Don Cusic

Don Cusic is one of the premier historians of country music and an internationally known scholar and writer. As an author, teacher, historian, songwriter, producer and executive, Cusic has been actively involved in the music business since 1973. He is a 2022 inductee in the Western Music Hall of Fame.

Cusic is the author of twenty-five published books, including the biographies Roger Miller: Dang Him, Elvis and Nashville, Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You In My Heart, The Life and Career of Gene Autry, The Cowboy Way: Riders In The Sky, James Weldon Johnson: Songwriter and The Trials of Henry Flipper. He wrote an encyclopedia of cowboys, Cowboys and the Wild West: An A-Z Guide from the Chisholm Trail to the Silver Screen and edited (and was the primary writer of) The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music. Other books include Johnny Cash: The Songs, The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel and Christian Music (re-published as Saved by Song), The Cowboy in Country Music, Music in the Market, Baseball and Country Music, Poet of the Common Man: Merle Haggard Lyrics, Willie Nelson: Lyrics 1959-1994, Hank Williams: The Complete Lyrics, Reba McEntire: Country Music's Queen, Randy Travis: King of the New Traditionalists, The Poet as Performer, and Sandi Patti: The Voice of Gospel. Cusic is also the author of two novels: Sharecropper’s Son and Dressed in Grey and Blue (a Civil War novel).