Randy Owen pens autobiography

Harper One, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, will publish the book. "Randy Owen is a legend," said Mark Tauber, Publisher of HarperOne. "We are thrilled to be a part of the telling of his story which is, in itself, a very important chapter in the larger story of country music."

The book chronicles Owen's life from his humble beginnings living in extreme poverty and hardship as the son of share coppers in northeast Alabama to forming the band Wild Country with his cousin Teddy Gentry and Jeff Cook to signing with RCA Records and eventually being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

He goes into detail about how he dealt with his father passing away two weeks before his band Alabama broke onto the national scene. "I really didn't have a chance to mourn," Owen recalls. "Some of the most successful days I had as an entertainer were some of the saddest days for me around that time."

He recounts arriving in Myrtle Beach on a rainy day and hearing news his father had passed away that day. The local police were looking for him to let him know what happened. He found a phone booth where he called home to speak with his mother.

"This book was really something important for me to do for my family," he sys. "We touched on every segment of my life - it's really a microcosm of my life. God had had a big plan for me and guided me through the good and the bad. There were definitely painful parts that were hard to relive."

Rucker is the author or co-author of nine books of humor and non-fiction. "The Sopranos Family Cookbook," one of three books he's written about the Sopranos, was a New York Times number one bestseller.