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Rating: 
Summary: Stick to Singing!
Review: "Bus fare to Kentucky" is a huge disappointment. This autobiography of country singer Skeeter Davis is rambling, self -absorbed and at times incoherent! For a supposedly plain old country girl from Dry Ridge, Kentucky Davis exhibits a strangely patronizing attitude toward the world. Also, far too much print is wasted on her early years, which are not so hardscrabble as they are bizarre. Actual music takes a back seat to the religious preaching and Davis family antics. Skeeter had an extremely difficult family life and two dysfunctional marriages, yet she generated almost no sympathy from this reader. Husband number two, as many of us were already aware, was none other than Nashville legend Ralph Emery. Skeeter thoroughly skewers the guy, no doubt deservedly, yet one wonders what Ralph's side of the story might be. Another weak point to BFTK is religion, at least Skeeter's brand of Southern Baptism. I am a Christian too, but I became sick and tired of being told God loves us! I'm sure HE does indeed-but if HE was offering some heavenly advice, HE perhaps might whisper in Skeeter's ear to stick to singing, or at least hire a good editor: "The Essential Skeeter Davis" is a fine compilation of her vocal talents. A much better choice of female country biographies is "Country Sunshine", depicting the life of the late Dottie West. At least Dottie stuck to singing and left the driving-make that the writing-to others.
Rating: 
Summary: The BEST autobiography by any Country Female Star!!
Review: I have read them all (Loretta, Tammy, Dolly, Reba, Naomi Judd, Barbara Mandrell, even the rarer ones like Jan Howard and Jeannie C. Riley) and hands down Skeeter Davis' autobiography is the most moving and personal of the bunch of country music star autobiographies (I enjoyed most of the others too by the way). It is truly rare for anyone who is writing an autobiography to be the intimate and personal, quite a few are of the self-infatuated "and then I made this movie" or "my big #1 record at the time was" level. Skeeter's life is so much more than show business and it's wonderful to see a star with their feet both on the ground.I was dumbstruck by that negative review posted, the only one I have ever read for this book anywhere. The usually jaded PEOPLE magazine as I recall referred to this book as "moving". I don't know why this person was so defensive especially considering Skeeter's religion which is such a active and vital part of her life. There are not many entertainers who when their mainstream careers are starting to crumble a bit who will spend most of their time on traveling the world spreading the good news of Jesus, most I suspect would have spent every waking hour trying to climb back to the top!! If Skeeter's brand of religion is not yours, why complain about it especially since this is HER autobiography!! Skeeter herself is a wonderfully open-minded person, writing with awe of the lovely Buddahist temples she had seen on her travels and pointing out it is not for her or anyone to judge anyone and their religious beliefs (or about anything), that alone is for God to do. As far as her comments on ex-husband Ralph Emery, Emery himself first wrote negatively about Skeeter in his first (of several!) autobiographies, it certainly seems reasonable to expect Skeeter to air her side of the story. She does indeed have some shocking information about him but to have deleted it from her life story would have given a false picture of what was going on in her life. Skeeter Davis is truly a beloved person and proved to be an outstanding writer with this book. Her followup book was a children's book THE CHRISTMAS NOTE that received rave comments from many acclaimed writers including Lee Smith, Rebecca Wells, and Terry Kay. Skeeter is one of the most talented people Nashville has ever produced.
Rating:
Summary: Triumph over Tragedy........
Review: This county star can write! She takes us through the most intimate details of her life and shows us that faith and trust prevail in her life. Bad marriages, a lousy childhood, a bizarre entry into country music, the death of her singing partner and a brush with cancer are all detailed. I wish that she would include if paperback comes out a chapter about her current cancer struggles as she is a real trooper, I wonder why the country music community has not grabbed this book? Could it be that Ralph Emery's influence on Nashville( she has nothing nice to say about him) kept it and she off of TNN.Every bit as good as Coal Miner's Daughter. This would be a great movie.
Rating:
Summary: A monument
Review: This is one of the best, most moving biographies I have ever read. Mary Frances Penick, better known as Skeeter Davis, is an excellent writer, and the tale she tells of her rise from poverty to world renown is devastatingly heartbreaking, and yet tremendously inspiring.
I came to this book wanting to know more about one of my favorite records of all time, 1963's "The End of the World." From my first hearing of it as a teenager, I identified on many levels. Much later, when I had taught myself how to read music and write songs of my own, I came to understand just how good the song was. Let's face it: if you're going to call a song something so cosmic as "The End of the World," it had better be worthy. Even in my teens, I could sense the excellence of the melody and the lyric, and how appropriate both were to the theme; as I learned more about songwriting, my appreciation only increased.
When I found out about this book, I rushed to borrow it so that I could find out more about the background of this record I so admired. I did not expect to be so enthralled by the twists and turns of a story so full of tortured struggle as to make me wonder how the protagonist could have survived, much less achieved so much.
Many of Skeeter Davis' achievements were not made alone. With Betty Jack Davis, her soul mate and "blood sister," she performed and recorded under the name The Davis Sisters. Their innovative harmonies inspired many that came after them, including the Everly Brothers and the Beatles, and was even responsible for the invention of the double-necked steel guitar. As she describes it, instead of singing in alto below the melody, Skeeter--completely by instinct--sang above the melody. This was something apparently not done in this type of music before.
To hear the beauty of the result, listen to an Amazon clip of "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know." Or listen to the middle section of "The End of the World":
I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was.
I can't understand, no I can't understand,
How life goes on the way it does.
One can only speculate how far the duo might have gone, had not Betty Jack suddenly died in an automobile accident on August 2, 1953.
The title of the chapter dealing with that tragedy is "The End of the World and the Day After," and it begins with an epigraph consisting of the lyrics I have just quoted. (The late author, however, erroneously wrote "Why" rather than "How" in the last line, contrary to what she sings on the record and contrary to the sheet music.) Skeeter Davis has said that she had Betty Jack in mind while singing the song, since it expresses so exactly how one feels when someone has died.
This book will make you understand why the depth of loss expressed in that record is signally appropriate to the case of the Betty Jack. It is not just that the love between Mary Frances Penick and Betty Jack Davis was so profound and so crucial to the survival of both, especially Betty Jack who had so little in life besides her music and Mary Frances. As the creator and the driving force of The Davis Sisters, Betty Jack had the seeds of greatness and was denied her full flowering. This fact becomes clearer and clearer as one reads her story.
True, Skeeter Davis achieved a greatness of her own. But I am sure she would rest with an extra measure of peace if she could know that "The End of the World" is not the only monument she has erected to Betty Jack's memory. The other one is this book.
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