Joan Frye is a southern woman. Small, strict, but loving, she is doing her best to raise her sons to be respectable and God-fearing even in a less than ideal situation. Her relationship with her husband can be tense, but leaving was never an option.

A tall, stoic southern man who is battling his own demons. Sam Sr. comes from the generation that never showed much emotion unless they were angry. He loves his children and wants to raise them right, but his form of “discipline” only ends up driving them away.

Cleancut, pleasant looking. Scott is a Nashville fiddle player who tries to bring the main character, Bruce, to his church. The church has some controlling tendencies and we slowly see this as Scott’s “helpful suggestions” become increasingly aggressive.

David “Skull” Schulman. Skull and his Rainbow Room was fixture of Nashville in the 80s-90s. Skull was known and loved all over the city, and he often lent a helping hand to struggling musicians who were trying to catch their big break. He loved football, country music, and women. His club, the Rainbow Room was a haunt of Bruce Frye.

Ernie is a car salesman type who actually makes his living selling cars. He sees his cousins Bruce and Sammy and their musical abilities as a way to diversify his investments, and becomes the main sponsor for them when they try to get a record deal. He is charming, high strung, and very southern.

Teen Bruce is a typical teenager of the 70s. He’s got the long hair, the guitar, a strong streak of rebellion, and a refusal to live up to his father’s expectations. He has dreams of becoming a country music star, and whether he’s playing in his band, doing drugs with his friends and brother, Sammy, or getting into trouble at school, he isn’t going to let anything stop him.

Teen Sammy dreams of becoming a pilot in the Air Force. He’s grown up in a home that was filled with tension, and he and his brother, Bruce, both have dreams that would take them far away from that home. He loves his brother, but the two of them together have spent most of their teenage years getting into trouble, and Sammy has watched as Bruce somehow always ends up worse off than him.

Gary is a tall and wiry bass player and a member of young Bruce Frye’s band. He’s young, living in the 70s, and whenever he’s not under the influence of something, he’s realizing more and more that he’d rather be playing rock and roll.

Tall, wiry, teenager who plays the bass in the early 70s.

A helpful ASCAP employee with a wry wit and southern charm.

A scrawny kid with a certain sensitivity. Though he loves doing the typical things any boy in the 60s liked doing: playing with his brothers, swimming in the fishing hole, and reading comic books, Young Bruce is also aware of the tensions between his parents, and is affected by his father’s disapproval and sometimes harsh discipline. 

A wiry, buck toothed southern boy who dreams of one day becoming an astronaut. Young Sammy loves his brothers and playing outside in the North Carolina woods. The tension between his parents makes life up in the stars even more attractive, and between those dreams and his mother’s efforts to keep him in church, Young Sammy stays pretty busy.