"Roadkill on the Three-Chord Highway" is a fine book of complied essays about 1950s-era rock 'n' roll, country, and pop musicians by Colin Escott.  The first chapter is about Roy Orbison (38 pages) and is pretty much the essay that appeared in the Bear Family box set.  There are also five pre-sunglasses-period photographs, including one of Roy, then the newly charted star, and a glum-looking Sam Phillips, whose hit factory had run dry.

I suspect most of these essays are from liner notes.  Colin Escott really has been my favorite writer for decades on the subject of 1950s music.  In addition to his books, he has written liner notes for hundreds of LPs, CDs, and box sets, including an endless number of LPs on the Charly label from the 1970s and 1980s that documented the wonderful Sun label.

Even though this book is copyrighted 2002 I just found out about it this week.  Other chapters of great interest to me include essays on Ned Miller, Wynn Stewart, Wanda Jackson, The Collins Kids, and Sonny Burgess.