Checking with with Bobbie and Bill Malone on Their First Book as Co-Authors: Nashville's Songwriting Sweethearts

What mattered to Bobbie was that Del was the son of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, themselves legendary as songwriters, having penned “Bye Bye Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie” for the Everly Brothers, among hundreds of other songs. Bobbie Malone loved the Everly Brothers. When she and Bill moved to Madison from the South, Bill mentioned that Felice Bryant grew up in Milwaukee.

Now, at the Ken Burns compound, Bobbie took the opportunity of the first break to rush up to Del Bryant:  “Your parents wrote the soundtrack of my adolescence!” Bobbie said. Bobbie explained that she knew Felice was from Milwaukee and that she, Bobbie, wanted to write an article about Felice for the Wisconsin Magazine of History. “Everything just came spilling out of me,” Bobbie said.
        
Bryant was friendly in return and offered to send Bobbie material to help with her article. Back at her seat, Bobbie related the conversation to Bill. He thought for a moment and said, “Why wouldn’t we write their biography?” Which is how a proposed magazine piece turned into a book project.

Del Bryant was an enormous help during their research. He guided them through his parents’ archive at the Country Music Foundation in Nashville and made introductions to music luminaries who might otherwise have been out of reach.

Bill and Bobbie had a phone interview with Paul Simon, who along with Art Garfunkel was an early fan of the Everly Brothers. Simon said that as a young teen he took multiple buses across New York City to get a 78 copy of “Bye Bye Love.” It was the first time he looked on a disc to see who had written the song and he found the writers’ names – Boudleaux and Felice – “exotic.”

The Malones’ narrative – a “story of towering artistic achievement wrapped in a love story,” according to a blurb from Ken Burns – relates the unusual circumstance of Boudleaux and Felice’s first meeting. It was in Milwaukee. Boudleaux, touring with a jazz combo, was playing in the lounge of the old Schroeder Hotel, where Felice worked as an elevator operator.

On a break, Boudleaux sought out the water fountain, near the elevators. Felice, taken with the handsome stranger, stepped in. “Buy you a drink?” She flipped on the water and it squirted across Boudleaux’s tuxedo. She later called it love at first splash. “They ran away together five days later,” Bobbie said.
        
Their songwriting developed because Felice, who loved poetry, was bored in the evenings when Boudleaux was playing gigs and began writing. Bill said, “He’d come in at 1 or 2 in the morning and say, ‘What has the little lady done today?’”
        
Bobbie picks up the story. “She’d pull out what she’d written, and they started messing with it. When they had about 80 songs, she said, ‘We ought to do something with these.’”

Bill and Bobbie’s collaboration on Nashville’s Songwriting Sweethearts began with Bill saying he’d prepare at outline. He eventually handed Bobbie a folder with 108 pages. 

“Where’s the outline?” Bobbie said.

 “That is the outline,” Bill replied.
 
Bobbie whittled it down, and they began to alternate taking the lead on chapters, in time exchanging the chapters and going over each other’s work. They clicked. “Bill called me the color commentator,” Bobbie said.

In the end, they produced a lively, informative book. As Burns noted, “Bobbie and Bill Malone are precisely the right match to tell this tale of love and genius.” Bill and Bobbie will bring Nashville’s Songwriting Sweethearts to Mystery to Me for a signing event as soon as circumstances allow, so stay tuned.

         Photo by Mark Goldbach

Last time I saw them, Bill and Bobbie were finishing dinner at a little Mexican restaurant at Market Square and headed for the movies to see “Motherless Brooklyn,” the Edward Norton film based on the doings of New York City urban planner Robert Moses.

They loved it, and during this sequestration have picked up Robert Caro’s biography of Moses, The Power Broker. “Bill is reading it aloud to me,” Bobbie said.
 

Covid-19 Bookstore Update

Sorry for the delay in getting out our April newsletter. We've been busy putting together federal, state, and local grant and loan applications. Although that is definitely not a fun past-time, it does help to pass the time and allows for a few rays of sunshine in this otherwise gloomy spring.

• A small number of booksellers are scheduled to be in the store for short periods of time. We update the hours on our website daily. When booksellers are available, we respond to phone calls asking about recommendations and/or letting the caller know what books we have in stock. We also do our best to respond quickly to email submissions. Although we may not be able to answer specific questions immediately, emails are monitored daily regardless of store hours.
• If requested books are in stock, we are providing curbside-pickup by appointment (during our in-store hours only). Please note that we are being very diligent about keeping the store and the books you choose clean and free from possible contamination.  
• If requested books are not in stock, the caller has a two options:
  • Order the book through Bookshop (for us to receive the best percentage of the sale, please get to Bookshop through the Mystery to Me portal). This is likely the most expedient method.
  • Ask us to order the book for you. We'd have you pay for the book(s) by credit card over the phone, and we would process a 'direct-to-home' sale through our distributor. 
• We have asked most of our publishers to temporarily suspend all shipments of new spring titles. In fact, many publishers have changed publication dates for some of their new titles. We are doing our best to keep up with this changing landscape, so if you would like to preorder a book not yet released, please do so via this email link. We will do our best book sleuthing to keep you updated. 
• Puzzled?  This past week we partnered with our neighbor down the street, Orange Tree Imports to bring their puzzle selection to you. Bookseller Hannah has been posting pictures of available puzzles on Instagram. You're also welcome to call us during in-store hours to ask about puzzles.  608-283-9332
• Many of you have asked after our booksellers. So far, everyone is healthy, practicing social distancing, wearing gloves and masks when necessary, and doing a LOT of advance-copy reading! Thanks to all of your book orders, we are currently able to keep our booksellers on the payroll. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the forgivable loans and/or grants come through expeditiously.
• When we're not answering the telephone or responding to email, we are doing a Mystery to Me deep clean! By the time you're able to come back for a visit, we want the store to be the same cozy place you've come to enjoy, with a few necessary changes. We're thinking that you'll want some space while you're browsing, so we're rethinking table configurations and the like. We are very much looking forward to having you visit us again. 

Events!

Sara Paretsky