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Customer Reviews (4)

One of the greatest Chicago blues books ever!
This is absolutely one of the all time very bestbooks ever written about our Chicago blues! A real must for all readers who want to learn about this music and it's great musicians. Great rare photos and stories. I have over 200 blues books and this is one of my favorites. Enjoy it! Buy it Read it!
www.barrelhousechuck.com
Chicago blues piano player

chicago blues, the people who made music, their story
one of the best on the subject, a classic standing on its own, many cds sleeve notes and other publications have as their source the stories and information in its pages,Highly Recommended Some books have a built in obsolessence in them as time goes by, this book as all the best works on a given subject will never be less than essential.

Good, but could and should have been Great
This is an important book for Blues fans, but it had the opportunity to be so much more in terms of size and detail, as most of the artists mentioned in this book were still alive at its initial publish date in 1973.Though many of the artists are quoted, it appears from the skimpy Source section in Chicago Blues that most of the quotes were obtained from Blues Unlimited magazine or from Mike Leadbitter's book, Nothing But The Blues, which also sources Blues Unlimited.

If author Mike Rowe actually had gone to Chicago, Memphis and various cities in Mississippi to personally interview the artists in this book, Chicago Blues would still be the definitive book on Chicago Blues today.Sadly, all but a handful of the artists referenced in this book are deceased today, thus rendering it impossible for another author to attempt to document first and second hand accounts of the shaping of Blues music in Chicago.Rowe may never have intended this book to be the definitive piece on Chicago Blues music, so it may be a bit unfair of me to chastise him for not taking advantage of the availability of the artists and presenting a greater work.

In addition to my disappointment of what this book could have been, I take exception with some of Rowe's artist assessments.He incorrectly dismisses Billy Boy Arnold as only an "average talent" and tends to gloss over those with exceptional talent.Blues music was at a dreary point in the early 70s and combined with Rowe's personal biases towards or against artists, influenced the tenor of this book.

Though Chicago Blues has its shortcomings, I am going to order a second copy as my 20 year old copy is worn.

Very imformative reading
This book is one of those 'text' books that reads well. It isn't really a text book but it contains more information about Chicago Blues than I have found in a single book anywhere else. It covers the standard demographic changes and other things that lead to the development of the music, but then it walks you through the artists, big and small, the different labels, big and small. From Muddy Waters to Mighty Joe Young, Chess to Jax. Also included are billboard rating charts, and a very comprehensive discography by artist. The only limitaion I found was that it does not cover the more modern artists, leaving off around the mid seventies. For someone who loves blues and wants to know more, this is a great guidebook for a journey though a great musical tradition. ... Read more

Product Description
ÕChasinÕ That Devil Music - Searching for the BluesÕ is the fruitof research into the birth of the blues by a blues scholar who has researchedthe artists on old 78 RPM records to uncover their stories along with rare interviews and songs which are on the CD included with the book.Amazon.com Review
Chasin' That Devil Music has the feel of a documentaryabout the making of a thrilling motion picture. The main focus is onthe Delta blues singers of the early 20th century--artists such as Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Son House, and Blind LemonJefferson who've achieved near-mythic status in blues circles. Inaddition, many of the articles gathered in this splendidly illustratedvolume capture the process and people involved in tracking long-lostrecordings nearly as elusive as the performers who made them. Here,for example, is the story of author/blues scholar Gayle Dean Wardlow'sthree-year hunt for the death certificate of Robert Johnson,the celebrated Mississippi bluesman and a figure whose legend hasgrown greater with each year since his much-debated death in 1938. Thetext here is nearly as raw in spots as the music that sparked it, but,as with those sounds (which can be heard on a terrific CD samplerincluded with the book), enthusiasts will find Chasin' That DevilMusic riveting. --Steven Stolder ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

The Delta Blues
Wardlow tells his researching story, so it is not a chronological history book of the Delta Blues, it is devided by research types, for instance a section about finding documents , and a section about interviews. Yet it gives finally good tools to know about the Delta Blues big picture.

Young Delta Blues fans who for instance are not aware that there were a question how many people by the name of Willie Brown were at the same place and time playing Delta Blues, it is not only good introduction of the question but also the possible answers.

I have this book about a year or two and I keep coming back. It is essential if you are really a Delta Blues fan who wants to extend the knowledge about the Delta Blues and it's history, this is the first place. It can serve as appendix to any article or book about the Delta Blues, so when reading other stuff, coming back to this book is going to be a ritual for anyone having this book.

