Moe Bandy spent 12 years bending sheet metal by day before becoming one of honky tonk's most authentic voices. The factory worker turned country music star built a 1970s career on hard-edged drinking and cheating songs, yet his real life shattered every tortured-artist stereotype in Nashville.

While his lyrics dripped with whiskey, heartbreak, and ruined marriages, Bandy was a clean-living family man who absorbed the pain of the working class he labored alongside. His slow, decade-long grind from factory floor to the top of the country charts raises a question that haunts country music today: can blue-collar authenticity survive the age of overnight viral fame?

• His 1974 breakthrough "I Just Started Hating Cheating Songs Today" cracked the country top 20

• Lefty Frizzell co-wrote "Bandy the Rodeo Clown," a hit bui ...