Randy Travis: The Man Who Saved Country Music?

Biographer Diane Diekman on documenting Travis’s still-unfolding legacy

University of Illinois Press

The first in-depth biography of Country Music Hall of Famer Randy Travis arrives this week from the University of Illinois Press’s Music in American Life series. Titled for his landmark 1986 debut, Randy Travis: Storms of Life traces his journey from a troubled North Carolina teen to a country superstar who paved the way for the genre’s '90s boom. Years before Garth Brooks, Randy became the first country artist to notch multi-platinum album sales—with music that stayed firmly rooted in country’s traditional sound.

I spoke with author Diane Diekman about capturing Randy’s complex story, including the stroke that nearly ended his life in 2013. Since I’m currently writing a book on Randy’s longtime tour mates, The Judds, I also asked Diane how she approached writing about a living artist whose story is still unfolding. Having previously chronicled the lives of Marty Robbins and Faron Young, Diane also shares the surprising parallels she found between those legends and Randy Travis.

[Interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

Hunter Kelly: I learned so much about Randy Travis while reading this book. I got to actually cover him as a journalist myself from 2005 on and interviewed him a few times. It was so great to read about his history coming up in country music. Your previous books on country legends were about Faron Young and Marty Robbins, and their stories were pretty much finished when you started writing about them. Randy’s story is still going. So, how was it different writing about someone who is still living and touring and making headlines?

Diane Diekman: I wanted to try something different after writing about Faron and Marty, who are both dead. They have a limited audience and a limited story. I wanted to write about someone whose story is still going on. So it involves more people being concerned about what I'm writing and who I’m talking to. In my previous projects, I sometimes dealt with the children of the artists and talked to them. But now, to be dealing with Randy himself, and Mary — meeting them, it is a different experience and an enjoyable one.

HK: I’m in a similar situation as I’m currently writing a book on the music of The Judds. They’ve also written their own memoirs, as has Randy. At the same time, the person who is the subject of the book can’t be that objective about it. So, what were you able to bring to telling this story that Randy, from his perspective, and even Mary, wouldn’t be able to?

DD: Well, that’s the major difference between a biography and a memoir or an autobiography — this is not the subject’s opinion. Although the subject's opinion is in there, this is a whole lot more than that because of all the research I've done and all the people I've talked to. So you get differing opinions as to what happened. You get told stories that the subject probably doesn't even remember.

So, it’s a much greater view, and of course, it’s objective, because you would expect the subject to dwell mostly on the things they want people to know. A biographer is telling a story that they think people want to know, which is much larger than the subject's perspective.

HK: And when you get to the superstar level that Randy Travis attained in country music, everything moves so quickly that you’re just trying to keep up and go on to the next thing. I imagine the same would be happening with the people you interviewed who were in Randy’s organization during that time. Did you find memories were a little bit fuzzier when they were keeping up such a rapid pace at Randy’s commercial peak?

DD: That certainly happened with the band members. They told their stories from when Randy was just making it big, and they’d go to a venue and think, “Wow, this is a really hopping little town since all these people are coming out to see us.” They didn’t realize that Randy had gotten so big so quickly that many times the venue was filled to overflowing because he’d become a much bigger star than he had been when that venue first got booked.

HK: As I read Storms of Life, I kept thinking about the business relationship between Wynonna and Naomi Judd and how Wynonna was the singer with the show stopping voice, and Naomi was the one who made sure they got the opportunities they needed to get a record deal and a manager and a producer. I see a similar dynamic playing out in this book between Randy and his former wife and former manager, Elizabeth Hatcher. Of course, I always knew her as Lib Hatcher from when I was reading about them in Country Weekly back in the day.

How did you balance writing about the relationship between Lib and Randy, because Lib was the one who got things done and kept Randy locked down and on-task throughout his career.