Definte, interesting, scholarship, good CD
Whatever you think of Wardlow's own views, this is the kind of definite real scholarship someone who wants to become really knowledgeable about Mississippi blues and its economic and cultural milieu.Despite what various comments are, Wardlow's writing is not overly intellectual, rather it is very factual. It is record collectors and blues lovers like Wardlow in the late 1950s and early 1960s that laid the basis for their being original Delta blues records (and their peers in old time "white" music)to be reissued and who "found" so many of the original blues stars.Wardlow provides a lot of good basic information about the recording practices for the music, and the situations of lots of blues players you may or may not have heard of. These are all articles where he announced his or others work making the discovery.\
One thing to read is his article that clearly illustrates that Robert Johnson never said, thought, or was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil. No one who knew Johnson ever said that. One informant took the story that Tommy Johnson told and told a credulous folk nik "blues expert" this in the 1960s, the rest has become a minor industry.
The CD provided is fun and provides some players most havent heard of.The Western Swing tune about selling the soul to the Devil has beocme part of my performance repertpor!

A Valuable Piece for Blues Fans
I agree with Lampic's review in that the author comes across as egocentric while compiling the history of the Mississippi Delta blues, offering some inappropriate and disrespectful comments while interviewing seventy-five-year-old bluesmen.Regardless, the content of this book is very important and valuable to anybody who is as passionate about the music from this era as me.

We are all familiar with Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Skip James, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, and Son House.These names give us the true definition of Mississippi Delta blues and have now obtained a well-deserved legendary status, becoming subjects of countless music compilations and biographies.But they weren't the only blues singers from the Delta.The author recognizes this and gives us strikingly vivid and detailed accounts of the lives and contributions of the lesser-known bluesmen; namely, Ishmon Bracey, King Solomon Hill, and Tommy Johnson (although Tommy Johnson has recently been a subject of intrest after the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" phenomenon).These men have long been overlooked and their music was shadowed by that of Skip James and Robert Johnson during the blues revival of the 1960s.

One particularly interesting portion in this book is the re-examination of Robert Johnson's death, which has been the subject of many-a-legend.Wardlow rehashes the search for Johnson's death certificate and offers his own ideas, based on his own research and interview sessions, about how Johnson really died.

We also learn the fates of many of the other performers, which is often heartbreaking--these men are my heroes, and it's so sad to learn that many were victims of alcoholism and extreme poverty.

The accompanying CD is an excellent item indeed.Not only do we have audios of Wardlow's interviews, but many previously unreleased (or thought to have been lost) recordings from Skip James, Tommy Johnson, King Solomon Hill, and Ishmon Bracey (among others).What's even more remarkable is that these came from Wardlow's own private collection of blues 78s--I'd love to see this guy's record library!

Wardlow also includes an extremely comprehensive discography for each bluesman, arranged by catalog number for Paramount and Yazoo.This list alone is worth the price of the book--I now have a basis for building my own collection (although I tend to stick to the cheaper and less fragile CD releases, rather than trying to track down the original 78s!)

If you look beyond the writing style and the occasional arrogance, this book is excellent for its historic information and accompanying music collection.

"They forgott,but I know better"
Am I the only one who noticed that this is not a book about ancient blues masters but a monument to its author? Come on,folks,read between the lines - Wardlow talks to old blues musicians just to add his own (patronising) remarks how they forgott everything and he knows better.The argument about King Solomon Hill is nothing but one big ego-trip,he was frustrated for 18 years because his theory was ridiculed at the time,so now he can point that he was right the whole time.Wardlow never mentioned why he got hooked on blues music in the first place (except that he found that old 78 records were collectors items) but through the whole book (collection of articles) shows his white-boy-turns-blues-knows-it-all attitude,treating blues music with intellectualism typical for someone who collect recording dates and musician's names,just so he can later point that he knows those dates and names better than old musicians who recorded them.True,if its not for Wardlow and people like him,many of these names would be completely forgotten,but I find his writting style annoying and CD is the best thing about the whole book.

The mystique of early rural blues
This book IS a reprint of previously published articles, not all of them written by Wardlow (for instance, an interview with Wardlow by other reporters is included), but apparently most of these articles have never appeared in book form.They are fascinating for a reader interested in learning more about how people like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson, long dead, are more celebrated today than would have been imaginable, let alone possible, in their own times.Wardlow was one of the early "investigators" who unearthed obscure recordings and salient information about the musicians who made them.This book is largely an account of that difficult process.Now, when it's relatively easy to hear the complete recorded works of Son House, Blind Willie Johnson, et. al., it's hard to imagine what blues fans had to go through to hear this music 40 years ago.Wardlow's book is a revelation and an inspiration also.The "free" CD is wonderful, too, and worth the price of the book itself. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

A GREAT READ
Paul Oliver's writings stretch back to 1952, his first book appeared in 1960 and he is, without a doubt, the most prolific and dependable of all blues writers, as well as being among the very first. This latest volume deals in detail with the recording of regional blues in the pre-1942 era; the period when mobile recording units visited largely southern cities to capture the music of regional performers. There was no musicologist's philosophy driving these endevours, the recording directors were looking for new talent who could sell product for their companies. In doing so, of course, they unwittingly comitted to posterity a wealth of folk music that might otherwise have passed unnoticed. Paul deals with this complex subject better than anyone could at this remove, placing it, as he always has done for any topic, within a well-defined historical context. It's an absorbing read for the deeply comitted blues fan but perhaps not a book that the casual reader or novice should attempt until they get a little further down the road of blues history. It also neatly compliments Godrich and Dixons' 1970 classic "Recording the Blues", now available again as part of the compendium "Yonder Comes The Blues", and to read the two in tandem is to assure yourself of a decent understanding of how and why early blues came to be recorded.

