Barbara Martin Stephens: Telling the Truth about Jimmy

At last month's conference of the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA), I had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with Barbara Martin Stephens, who has recently published a memoir about her life with Jimmy Martin, known as "The King of Bluegrass," called Don't Give Your Heart to a Rambler.

The book is in turns a work of love, a confessional, and an unblinking look at her tumultuous life with Martin. She describes meeting Jimmy when she was still a teenager, but already widowed. Her first husband, the father of her son Michael, had been killed in the Korean War. She describes her attraction to Martin as an "addiction." Even when she knew how volatile he was, she kept returning to him through her whole life.

The life they shared was characterized by his drinking and womanizing. Even though she was working, he controlled all their money, becoming angry if she spent anything on herself without permission.  Though her education stopped with her marriage, she has managed to move through a number of successful careers. In fact, she was one of the first female music booking agents, lining up engagements for Jimmy and for other acts as well.

The story moves from such everyday details of her life as learning to cook to the harrowing attempts to escape from Jimmy's physical and mental abuse, resulting in losing her children to him. A high point in her story is her eventual reunion with their four children and with the son from her previous marriage he would not allow to live with them.

The story Barbara Martin Stephens tells could be the story of any woman who has endured an abusive relationship and lived to tell about it, except that hers is star-studded. Beginning with Jimmy's revolving cast of band members, readers rub shoulders with J.D. Crowe, the Osborne Brothers, Patsy Cline, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Merle Haggard, Earl and Louise Scruggs, and more. They aren't appearing on stage through most of this narrative, however; they are in kitchens, in cafes, and at wakes. I suspect quite a few copies of the book will be sold to those living whose names are mentioned in its page.

One question the author seeks to answer through the course of her book is why Jimmy Martin, despite his fame and talent, was never inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. According to Barbara, his bad behavior kept him out. The Opry, she points out, has always striven to have a wholesome family atmosphere. During some of his guest performances there, she reveals, he had to be moved off stage because of his drinking and speech. She does reveal what she believes is the main reason, though, for his being blackballed, even though other performers on the Opry have less than stellar personal reputations: Jimmy's on-going affair with Bill Monroe's daughter Melissa. She says Bill swore he'd see to it that Martin was never inducted to that group, a slight that pained Martin until his death.

In the end of the story, as she reveals the complications during the last days of Martin's bout with cancer, she shares the conflict that arose among family, friends, and especially lawyers over his will, not only tying up his estate but depleting thousands in court costs.

Despite all the pain and bitterness, she ends her story by pointing out the good that came of her life with Jimmy. She confesses that she would not have chosen a different life.

In the audio recording of the book, Barbara Martin Stephens does the reading. The effect is the impression of sitting across the kitchen table or cozied up on the sofa, listening to a friend share the stories of her life--the good and the bad--but certainly a full, rich life.

Barbara Martin Stephens: Telling the Truth about Jimmy