Beautiful Mess - The Story of Diamond Rio {Review}

If you are a fan of country music, christian music and reading - this is the book for you! This is the true story about the struggles of Diamond Rio - how they became a band, how they worked their behinds off to earn a lousy dollar and how they stayed together as a band despite some serious strife.

Diamond Rio is as rare in music as diamonds are in the world of jewels. They resisted drugs, carousing, stayed together as a band without replacing any members and stayed true to their roots and sound. This book opens the fans eyes to how hard it is to be a band and stay a band in the world of music.

It opens up with a huge problem - the lead singer Marty Roe is losing his ability to sing. Then it leaves you hanging as it switches to the very humble beginnings of the band. From there each chapter is a short biography of the individual members. I loved the member chapters because they are flavored with the voices of the guys themselves - almost as if they wrote it! It was like I was sitting down with the guys learning about their individual lives, and this really made me appreciate how different they all are and how much work it is to keep such differences melded in a band for 20 years!

The book then takes you through their extreme successes and highlights again what amazing men they are. After they hit it big with "Meet in the Middle," they'd get strippers or drugs taken to their bus from owners of venues trying to get on the guy's good sides. Only all these "gifts" were very quickly rejected - as was the free booze! Hooray for morals in a decaying world!

Even their successes had some serious struggles. At one very low point one member had a mass on his lungs, another seriously cut his legs in a boating accident and another almost sliced off his thumb while using a miter saw! But they overcame this and other more personal issues to make country music history!

My favorite part of the book was when it went back to Marty's struggles with his voice. It was the lowest point for the entire band and they stuck by him. If he couldn't sing anymore Diamond Rio was done - they were not going to replace him like other bands might have!

Author Tom Roland did a fantastic job of compiling 40 years of history into very easy to read 290 page book. At times it felt more like a history lesson, but serious country fans will appreciate those pages.

This book is also filled with pictures of the members from their childhood, personal family photos, tour photos and candid pics like Jimmy skydiving. The only thing that could have made it better would be color pictures!

Thomas Nelson publishers also gives readers a free audio book and e-book with the purchase of a bound book - now my husband can listen to the book at home and we can discuss it together! I love this!

I am a Thomas Nelson publisher reviewer. I received a free copy of this book to review on my blog.