... Read more

Product Description
Over 40 classics from blues greats Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, James Dalton, Elmore James, John Brim, and Lester Davenport complete with an extensive introduction on how to play the pieces in this book. Pieces include: Boom, Boom (Out Go The Lights) * Cool Disposition * Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide * Ice Cream Man * I'm A Man * and many more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

The Best Blues Harmonica collection
This collection is the best. You will find some transcriptions of the best songs recorded by LITTLE WALTER, SONNY BOY II and more. If you are a Chicago Blues' lover, this is for you.

Great Collection of Songs
Not necessarily a fan of Hal Leonard products per se.Still get some night sweats from them old accordion and piano book lessons I sat atop once upon a time.Nevertheless, this large blues harp collection is worth fighting off the spirits of those old ghosts.

For Beginners, would only recommend as a place or something to eventually strive for.Hopefully, with enough desire, practice and heart, you can/will get it up there one day too.

Intermediate & Advanced players will still have their challenges cut out and chops tested for them along the way also.

There are more than 60 songs (way too many to list here); each song in both music and tablature provides the artist as well as which key harp i.e. A, C, F, etc. they played and whether straight or cross harp was used.

The best way I'd recommend for everyone to learn any of this material is to hear it played several if not 10s or 100s of times more by the original artists.Yet while no discography is included, much of the original music can still be found.Additionally, Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson comprise and make up at least half the selections in this book between them alone.

So in Little Walter's case, if you actually want to pay the current going rate of$70-150+ for his out-of-print "Essentials" - or even just download the songs at 99 cents a clip from iTunes whomever - by all means go for it.

For those on different budgets, Sonny Boy Williamson "His Best" and Little Walter "His Best" - each sold separately but on the Chess 50th Anniversary Collection CDs; and available new on Amazon or wherever - will cover the book's songs fairly well.

His Best

His Best :(Little Walter)The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection

And finally, for those who just like to collect these old Hal Leonard books for any type musical instrument or genre - Well, you certainly can't go wrong here anywhere either.{Just don't scare the grandkids with them, gran'pa! Forcing them to sit up straight at the dinner table, eat their veggies and oh, well...}

In any event, Highly Recommended to have fun!!

Blues Harmonica Collection
Really great tab.The only thing I wish it had is a CD so you would not have to chase all the music.The music is a must to have with this book.This book is not for beginners.

Wow.Really different! Great to learn complete songs.
Blues Harmonica Collection isn't a blues harp lick book and isn't just a song book.And it isn't a harp tab book for playing the melody of songs. It's also not an instruction book. I have all these. "Blues Harmonica Collection" is different. It's a song book with the harp parts tabbed out in the appropriate places. If you've seen song books with the music tabbed out for guitar then this will look familiar. The difference is there's no guitar tab. The melody lines are written in regular music lines. So, what you may see is a couple bars of music (not tab) with the notation "guitar solo" as the intro, then two bars of melody line written in music notation (not tab) with the words underneath, then two bars of music with the harp tab underneath. Also, along with all of that, the chords are noted at the top like you'd expect to see in any music book. So, you can learn the song from intro to outro with the guitar chords, the harp licks and solos, and words.If you can play guitar and sing and play at least intermediate harp you'll love this book. If you have a friend or two to play with you'll love this book. If you want to learn just the harp parts for some great blues tunes, you'll love this book. I'll also be using it to help explain blues and blues structure to my (private) music students. If you're a beginner you probably wouldn't want to start with this book to learn on but you certainly would benefit from it by listening to the song by the original artist and following along in the book. You'll probably be able to get a mental picture of the song that will help when you're ready to attempt the songs. I would absolutely recommend this book to all levels. I'd even recommend the book to someone who only plays guitar and sings because the entire songs are there with the chords. I haven't had time to sit and play through the songs or learn the harp parts but based on sitting and looking through each page I'd have to say I would definately buy it again and I'd pay twice the price to get it. I'd like to have had a CD with just the harp parts on it but that would have been a huge project. Just pick up CDs with songs. jaysbluesBlues Harmonica Collection

blues licks
This collection, along with the Little Walter collection, is perfect for the middle level player who wants to go the rest of the way.If you can play these, you can work.Just don't stop there.Keep going until you have your own sound. ... Read more