DD: There is a great example of that in the book talking about Randy’s gregariousness and how he enjoyed talking to people. He didn’t have to worry about a time schedule or anything when he was engaging with the fans, because he knew Lib would pull him away to leave. The fans would get upset because here they were having a great conversation with Randy, and then this mean manager would come pull him away. As a balance to that, I printed portions of a letter from his publicist, Evelyn Shriver, that explained why Lib had to do that. There are two valid sides to the story. So, Randy never had to say, “Oh, sorry, I have to go.” Lib was happy to be the policeman and say, “It’s time to leave.”

HK: You’ve immersed yourself in the lives of Faron Young and Marty Robbins to write books about them in the past. As you were writing this book about Randy, did you see any echoes of those two legends stories in Randy’s life? Any similarities among them?

DD: Most definitely, all three of them grew up with abusive fathers. Faron’s was verbally cold, but I never heard that Faron’s father drank. Marty’s and Randy’s fathers were both abusive alcoholics, and then Faron became an abusive alcoholic, too. I felt that all three of them had to strive for approval of their father. They were never good enough, or they didn't know they were good enough. As much pain as their fathers caused them, they still longed for that approval. And I think part of that came out in the wonderful showman they were and how they loved entertaining a crowd. They got all that approval from the crowd. I think it may have gone back to what they didn't get from their fathers.

HK: Oh, I’m thinking of about 10 other country artists now with similar stories.

DD: Yes.

HK: Moving on, a big gift of this book for me was going back and digging through Randy’s catalog and hearing the point of view from Randy’s longtime producer, Kyle Lehning, as you share in the book. I’m wondering what new insights into Randy’s music you walked away with? Did you appreciate the music in a different way?

DD: I didn't appreciate the sound of it any more than I already did, but I just found it really interesting to hear all the stories. Kyle Lehning was wonderful. I could not have written the book with the same detail without Kyle's helpfulness and willingness. There was so much more that I couldn't put in the book because I had to keep it to a word limit, so a lot of the stories Kyle told me I had to cut out. But he was just so helpful.

HK: So, Randy’s major label debut album, Storms of Life, was a major event in country music when it was released in 1986, which was just a few years after artists like George Strait, Ricky Skaggs, Reba McEntire, and The Judds had revived that classic country sound in the format. But Randy ended up outselling them all at the time with multi-platinum albums, and that never happened in 1980s country music. Why do you think this hardcore country music Randy made resonated with fans so much?

DD: Well, people were longing for those country sounds. Me, for one, I’m a traditional country music person, so that what I wanted to hear. But you're looking for the next big thing, and that became the next big thing. A lot that music did become acceptable because Randy Travis was having hits at the time. It opened the doors for a lot of other people to record more of that kind of music.

HK: And Randy’s impact was massive, but that wasn’t always captured on the Billboard Top 200. His album, Always & Forever, sold five million copies but only peaked at #19 on the albums chart. Of course, this was before Soundscan was introduced in 1991 and sales were tabulated by bar code rather than by reports from record sellers. But Randy was selling like a pop star!

DD: Yes, he was. And the numbers probably weren’t as accurate during that period as they were later.

HK: You share a great story in the book about how concerned Randy was to be on the pop charts.

DD: Oh, yes. He walked into the Warner Brothers office one day, and they were discussing the charts, as they always do. Someone said, “Look here, Randy. You’re up here selling with these pop singers.” And Randy said, “Get me off there! I’m not a pop singer! I don’t want to be with all of them!” They explained to him that, no, he wasn’t on the pop charts, but he was selling at the level that pop artists were selling.

Country music had traditionally sold well below pop. A song that a country singer does, such as Marty Robbins doing “Singing the Blues,” would sell a few records, and then when they had Guy Mitchell record a pop version of the same song, it might sell four times as many. So, for Randy to be selling at pop levels was a major event.

HK: Randy definitely paved the way for the “Class of ’89,” which included the debuts of several era-defining artists such as Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and Clint Black. All of them really leaned into that traditional country sound and sold millions of albums doing so. By the time those artists are really ruling country music in the early ‘90s, Randy decided to pivot and take some time off the road to focus on his acting career. Do you think he felt that country music would be in good hands with this new crop of artists? Was that on his mind?

