Cleve Francis Autobiography To Be Co-published By The Country Music Hall Of Fame® And Museum And University Of Illinois Press

Francis to participate in a book talk at the museum and make his first Grand Ole Opry appearance as a featured performer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – June 10, 2026 – The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum’s CMF Press and the University of Illinois Press are co-publishing a new autobiography by country music recording artist and physician Cleve Francis. Do My Heart Good: My Odyssey Through Country Music, Medicine, and History will be available beginning Tuesday, Oct. 6, in bookstores nationwide and other retail outlets. Preorders are available through the museum’s store.

The book tells the story of Francis, who was born to a poor family in the small town of Jennings, Louisiana. Through hard work and resolve, he rose to be a respected and successful medical doctor and recorded three albums for Capitol Nashville’s Liberty Records during the early 1990s, which included his charting singles “Love Light” and “You Do My Heart Good,” among others. He was one of the few Black artists ever to record country music for a major record label at the time.

Do My Heart Good traces three key threads throughout the life of Francis: his lifelong love of performing music, his abiding interest in science and medicine, and his determination to break through racial barriers through personal achievement. Francis’s life story provides insights into the experiences of a gifted Black singer navigating the country music industry in the 1990s. Above all, this is a story of perseverance and ultimate triumph in the face of many obstacles.

Francis was also the founder of the Black Country Music Association in 1995, which built community, hosted showcases in Nashville and educated fans about country music’s Black performers in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In addition to having recorded for Liberty Records, Francis released a 1970 folk-oriented LP, which was reissued in 2022 as Beyond the Willow Tree on Forager Records and subsequently rediscovered by thousands of listeners worldwide through streaming services.

Francis is also featured in the museum’s expanded box set From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music, released in 2024 in collaboration with Warner Music Nashville. Originally released in 1998, the updated collection and free online experience trace the many ways Black Americans have created, contributed to, and been influenced by country music and includes a fresh wave of Black artists in country and Americana.

The museum’s CMF Press, through an ongoing partnership with the University of Illinois Press, aims to co-publish new works on country music and related music styles as well as release and distribute significant out-of-print historical books.

Book talk and Opry performance

Francis will appear at the museum on Saturday, Sept. 5, at 2:30 p.m. to discuss Do My Heart Good and sign copies of the book. The discussion will be led by the museum’s Senior Director of Editorial Paul Kingsbury. The program is included with museum admission. Tickets can be reserved here.

Francis will also make his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry as a featured performer on Friday evening, Sept. 4.

Do My Heart Good review quotes 

“Cleve’s story really resonated with me as a Southerner who also had a strong mother that sacrificed for her son’s pursuit of a dream. This book is a heartfelt, honest portrayal of not only a Black man, but a Black musician preserving Black culture and its influence during a time of transition in our country. Thank you, Cleve.”
—Darius Rucker

“I was delighted to work with Cleve Francis, who had one of the finest country music voices I ever encountered. He could light up any stage and charm any audience. Cleve wasn’t just a great Black country artist; he was a great country artist, period. His life story is an amazing version of the American dream.”
—Jimmy Bowen, producer and record executive

“Dr. Cleve Francis has led a life of service to his community and the world through his work as a doctor and as a musician. He’s a trailblazer in every sense of the word. His founding of the Black Country Music Association and subsequent advocacy work has made a huge impact on my own career and influenced and inspired me to do the same for others. I am so happy the world will know his story in his own words, on his own terms.”
—Rissi Palmer

“Cleve Francis has inspired me since I walked into his doctor’s office decades ago. He is a medicine man who moves like a human melody, and this memoir is an honest and unforgettable song where identity bends into lyric and memory’s rhythm keeps time. When he’s onstage, we are all his patients. His voice—on record and in this book—is unmistakably healing and insightful. Do your heart good and read this brilliant history aloud. Let each word be a ballad that makes you smile, or at least hope. Let his remarkable story cure some of the woe in our world, inspire you to play on and on.”
—Kwame Alexander, award-winning author and TV producer

“Over the years, those of us who write country music songs for a living have explored some unusual subject matter in our writings. But none of us, even in our most arcane moments, would have ever dreamed up a story about a Black cardiologist turning his back on a promising medical career to become a country music singer. That’s the tale Dr. Cleve Francis tells in this book. And not only does he tell it, and tell it well, but like the best country songs, it’s true. I had a hard time putting it down.”
—Bill Anderson

“Essential work from an essential Black country artist. By telling his improbable story, Cleve Francis—a brilliant cardiologist who became a noted country singer— broadens our understanding of Music City and deepens our understanding of America.”
—Alice Randall, best-selling author and songwriter

“Since before his time as a graduate student at William & Mary, Cleve Francis has pursued two loves: music & medicine. Country, blues, folk, and cardiology: his story has much to teach the next generation of talented leaders about pursuing excellence with grit and flair.”
—Katherine A. Rowe, president, The College of William and Mary

About the University of Illinois Press:
The University of Illinois Press publishes timely and transformative scholarship that empowers local and global readers to understand and engage with the changing world. Established in 1918, the Press publishes 80 new books annually and 45 journal titles in the humanities and social sciences, with particular strengths in music, Black history, women’s studies, labor history, film, sport, and media history. Its keystone Music in American Life series, celebrating 50 years in 2022, and its American Music journal, celebrating 40 years in 2023, richly document the intersections of American music and culture across the broadest range of musical forms and genres. The Press’s many country music, bluegrass, and roots music titles include Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton by Lydia R. Hamessley; Bill Monroe: The Life and Music of a Bluegrass Man by Tom Ewing; Dixie Dewdrop: The Uncle Dave Macon Story by Michael D. Doubler; Queer Country by Shana Goldin-Perschbacher; Stringbean: The Life and Murder of A Country Music Legend by Taylor Hagood; and Buddy Emmons: Steel Guitar Icon by Steve Fishell.

About the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMF Press:
Since the 1980s, CMF Press — the book publishing arm of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum — has published some of the most significant titles about the art, business and culture of country music. Topics have ranged from biographies and memoirs of famous singers and songwriters to in-depth examinations of the history of women in country music, the development of independent record labels in Nashville from 1945 to 1955 and the pioneering work of early record producers in roots music. Among popular works previously issued by CMF Press are Douglas B. Green’s Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy, Charles K. Wolfe’s A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry and Geoffrey Himes’ In-Law Country: How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, and Their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music, 1968-1985.