Fall and Redemption: The Essence of Country MusicPaperback, 22 April 2009

Submitted as a graduate student's Master Degree thesis, Fall and Redemption is the story of a man's journey of recovery from drug use, and how playing country music helped him through it. The student/addict moved to his home town to come clean. His solaces were 12 step meetings, solitude, and his father's first electric guitar, an old 1956 Silvertone Honky Tonk player that his father used to play in a Honky Tonk band in the 1950's. The graduate student's discovery of the music, combined with familial and historical research of the music led to a personal discovery of the strength of country music and its generational purpose of expressing through song the human condition. The music became a mode of expression, and a deliverence from the demons he faced in looking at the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical damage caused by his habitual drug use. As a reader, you will be taken through this man's journey as he discovers the naked truth of the bridges burned from the ravages of drug use (the Fall), his facing his demons through taking responsibility for his life (the Redemption), and how the music helped him through it.