Black Music Month: Spotlight On the BluesLike this list

25 items

• When I Left Home

  My Story

  Guy, Buddy

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  According to Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy is the greatest blues guitarist of all time. An enormous influence on these musicians as well as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, he is the living embodiment of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga

  Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South

  Scott, Michelle R., 1974-

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  As one of the first African American vocalists to be recorded, Bessie Smith is a prominent figure in American popular culture and African American history. Michelle R. Scott uses Smith's life as a lens to investigate broad issues in history,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Land Where the Blues Began

  Lomax, Alan, 1915-2002

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  Set in an era as harsh and fertile as Delta silt,The Land Where the Blues Beganreveals how the river of African-American culture overtook its repressive banks--to give us R & B, soul, rock 'n' roll, and the only purely American art form, the blues.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Escaping the Delta

  Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues

  Wald, Elijah

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  Robert Johnson's story presents a fascinating paradox: Why did this genius of the Delta blues excite so little interest when his records were first released in the 1930s? And how did this brilliant but obscure musician come to be hailed long after…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Memphis Blues Again

  Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs

  Withers, Ernest C., 1922-2007

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  Text by Daniel Wolff A stunning collection of photographs covering six decades of the music scene in Memphis, the birthplace of the blues and home to some of the greatest American popular music of the 20th century. From ragtime and jazz, through the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Blues

  a Regional Experience

  Eagle, Bob

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  Examining the blues genre by region, and describing the differences unique to each, make this a must-have for music scholars and lay readers alike. A melding of many types of music such as ragtime, spiritual, jug band, and other influences came…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• I Am the Blues

  the Willie Dixon Story

  Dixon, Willie, 1915-1992

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  These are just a few of Willie Dixon's contributions to blues, R&B, and rock'n'roll--songs performed by artists as varied as the Rolling Stones, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, ZZ Top, the Doors, Sonny Boy Williamson, the Grateful Dead, Van Morrison,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• BluesSpeak

  the Best of the Original Chicago Blues Annual

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  This incomparable anthology collects articles, interviews, fiction, and poetry from the Original Chicago Blues Annual, one of music history's most significant periodical blues publications. Founded and operated from 1989 to 1995 by African American…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Original Blues

  the Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville

  Abbott, Lynn, 1946-

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  In this volume, Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff complete their groundbreaking trilogy on the development of African American popular music, authoritatively connecting the black vaudeville movement with the explosion of blues that followed. At the end of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• How Britain Got the Blues

  the Transmission and Reception of American Blues Style in the United Kingdom

  Schwartz, Roberta Freund

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  This book explores how, and why, the blues became a central component of English popular music in the 1960s. It is commonly known that many 'British invasion' rock bands were heavily influenced by Chicago and Delta blues styles. But how, exactly,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Blues Lyric Formula

  Taft, Michael, 1947-

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  This book is the first rigourous and detailed exploration of exactly how blues singers used formulas to create songs, and it more than amply fills the gap in the the study of the blues, where the structure and content of the lyrics have been less…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Big Book of Blues

  a Biographical Encyclopedia

  Santelli, Robert

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  The Big Book of Blues, by music-journalist Santelli, explores the lives of 650 blues musicians, with a few non musicians, such as the Lomaxes from the Library of Congress, mixed in. The biographical essays open with the names of band members or…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• State of the Blues

  Dunas, Jeff

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  "State of the Blues" is photographer Jeff Dunas's stirring tribute to the power of the blues, an American tradition that has its roots in the Mississippi Delta and branches that have spread around the world. One of the most vital early expressions…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Blues CD Listener's Guide

  Blumenthal, Howard J.

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  A CD consumer guide series offering readers the opportunity to expand their musical horizons. Each book contains a section on musical linkages - connecting artists with others employing similar performance and musical styles. This volume focuses on…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Blues Faces

  a Portrait of the Blues

  Charters, Ann, 1936-

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  In this evocative collaboration, the Charters recognize that the blues has more than one face. With photographs (mostly by Ann, editor of The Portable Beat Reader) and commentary (by Sam, The Country Blues), they not only document the better-known…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Rythm Oil

  a Journey Through the Music of the American South

  Booth, Stanley, 1942-2024

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  Collects pieces previously published in Saturday evening post, Esquire, Village voice, and other publications about the roots of blues and soul music and encounters with some legendary figures. Rythm [sic] Oil is the name of a potion sold on Beale…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Blues Traveling

  the Holy Sites of Delta Blues

  Cheseborough, Steve

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  At a crossroads in the Mississippi Delta, Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the Devil so that he could become a guitar virtuoso and King of the Delta Blues. Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues will tell you where that…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Can't Be Satisfied

  the Life and Times of Muddy Waters

  Gordon, Robert, 1961-

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  Muddy Waters invented electric blues and created the template for the rock and roll band and its wild lifestyle. Gordon excavates Muddy's mysterious past and early career, taking us from Mississippi fields to postwar Chicago street corners.

• Blues All Around Me

  the Autobiography of B.B. King

  King, B. B.

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  B. B. King's autobiography is an inspirational story so well told, with the help of coauthor Ritz, that it transcends the genre of pop-music biography. The words flow melodiously as King recalls an early life of hardship and fear as something…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Delta Blues

  the Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music

  Gioia, Ted

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  The definitive account of how the rough sounds of the Mississippi Delta--from legendary greats Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and others--changed the course of American popular music.