Twentieth-Century Honky-Tonk

OHN WOOLEY has written, co-written, or edited nearly 50 books, including his previous collaboration with Brett Bingham, Twentieth-Century Honky-Tonk, the story of Tulsa's legendary Cain's Ballroom. He also spent several years working with his friend Billy Parker on KVOO's Wooley Wednesday western-swing program. His most recent works include the critically acclaimed Cleansing horror trilogy (Seventh Sense, Satan's Swine, and Sinister Serpent), all written with Robert A. Brown, and Right Down the Middle, the as-told-to biography of the New York Yankees pitching great Ralph Terry. A four-time finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award, Wooley was the first writer ever to be inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.

It was supposed to be a car dealership. Instead, it became one of the most famous American music venues of all time...Only one place in the whole world can claim to be both the Carnegie Hall of western swing and the penultimate stop on the Sex Pistols' infamous American tour. Now, for the first time ever, all the secrets of the hottest honky-tonk of the 20th Century-Cain's Ballroom-are revealed, in the words of the people who made it happen.
Spanning the famed venue's first 75 years, from 1924 through 1999, Twentieth-Century Honky-Tonk tells it all, from Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys-who became a national sensation with their clear-channel ballroom broadcasts-to U2, the Police, and Van Halen-as Cain's became an essential stop for breakout acts and cosmic cowboys. The book also covers cutting-edge alt-rock acts, metal bands, and off-the-wall attractions like ladies' mud wrestling (which worked) and Pig Time Racing (which didn't).