Product Description
Illustrates the vibrant relationship between jazz and the antiapartheid movement in twentieth-century South Africa. A major new contribution to the study of African music, "Soweto Blues" tells the remarkable story of how jazz became a key part of South Africa's struggle in the 20th century, and provides a fascinating overview of the ongoing links between African and American styles of music. Ansell illustrates how jazz occupies a unique place in South African music. Through interviews with hundreds of musicians, she pieces together a vibrant narrative history, bringing to life the early politics of resistance, the atmosphere of illegal performance spaces, the global anti-apartheid influence of Hugh Masakela and Miriam Makeba, as well as the post-apartheid upheavals in the national broadcasting and recording industries. Featuring an introduction by Abdullah Ibrahim, "Soweto Blues" is a fitting tribute to the power of music to inspire optimism and self-expression in the darkest of times. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Blending a musical history with cultural insights
Dozens of South African jazz musicians who lived through the apartheid years contribute to Soweto Blues: Jazz, Popular Music, And Politics In South Africa, a hard-hitting discussion of how apartheid impacted the lives of ordinary people and musicians alike - and how struggles against it fostered new roads in music. The biographies, memoirs and recollections of a range of musicians blend with Gwen Ansell's survey of social life, politics and culture in South Africa, blending a musical history with cultural insights. Soweto Blues is well researched, intimate, and powerful: a 'must' for any fan of South African music and history.
... Read more

Product Description
Are you ready to take your piano playing beyond the basic? Would you like to learn how the musicians on your favorite CDs create the rock and blues you love? The Everything Rock & Blues Piano Book with CD teaches you the fundamentals of rock and blues piano playing in a fun, easy-to-follow manner. Written by an experienced musician, recording artist, and music journalist, this practical guide is packed with advice on playing in this exciting style, including:

• How to play with soul
• Basic and advanced techniques for playing rock and roll
• How to play 12 Bar Blues, Shuffle, and Boogie-Woogie
• Ways to tap into your creative self and improvise
• Tips on writing songs for the piano, playing in a band, and recording your own music

Music lovers and students will enjoy learning the rich history and development of blues and rock music while mastering the art and science of piano playing. With practical exercises and an audio CD with professionally played examples of rock and blues, you'll be playing like a pro in no time! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Definitely worth the reasonable price
As a classical pianist new to playing blues and rock organ in a cover band, the sections on chord voicing (inversions) and the intervals used in the different styles (rock uses thirds and sixths) were the most helpful.Several good blues riffs are provided.The last two chapters on selecting a keyboard and recording music at home were pretty useless, omit them in the second edition.The chapter on early rocknroll proved the author understands Jerry Lee stylings and left me wanting more; please more than one example of Jerry Lee Lewis! ... Read more

Product Description
In the mid-nineteenth century the United States was musically vibrant. Rising industrialization, a growing middle class, and increasing concern for the founding of American centers of art created a culture that was rich in musical capital. Beyond its importance to the people who created and played it is the fact that this music still influences our culture today. This anthology, which grew out of the first two National Conferences on Music of the Civil War Era, bridge musicology and history and represent the forefront of scholarship in music of the Civil War era. ... Read more

Product Description
During the late 1920s, Ralph Peer and the Victor Recording Company visited the city of Bristol to look for new talent. They stumbled upon Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, two future legends of country music; however, other amazing musicians were unable to make the trip to Bristol for the auditions because of work and family obligations. For the locals, music was more than a way to earn fame and fortune; the music was part of the fabric of life in this rural environment. Some individuals did become famous, including the Stoneman Family, who recorded The Ship That Didn't Return/ The Titanic, and Henry Whitter, who recorded The Wreck of Old 97, but that was never the focus. The songs they played and created accompanied an entire generation through the Great Depression and World War II and into the vigorous growth of the 1950s and 1960s. All of these musicians influenced the birth, growth, and continued development of the Galax Fiddlers Convention, which is known around the world by old-time mountain music fans. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Old-time musicians from southwest Virginia
I expect that his review isn't going to be worth a whole lot to most of the people who read it, but I feel the need to clear up something for those who do decide to buy the Music Makers of the Blue Ridge Plateau.
This book, which I received about couple of hours ago, initially appears to be a pretty good compendium of photos of old-time musicians with a little bit of accompanying text.This book doesn't purport to be a musicological treatise on the musical styles of the area, or even the musical styles of the individual musicians, but as book of photographs, it should serve to bring back familiar faces to those who were lucky enough to attend the fiddler's conventions around SW Virginia, and show you some of the musicians you may encounter if you are fortunate enough to visit this wonderful area in the future.
The photo credits, however, are a mess.Of the thousands of photographs I have taken of old-time musicians, 27 ended up in this book.Of the 27, 17 are properly credited to me, but 10 (photos at the bottom of pages 11, 19, 20, 25, 28, 36, 46, 47, and the top of pp. 40 and 54) are not credited, or credited to someone else.To beat that, 17 photos I did not take- on pp. 27, 29, 33 (both), 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42 (both), 43 (bottom), 45 (top), 48 (bottom), 46, 71, and 77, including a photo of "Doc" Davis taken in 1935! - are credited to me.This misguided generosity is distressing; because that means that there are many photographers out there who are not being properly credited.To them I say - believe me, I had nothing to do with taking credit for your work, as the Blue Ridge Music Makers Guild did not ask my permission to use my photographs, much less let me know which ones (of yours and mine) they were going to use!
Still, if you want a book chock full of photos of some of the very finest of the old-time musicians who ever played, or made, an instrument, don't hesitate.
... Read more

