Charlie Louvin with Benjamin Whitner, Satan Is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers (Igniter/HarperCollins, $22.99). A hair-raisingly frank memoir by half of the greatest vocal duet in the history of country music. Ira Louvin was the hell-raiser with the sky-high tenor voice who got all the ink, but it was his brother Charlie who lived to tell the tale of how the Louvin Brothers went from picking cotton in Georgia to singing on the Opry–and how Ira cracked up along the way. Satan Is Real may be ghostwritten, but it sounds completely authentic, and every page will hold your attention (TT).
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
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