Chinaberry Sidewalks
Rodney Crowell, the Texas songwriter who has written hits for Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, and many others, turns to his own early life in this memoir. He grew up on the outskirts of Houston in a working class household with a father who played honky tonk gigs and drank hard, and a mother prone to religious fervor and seizures. Their fights, reconciliations, and odd tendernesses fill the book. Crowell writes about the music he absorbed as a child, the neighborhoods he ran through, and the long road from that house to a life in songs. The voice is plainspoken and shaped by a lifetime of telling stories in three minute songs. Published in 2011, it sits comfortably alongside other musician memoirs that take family seriously.
What you might want to know about Chinaberry Sidewalks
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
The songwriter Rodney Crowell remembers a Texas childhood with a hard drinking father and a fiercely religious mother.
Music is present throughout but the book centers on his childhood and parents rather than his Nashville years.
It is candid about alcoholism and domestic conflict, balanced by humor and affection.
Chinaberry Sidewalks was written by Rodney Crowell, published in 2011 by Random House Publishing Group.
Chinaberry Sidewalks is 272 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Chinaberry Sidewalks takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Chinaberry Sidewalks is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.