Product Description

Sam Myers: The Blues Is My Story recounts the life of bluesman Sam Myers (1936-2006), as told in his own words to author Jeff Horton. Myers grew up visually handicapped in the Jim Crow South and left home to attend the state school for the blind at Piney Woods. Myers's intense desire to become a musician and a scholarship from the American Conservatory School of Music called him to Chicago. There in 1952 he joined Elmore James's band as a drummer and was featured on some of James's best-known recordings. Following the elder bluesman's death in 1963, Myers fronted bands of his own and recorded many well-received singles and albums. In 1986, Myers became the W. C. Handy Award-winning front man, vocalist, and harmonica player for Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets.

Throughout the book, Myers provides a historical context to a bygone era of the blues and reveals his own thoughts and feelings about the musicians with whom he played. And they are a list of who's who in the blues-Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Hound Dog Taylor, and Robert Lockwood Junior in addition to Elmore James. In one chapter Myers describes a personalized deeper meaning to the blues. And in another he relates a series of anecdotes about the lighter side of life on the road.

Contributions from Myers's father and stories from a boyhood friend round out the narrative. Dallas musician Brian "Hash Brown" Calway dissects the more technical aspects of Myers's harmonica style. Long-time friend and bandmate, Anson Funderburgh, weighs in with a chapter about their songwriting methods and offers some of his own recollections on their twenty years together.

An award-winning and prolific musician and singer Sam Myers wrote and recorded what was to be his most famous single, "Sleeping in the Ground," in 1956. He toured all over the U.S. and around the world with Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets. Jeff Horton is a blues musician and journalist active in the Texas blues scene. His work has been published in Southwest Blues magazine. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Sweet Sam Lives On
Sam Myers was more than just a great harmonica player, singer/songwriter and drummer.Sam was the consummate Blues performer.Once the drummer behind Elmore James, Sam went on to have quite a successful career as frontman for Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets and more.The Blues Is My Story is one of those books that is easy to read, entertaining, informative and downright delightful. Sleep well old friend.This book belongs on the bookshelf of every Blues Fan.

Plenty of blues history and music insights
Fans of blues music may recognize the name of Sam Myers, who grew up blind in the Jim Crow South and became a blues musician in Chicago, joining Elmore James's band as a drummer and eventually fostering bands and recordings of his own - but it's unlikely the general public will recognize it. Therefore, The Blues Is My Story is a specific and recommended pick for collections strong in blues music history, offering a history to accompany Myers' memoir of his experiences and providing such audiences with plenty of blues history and music insights in the process.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

A Valuable Addition To Any Blues Library
This volume is a labor of love by Jeff Horton, who met the subject in the late `90s. It is an "as told to" book which entailed many hours of tape recorded interviews with Sweet Sam Myers, a beloved musical émigré to Dallas from Mississippi and a great man, blues singer and harmonica player.

I am a Dallas musician who spent nearly 20 years visiting with Sam and playing blues with him in Dallas nightclub jam sessions. Based on this experience with him, I can give these perspectives on this much anticipated book:

It is a well-written compendium of Sam's stories about his life and associations. That being said, Sammy could ramble, he could both embellish and sound-bite his stories, and he told many of them until they were well-worn coins, the stories becoming things in themselves and perhaps evolving in this way and that from the events they described.With a more thorough vetting of the manuscript, certain details of Sam's verbal accounts might have been sharpened and corrected beyond the ability of Mr. Horton to do so.

But in any "as told to" biography, you give up some things and you get some things, and with The Blues Is My Story what you get is a narrative that is faithful to Sam's own voice. (Rest assured this involved much more than mere transcription of taped interviews by Horton, as Sam could and usually would "take the long way `round" in getting to his point, which surely required Horton to spend many hours cleaning up sentence structure and eliminating verbal side trips. But in the end, if you knew Sam Myers, you will agree the book is reminiscent of Sam's way of speaking and thinking.)

The stories of Myers' childhood are beautiful and revealing, and the reader gets a good sense of the man's determined character and how it coped with his blindness when he was a kid, and continued to do so throughout his life.

