16 TONS

"Sixteen Tons is the story of Country Music Hall of Fame member Merle Travis, a brilliant, multi-talented, and deeply troubled artist who is widely considered to be a musical genius. A world-class guitarist who dazzled audiences with his Kentucky thumb-picking style, Merle was also a pioneering country songwriter who wrote such classics as "Dark as a dungeon" and "Sixteen tons." In the 1940s, he was responsible for several early electric guitar innovations, and was a gifted actor, writer, and cartoonist, among his many other talents. This definitive portrait of Merle Travis's life and career is the result of a recently discovered treasure trove of Merle unpublished autobiographical writings that have been fleshed out with an immersive deep-dive biography by researcher and musical historian Deke Dickerson. Sixteen Tons details the highs of a musical career that began with a string of nine straight Top 5 singles in the 1940s and the lows of a lifelong struggle with alcoholism, which tragically became an addiction to pills that nearly killed Merle when he was running with Johnny Cash in the late 1950s. Merle Travis ultimately reemerged from those dark days to become a Grammy winning artist and a country music legend who has inspired millions"--Dust jacket flap.