"Down Through The Years" by Jean Shepard, On Reading Her Autobiography

My wife Candice and I just completed reading this 2014 autobiography of Jean Shepard who was one of the first major female stars in country music, and also the first female star to have a #1 Hit on the charts which was actually her first released single, "Dear John", which was a duet piece of sorts with Ferlin Husky. Husky didn't actually sing on the song but narrated a soliloqy by a male figure in the song who is abandoned by the female protagonist who marries his brother while he is in a war zone in the military. The book is well worth reading despite several weaknesses. The text was recorded by Jean Shepard on cassete tapes and transcribed by a secretary. The transcription is literal, without any editing, and often has clearly recognizable errors in grammar and syntax which are assume are due to the secretary's faithful verbatim rendering of Jean Shepard's dialect which was rooted in her native Oklahoma. The book is composed of a Foreword, twelve numbered and titled chapters, and three other sections which are labled as "Endnote From Jean", "Special People", and "Acknowledgements". The book has no clearly identified publisher other than the author, but it does have an ISBN Number. It is somewhat oddly produced and took me some time to locate a copy on the internet. The book is filled with page after page of anecdotesa about Shepard's life, her rapid rise to stardom, the fifty plus year career she had, and the many friends both famous and unknown which she developed during her lifetime. There is sizeable discussion of her brief marriage to Hawkshaw Hawkins before his death in the same plane crash which killed Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas. She also delivers what appears to be honest discussion of her other three marriages which are comprised of one before her fame which was annulled due to domestic violence, another brief marriage to a Nashville detective after Hawkins' death, and her marriage of nearly forty years until her death to Benny Birchfield who was a man of many talents: guitarist, bus driver, mechanic, and devoted family man who raised his own son with Shephard and her two previous sons by Hawkins. It is an easy read in short sections within the chapters. It is also well worth reading if you like country music, especially classic country music. You could have difficulty, as I did, in finding a copy on the typical used book websites due to the unexplained publication route the book took. But when you find it, you will enjoy it!