Some of the accounts of Sam's Chicago period are a little general and lacking in detail, while other details, such as the names of nightclubs and city streets are remembered as if they were visited yesterday. His recollections of his most legendary employer Elmore James are personal and give useful glimpses into Mr. "Dust My Broom", yet other books have conveyed more on the life and amazingly diverse interests and skills of James.

A chapter is devoted to Sam Myers' attempt to answer the unanswerable question "What is the blues?", and Sam can't quite answer it either, but his thoughtful beating of the underbrush gives the reader one more layer of insight, this one coming from a man who lived the blues as fully as any man has.

The book is enhanced by humble, warm and wonderful chapters from Dallas friends Hash Brown and Anson Funderburgh, the first of whom gave Myers an off-duty blues home in Dallas where he would always be loved and respected, and the latter of whom gave Sam Myers' career a new life in the band Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets Featuring Sam Myers. Without the association with Anson, Sam was in danger of fading away into obscurity by the 1980s; with it he found himself a beloved figure to blues audiences around the country and the world, and he was able to finish his life with the pride and satisfaction that come with a considerable celebrity and a long list of honors and awards.

Every man's life is a mystery full of unanswered questions, and Sam Myers came wrapped in his own secrets, many of which remain safely obscured in Jeff Horton's book. But what remain in this spoken autobiography are the things that Sam deemed suitable to stand the light of day, and by lovingly studying these, you can read between the lines, or, if you spent enough time sitting in bars and restaurants and loafing in parking lots with the gentleman, you can supplement Jeff Horton's well-written account with your own memories of the man's intelligence, humor, wisdom, irreverence and steady faith in himself, and of his contentment at being a real deal, old school blues man.

Sam Myers died of a cancer surgery related complication in Dallas a short time before the publication of this book. His passing brought forth a tremendous flood of affection, appreciation and grief from the hundreds of northeast Texans whose lives he touched with his seasoned and affectionate soul. His body was then taken home to Mississippi for burial, where the outpouring was repeated. This new book adds yet another worthy tribute to a departed friend. ... Read more

Product Description
For more than fifty years the blues and the singers who sang them were nearly forgotten. Not until Sam Charters published his seminal The Country Blues in 1959 (still in print more than forty years later) did a new wave of interest in this great American music form take root. In the blues boom of the 1960s and '70s, his articles, books, research, field recordings, and studio productions featuring dozens of familiar as well as unsung musicians, brought the blues to thousands of listeners. He traveled to Africa to document blues roots there, and in the 1980s he hung his recording hat in Louisiana, where he produced blues in the Cajun and Zydeco style, winning a Grammy for a 1983 album with Clifton Weaver. If this musical form has a patron saint, then Sam Charters is his name.

As new audiences were learning about the blues through his books and records they were also seeing the blues through the photos of his wife Ann Charters. Although better known today as a Beat scholar, biographer of Jack Kerouac, and anthologist of short fiction, she was for years on the other side of the microphones with her camera. This book is a collection of her blues portraits, along with some by her husband of singers she didn't have a chance to meet. The photographs were used on record covers, on book jackets, and to illustrate books and articles. Some have never before been published. Blues Faces gathers this rich harvest for the first time. Samuel Charters has added a warmly personal commentary that complements the visual images and completes this fascinating portrait of a vital musical style. ... Read more

Product Description
This rich source of reference to supplement the study of theory and composition can also be used as a guide to reading. The book contains 148 pieces by masters from the baroque to the modern periods. Each piece is in its original form. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Decent song selection but shoddy print quality
There is a brilliantly wide selection of songs from so many composers with varying styles that you will eventually find something you enjoy.However the binding does not allow the book to stay open, and even holding it in place with weights doesn't keep the book flat.It's a pain to read the notes near the center of the book because it is curving in towards the spine.As well, the print is not as sharp as books from the Schirmer or Alfred's series, so it is more difficult to read chords or distinguish which note has the sharp or flat.

I use the book to sample the work of different composers until I find one I like, then I search for another book that has more of their songs.

Oldie But Goodie Anthology
This is literally a "classic" anthology of intermediate pieces.As others have noted, there are no dumbed-down or edited versions of songs.Rather, the selections chosen are "easier" pieces written by famous composers.The anthology nicely spans centuries.My only complaint is that I'd like a few more recognizable intermediate pieces, like Bach's first prelude in C from the Well-Tempered Clavier or the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata.On the other hand, these well-known pieces are easy enough to find online for free.And now with the invention of YouTube, you can find someone playing just about any piece from this anthology so you can figure out which pieces attract you.

Excellent book!
This is the fourth of this series I have used. Excellent arrangaments
of not watered-down classics. Good fingering suggestions. Overall, a
great book.

Great Collection
This is a great collection of pieces that cover a wide ranges of styles and time periods.Great for sight reading for advanced students, and preparing for intermediate students.I enjoy it as a student myself - the book I use for sight reading in my college Piano course.

