The Ballad of Fiddling Tom Freeman: Music, Moonshine, and Murder in Bug Tussle, Alabama by Joyce H. Cauthen with Robin Sterling

The Ballad of Fiddling Tom Freeman (University of Alabama Press, 2026) is a riveting portrait of a forgotten America, drawn from the handwritten memoirs of a bootlegger, fiddler, and chronicler of life in Bug Tussle, Alabama, in the first half of the twentieth century. Today, rural voices are often drowned out by polished narratives, but this book resurrects the unfiltered perspective of a man who lived through—and candidly documented—the chaos and violence in his home place as he shared stories of the large close-knit families who lived there.

Freeman’s storytelling is as wild and tangled as the lives he describes, and author Joyce H. Cauthen, with the assistance of historical researcher Robin Sterling, brings clarity and context to his tales without sanding down their rough edges. The result is a vivid, bottom-up history of a place where lawlessness and loyalty often walked hand in hand.

The Ballad of Fiddling Tom Freeman stands out as a testament to the power of personal narrative. Not just a story about one man, it’s a window into a community shaped by hardship, music, and survival, told in a voice that refuses to be forgotten. This book is essential reading for historians, folklorists, musicians, and anyone drawn to the untamed stories of America’s backroads and backwoods.

Joyce H. Cauthen served as director of the Alabama Folklife Association from 2000 to 2010. An expert on folk music traditions in Alabama, she is the author of With Fiddle and Well-Rosined Bow: A History of Old-Time Fiddling In Alabama, Out of Whole Cloth: The Life of Bettye Kimbrell, and Benjamin Lloyd’s Hymn Book.

Robin Sterling has produced approximately ninety books of historical data collected from courthouse documents, cemetery surveys, marriage registers, Confederate pension applications, census records, newspapers, and other primary sources.