The Tombstone Touristbegan as a project Scott Stanton thought
would take six months to complete. Instead, locating the graves
and researching the careers of over 500 members of the "Dead
Musicians Club" took him more than ten years. He traveled all
over North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. The result is a something
far greater than a directory of grave markers. The Tombstone
Tourist is one of those rare and wonderful works that succeeds
both as an accurate guidebook and a truly great read.
Even if you aren't a big music fan, and even
if you never really cared where Patsy Cline, Sonny Bono, or Liberace
were laid to their final rests, this book has the power to captivate.
If you do care about 20th century musicians, your library won't
be complete without The Tombstone Tourist, and you should
never take another road trip without a copy on your dashboard.
Tombstone Tourist author Scott Stanton
at the Mississippi grave of blues artist Charley Patton
One of the most appealing qualities of Stanton's
work is that he steers clear of judging the artists he profiles.
He covers the life and death of Roy Rogers and Aaliyah with the
same depth and respect he gives Louis Armstrong, Jimi Hendrix, and
Tammy Wynette. From Roy Acuff to Frank Zappa, they're all here,
along with fascinating details you won't find anywhere else.
Another remarkable thing about this book is
that, despite its gloomy title, The Tombstone Tourist is
more about life than death. During the time he was researching the
book, the author faced his own brush with mortality and went through
heart transplant surgery. An excerpt from his introduction is the
perfect illustration of why his book is worth reading cover to cover:
"...What
have I learned from all this? I've learned that Louis Prima (not
David Lee Roth) is just a gigolo, that Michael Jackson stole all
of Jackie Wilson's moves, that Willie Dixon wrote pretty much
the first two Led Zeppelin albums, that Mama Cass Elliott's cause
of death was not sandwich-related (and that she hated being called
"Mama"), that there is no conspiracy covering up the
deaths of Jim Morrison, Johnny Ace, or Kurt Cobain (regardless
of how many Internet sites claim the contrary), that when Diana
Ross dies she'll be lucky if someone other than the funeral home
representative shows up at her funeral, that the drummer from
Toto did not die from spraying his fruit trees, that alcohol,
cocaine, or heroin never did anyone any good, that death was a
good career move for Elvis, and after walking in well over two
thousand cemeteries past row after row of the dearly departed,
life is too short to do something you don't want to do."
Life is too short to miss reading great
books, and this is one of them.