Excellent book for second year students
My son uses this book. Pieces are not equal in their complexity. My child plays the two "Bagatelles" by Beethoven, Sibelius and similar in difficulty pieces.One can find texts that are much easier than the ones I mentioned in this book. I also love this book as it reminds me of the time when I studied piano as a little girl at a City Music school in Russia. I played the vast majority of the classical pieces from it. These days, when my son is not practicing, I sight read everything from this book for pleasure. It is not for intermediate players, it is for advanced beginners, I think.I expect my son to play Rachmaninoff in a couple of years. He is now 8 yo and has been playing the piano for about two years, instructed by a magnificent Russian teacher. Before formal lessons he played by ear and improvised.So, the book is for people playing for no more than a couple of years. ... Read more

Product Description

The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now celebrated as the greatest figure in blues history.

Customer Reviews (22)

Elijah Gets It Right: No More Hoodoo Voodoo Molasses
First of all, Elijah Wald's musical abilities should not be doubted. If you wonder why Elijah holds a guitar in many pictures, take a look at his magnificent performances of Joseph Spence, Furry Lewis, etc., songs on Youtube. I highly doubt that any of you are able to play guitar like Elijah.

Secondly, the book is properly titled. After reading, we're able to see how Robert and blacks of his generation most likely viewed themselves. It's a fact that Leroy Carr sold better than Garfield Akers. Maybe Garfield Akers played countrified Blues before Ma Rainey even knew how to sing a twelve bar song, but maybe he didn't. Elijah mentions New Orleans as a possible starting point for what we call Blues. Another book, "Devil At The Confluence", suggests that the music started in St. Louis. Both books suggest that it might be wise to define the word Blues in the way that black record buyers would have. No matter what you say, unless you are a 110 year old black person, you are an outsider. (And who says that all blacks from that generation even enjoyed this type of music? There's a whole catalog of blacks performing Classical music out there!) Therefore, if you want to understand what Blues is, it'simperative that you ask questions, question the meaning of the word Blues, think about if Blues is just a feeling and/or a certain thing that can be fit into a neat musical framework.

Blues did not come from Ireland. Old-Timey/Hillbilly music's ancestor is Irish music played on the fiddle, amongst other things.

Also, as for the "Beatles..." book. The Beatles DID destroy Rock 'n' Roll in at least two ways. #1 To some Americans born in the 1940s, The Beatles destroyed their Doo-Wop music, Everlys Brothers, Chuck Berry, the innocence of Rock 'n' Roll, etc.
# 2 The sound of the music changed and became extremely self-conscious. Artists thought of themselves less as shamans and more like gurus, Keats, etc. They took themselves damned seriously. They began to incorporate influences from Eastern music; let's leave their sincerity and depth of knowledge out of it. Many groups started to think that their role involved more than just playing and recording music. The Beatles moved beyond Everly Brothers clones and wrote interesting lyrics. The Beatles, or at least Lennon, intentionally, and perhaps arrogantly, intended to use their music as a vehicle to change the way people thought about the world. We can't say the same thing about Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, etc.

Paul Whiteman used Jazz as his template. Jazz is a form of music that originated in New Orleans with black and Creoles. There were whites, many of whom were Italians, who played Jazz. Just look at the first Jazz record which was recorded around 1917. Whiteman's role was introducing this form of music to the white mainstream. Whiteman, Elvis and The Beatles certainly played different types of songs and came from different backgrounds, but all three had some role in intentionally or unintentionally confronting the color line in America.

Elijah is different from other Blues authors because he realizes that he is a young white guy. He doesn't use silly metaphors about molasses, greens, and fried chicken when he talks about black southern life and Blues. He traces, or does his very best to trace, the development of the music, and he tries to see the world as African-Americans would have seen it 70 or 80 years ago. I want to make a very important point that is a logical conclusion of Mr. Wald's line of thinkiing but one which he seems to have left out of all his writings. Elijah is one step away from confrotning and exposing what is essentially an Orientalist viewpoint- that Asians, or, in this case, blacks down south, live in and enjoy living in a primitive society which does not change (including musical tastes, of course) and is beautiful, but beautiful only in its primitive characteristics and the ways in which it differs from, well, my world and, I guess, Elijah's world. I bet an aged Garfield Akers would have loved to be Charles Brown.

Shame on you for saying that Elijah doesn't know music theory just because he doesn't spend pages and pages talking about chords. If you want that, buy an instructional dvd of his.

A must read for not just Blues Fans
As a blues fan and player,'Escaping the Delta" is illuminating in the purest sense, by putting together a panoramic, detailed no-non sense view of the business of early Blues. What makes it different from many other Blues-book, is the down to Earth, unpretentious matter of fact tone. Also Mr Waldis actually an accomplished musician himself not just a keen minded researcher and historian, so this book breathes with the life of an actual conversation during a nation-wide field trip. This fascinating page turner book confirmed hunches, reinforced convictions, but more importantly, answered many questions I did not know I had. I found Mr.Wald's deconstructing of those fuzzy, romantic Myths we have about the Blues informative, refreshing and ultimately liberating.