DD: I wouldn’t think so. He’d been wanting to get into the movies for years, and he didn’t have time to do that with his touring schedule. He was at the top in country music, but he was just so worn out from being on the road. He let his band go and didn’t tour for more than a year. He’d hit a wall and needed to do something different. But it’s not like he rested during that time. He made five movies during that year off the road in 1992 and 1993. Then he started recording again.

I think he felt all along that he wasn’t necessary to keep country music going. He acknowledged the role he played in it, but he thought everybody else deserved just as much credit as he did.

HK: I know that mantle of “country music’s savior” really got put on Randy’s shoulders, but you don’t think he felt any kind of pressure about that?

DD: I don’t. The older, traditional artists like George Jones and Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn all loved him. They felt like he was bringing true country music back. They were his heroes, so he was happy to be doing it.

HK: Now, I have some questions about the writing process. How many years did it take to write his book from the time you started?

DD: I got my contract almost six years ago in 2019. I had been thinking about writing it several years before that. I published the Mary Robbins biography in 2012, and I thought, “I have one more biography in me. This time I’d like to write about a living singer who has a larger audience and maybe actually make back some of the money I spent writing the books about Marty and Faron Young.”

I was considering who to write about, and I wanted to choose someone whose music I never would get tired of listening to and who did not have any biographies written about them. Those two choices came down to Randy Travis and Merle Haggard. I ended up choosing Randy Travis.

I’d send him birthday cards and notes over the years saying, “I’d like to write your biography,” but I never got a response because they didn’t know who I was. So, in 2019, it finally came together, and I got a contract from the University of Illinois Press to write this book.

HK: So, how do you keep your research straight? So much has been written about Randy Travis through the years, it must have taken some effort to keep that all organized.

DD: Well, I’m a chronological writer. My first piece of advice to everybody who’s thinking about writing a biography is to begin with the timeline. Start with their birth, and whenever you find a date where they were someplace, or did something, put it in your timeline. That really helped me, because there have been many times that I’ve had to go back to figure out what year it was or what time it was. When I go to the timeline, I can find enough information to be able to plug in something that’s missing. That’s really helpful.

With all all the articles and everything that I would gather, I organize them into folders by years. Then, when I’m writing the chapters, I write chronologically about each period as it happens. Then I go back when I’m revising the book, and if he might have done the same thing in three different years, eventually I’ll combine those three events into one and talk about the previous year and the next year. So, it doesn’t stay strictly chronological, but I start out that way. That’s how I keep stuff in order.

Another thing is how I handle footnotes. A lot of writers say, “Well, I go back and then I have to figure out my sources.” I footnote every sentence from the time I’m beginning. So, if I move stuff around, the footnotes move with it. Then when I get the manuscript finished, I combine the footnote so there aren’t so many. Maybe one per paragraph. But all the time that I’m writing, those sentences are always attached to the footnotes so I never lose track of where the information came from. That’s a big help.

HK: While researching this book, you went and visited a lot of Randy’s old stomping grounds, like his former home in Ashland City, Tennessee outside Nashville. How important was it for you to see those places in person?

DD: Oh, it’s always a help to be able to picture it in your mind. I didn’t make it to his home in Hawaii, but I was around Maui. So, I understood that. And I didn’t make it to his home in New Mexico, but I’ve been to his ranch in Texas and his home in Ashland City. It was major to go to his hometown of Marshville, North Carolina. I went with my sister, and we happened to meet Randy’s nephew, who lives there. He showed us around and talked to us. So, to have that picture in my mind all the time I’m writing is a major help.

HK: There are some very delicate passages to the book where you write about Randy and Lib parting ways personally and professionally. You also write about Randy’s downward spiral with alcohol-related arrests and then his devastating stroke. How did you push yourself not to censor those difficult passages?

DD: I thought about that a lot. It’s always the balance of what the reader of a biography has a right to know and the privacy of the people. It wasn’t just Randy’s privacy. It was constantly on my mind as I was writing to get that right balance. There were a lot of details that I could have included, but I didn’t. Some of it, I glossed over or just mentioned a little bit to give a bit of the flavor.

