Pressing on: The Roni Stoneman Story

I happened to read The Stonemans: An Appalachian Family and the Music That Shaped Their Lives (Music in American Life) by Ivan M. Tribe (1993) a great book about this epic family of country music. The star of that book was Roni Stoneman, especially the stories of her bad luck with men. So I devoured this book, which is a nice companion to Tribe's masterwork. The stories are harrowing and funny and you will be reading parts of it out loud. Plus, she knew everybody in country music when they were nobodies. But she's no saint, and she discusses her own failings with a little bit of retrospection. Lots of new words appear in this book -- her family was "pooristic" for example. Makes you want to hear her banjer playin'.

Sometimes "as told to" is a euphemism for "ghost written by." This is clearly not the case with the felicitous collaboration between storyteller-musician Roni Stoneman and writer, Ellen Wright in Pressing On. Roni is the daughter of the legendary Ernest Stoneman, who among other accomplishments organized the Bristol Sessions that in 1927 recorded musical greats including the Carter family and Jimmie Rogers. Roni's life story is also a story of Appalachian music in American culture. She is a virtuoso banjo player, an actress and a natural storyteller. In Roni's oral tradition, every story she knows connects to every other. Ellen Wright adroitly brings out Roni's narrative voice in a way that makes sense to the reader, while remaining true to the oral tradition. Pressing On a good read as well as being the amazing history of an America that has largely passed from lived experience into history. Together, Roni and Ellen bring that history back to life.

The clash of Roni's abundant innocence with the wild world fills the book with drama. Her spirit and humor are on display even during relatively horrible episodes in her life. She is a clever observer of her colleagues from the country music scene, and of herself. Highly recommended!