actually one of the best hook songs I know also.  My little piece of work below is very ordinary in my opinion and won't amount to a hill of beans. 

Love Must Be Forgiven

She said she’d love me all her life.

She said she’s proud to be my wife.

She said we’d be together till the end

But the end came early my friend.

She just left without a fight

Love must be forgiven somewhere tonight

 

She said we’d raise children just like me

She said how proud you’re gonna be

But when I look for what I cannot see

She’s missing from the family tree

She just left without a fight

Love must be forgiven somewhere tonight.

 

We never fought She never cried

But soon her love was denied

I loved her so Lord knows I tried

She just left and I could have died

She gave up without a fight

Love must be forgiven somewhere tonight.

 

I never saw the end until it came

My tears fall down just like the rain

I think of her through this refrain

She gave up without a fight

Love must be forgiven somewhere tonight.

Copyright August 2, 2021, by Roger D. Hicks