Iris Cooper has been singing ever since she can remember, hitting the high notes like no one else. When she is twelve, her father convinces the owner of a bar in Lake City, Texas, to let her perform, and she stuns the audience. In the ensuing years, never staying anywhere for long, father and daughter move from one dusty town to the next, Iris's passion for music growing every time she takes the mike in another roadhouse. But her father starts using her income to pay for gambling, women, and booze. When she starts to tour at age eighteen, she takes on a real manager. Yet he exploits her too, and the singers and musicians she travels with are really the only family she has. After years of enduring the hardships of the road, exploitation, and abuse to do what she loves, Iris's big chance comes as her talent soars.