Brian T. Atkinson invited 73 of Mickey Newbury’s closest friends and associates to pay homage to this Texas native. People like Larry Gatlin, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle and Kris Kristofferson took time to write about the man they looked up to and patterned their songwriting talents after. While one or two of these individuals would have offered a view of Newbury that not everyone was privileged to see, when you bring together all 73 of them, you get a better concept of the man and the music he loved.

Newbury loved to write songs for the sake of writing songs, not because some big star was recording next week and he had to write a song to pitch to him. When he went in to record, he knew exactly what the song was going to sound like once it was finished. He was famous for putting rain or train whistles in between the songs in an album because he thought it needed to be there.

He had the voice of an angel, but he was a hesitant performer, never wanting to go on an arena or stadium tour because there was no intimacy there for him. When he did agree to perform, no one wanted to follow him—he was that good. I remember one night Newbury, Guy Clark and a couple other writers were doing a writers-in-the-round in Nashville. Guy Clark didn’t want to follow Mickey, so he asked to be first. Mickey went last, which made Clark following him, no matter how much he had tried not find himself in that position.

This book is a great insight into Newbury in all facets of his life: songwriting, recording artist, guitar player, performer and family man. It is a true gem for anyone who is a Newbury fan or for those who want to be reminded why they love to write songs.

I was fortunate to get to interview him several times, and he was always a delight to chat with. One day he was telling me about writing the night before and casually mentioned that it had been with a group of aliens. It seemed such a statement of fact that I never questioned him on it.

In this book Kristofferson comments, “perhaps he was a visitor from outer space.” I just smiled when I read this statement. Who knows, Kris? Maybe he was.

— Vernell Hackett