That’s what I explained to them also, because one of Mary’s comments was, “Why does this stuff have to be in the book? I don’t want to have to relive it.” But it needs to be there so that the reader understands the complete picture. I think I told a balanced story. If a reader finds all this stuff on the internet and then doesn’t see anything about it in the book, they’ll think, “Well, what kind of biographer is that? She didn’t even address all those things.”

So, I needed to address it all. Then I could add an explanation of why these things happened and blend it all together and smooth it out, so that when somebody reads the book, they trust me and think, “Well, she’s telling the whole story. She’ s not just picking out the good pieces, and she’s also not doing a hit piece. She’s not trying to find everything negative. She’s telling a life story that’s well balanced.” That was my goal.

HK: Just before Randy had the stroke in July 2013, he was in crisis. I was the Nashville correspondent for ABC News at the time, and I remember having his obituary ready to publish even before his health crisis, due to his multiple arrests for alcohol-related incidents. You write that this coincided with him splitting personally and professionally with Lib, who had exerted a lot of control over Randy during their time together.

Randy’s relationship with his wife, Mary, reminds me of George Jones’ relationship with his wife, Nancy. When George passed away in April 2013, so many folks commented how we probably would have lost George much earlier to drugs and alcohol if not for Nancy stepping in to take care of him. Certainly, we have seen Mary at Randy’s side every step of the way through his recovery from the stroke and his continued involvement in the country music industry.

As a fan of country music myself who used to look at these artists as heroes or archetypes, I’ve had to let go of my hopes for the ones who have been in crisis to rise up as independent people who thrive on their own and have all their demons in control. Most of the time, we don’t get that full redemption story arc we’re looking for.

DD: No, we don’t, and you have to look at what works. The relationship that Randy and Lib had worked for them. Randy would often talk about how he just signed the papers that she put in front of him. He was happy to have her take care of the business. He just wanted to sing and ride horses and lift weights.

In general, Lib did an excellent job. I don’t think he would’ve ever been the star he was without her hard work and her money and her support. So, they were a team for those many years, and what they did worked well. They eventually stopped being a team, and that became pretty contentious. And that’s sad. I didn’t dwell on it in the book. For starters, I couldn’t find the information on their court cases and their divorce and all of that. They were sealed, and I didn’t have access to them. So, I couldn’t tell all those stories. But I had enough to give a flavor of the animosity between them. But, you know, marriages end like that.

HK: In the 12 years since his stroke, we have Mary to thank for showing up for Randy and making sure the business is taken care of. It’s been great to still have Randy around and present at events like his Country Music Hall of Fame induction or his appearances on the CMA Awards. He even popped up on the Grand Ole Opry again this past weekend. I’m grateful he’s still here.

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DD: Yes, for sure, because for a long time it looked like he wouldn’t be. But there again, he and Mary are a team. They work well together, and Mary is determined, and she loves him. It’s the same sort of relationship that he had earlier with Lib. There’s not many people who can find two spouses who love them and that will do what is needed to help them succeed.

HK: Diane, I appreciate this in-depth look into Randy Travis’s life and career. It’s crazy to think that next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Storms of Life. We really do have enough distance from the music of the ‘80s and ‘90s to really start putting into a historical context.

DD: On the issue of the decades going by, I think one good illustration of that in the book is back in 1990 when Randy released his Heroes and Friends album, he had duets on that album with older stars like George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and those two songs in particular were released as singles to country radio. Randy was at the height of his career, so he could help out those older singers in that way.

Well, then you fast forward to Randy’s 25th anniversary album in 2011, and it’s the opposite. He, then, is the older singer, and he’s got all the new artists on board, [like Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw and Carrie Underwood.] But their record companies would not allow singles to be released from the album, because it wasn’t going to help their young singers to have a duet with this older Randy Travis. So, I thought that was a great example of the passage of time. How everybody gets older and is no longer at the top of the heap. It happens to everybody.

If you’re jonesing for more Randy Travis hits, the University of Illinois has compiled a YouTube playlist. Enjoy!