Where is the CD?
The info - plus a comment by the AUTHOR - said that a CD of the music being discussed was part of the book purchase.

If this is NOT TRUE you should highlight this fact in the sales offer.

Ross Kane

Escape from the myths
Seeing colossal blues hero Robert Johnson on the cover of Elijah Wald's "Escaping the Delta" made me pause with doubt because what I certainly was not in the market for was another feverish bio of Robert Johnson that focused on the mystical to the exclusion of all else. Most pleasantly, this is definitely not the case with this interesting and readable work.
The book starts slowly as author Wald consumes nearly seventy pages with an exhaustive history of the pop music scene of the Delta region of the American South. Chronicling juke box lists, the careers of artists both well-known and obscure, and emphasizing his thesis over and over again, Wald lays thorough groundwork for the chapters that follow. Once you get rolling, however, the book is a pleasurable read and we get a complete overview of the ingredients that went into the blues, its curious nurturing process, the artists themselves, and the fruits that grew from the seeds of these musical pioneers. We even get a track-by-track analysis of the songs Johnson recorded, a canon of work that has possibly influenced more people than any other body of work in rock and blues history.
Wald's purpose is to shine a light onto the real world of working musicians during the early part of the century and show that the invention of the blues was not what you might have been told. Seminal artists like Ma Rainey, Charley Patton, Son House, and, yes, even Robert Johnson did indeed play the blues, but they also played lots of other music from Bing Crosby to Broadway and even hillbilly songs. The musicians of this era were simply trying to get paid as working musicians, which meant playing what the people wanted to hear. Then, as now, popular music was rarely genre specific, it need only be catchy, danceable, and innocuous. Say what you will about Robert Johnson's work, it is certainly not often described using any of those adjectives and the earthier, acoustic blues Johnson is known for has never had a huge pop music audience, then or now. The author devotes much of his time to pounding this point home, but it's a worthwhile endeavor if you care to see the reality instead of the fantasy.
Wald's knowledge of the artists and songs and his dogged devotion to cutting through the baloney and getting to the facts within the folktales is fresh and largely free of hyperbole. There are plenty of revelations in the book, for instance: I had no knowledge of the true roots of hillbilly music and how popular this music form was among blacks or how white executives suppressed it for the purposes of segregation. Also, we are given a unique behind-the-scenes peek into the milieu of the musicians commonly referred to as blues artists during the early part of the 20th century. It is both fascinating and informational reading for me because Wald demystifies the clichéd image of the tormented blues singer, schooled by Satan, and destined for a life of misery that matched their lyrical tales, myths spread by the single-minded agendas of the record company men who were trying to market a product. The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and scores of others, who were influenced by these artists and their live hard, die young reputation, particularly the infamous Mr. Johnson, helped perpetuate these exaggerations to their fans and thus we have the distortions Wald sought to correct.
You don't have to be a fan of the blues to appreciate the breadth of research and myth-busting that is achieved here. Elijah Wald has put a great deal of research into this book and augmented it with the words of those who were there, living and playing the blues (along with all the other genres of music their audiences wanted to hear). I have read some of the reviews and the angry ones seem to be from fans that have had their romantic world of lonesome crossroads in the middle of the night, tortured souls howling at the moon, and deals with the devil put through the shredder of reality. While that's a lot of hard luck for them; it's good news for those of us who'd rather get the straight dope than the well-worn fairy tales. I believe any fan of popular music will enjoy it and take away a much more informed mind about an art form and an artist long on superstitions, folktales, and legends but woefully short on facts and candor.

perhaps rating was a little too harsh
i was disappointed to find out that the book's only "new" evidence is some sales data of delta blues music and a few first hand accounts that once in a while these blues musicians played a tune that was not blues.

In addition his long description about music sales and the development of the blues, Wald uses these first hand accounts to prove his points, while at the same time he ignores stories that don't fit into hisargument-which may makes his claims specious to say the least.

lets sayMr. Wald and I may not have have the same fundamentals views about the blues. I contacted Mr. Wald to mention important aspects which I believe he may have carelessly overlooked. To Mr. Wald's credit he took great time and care to explain to me (an amateur blues reader) what his points were and why they are important to blues history. These were facts that I may be missed when reading his book. so i must say this worth may be worth looking at . ... Read more

Product Description
From Robert Johnson to Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson to John Lee Hooker, blues and gospel artists play significant roles in twentieth-century culture. This overview of these genres provides an expression of the twentieth-century black American experience. Histories are questioned; songs and lyrical imagery are analyzed; perspectives are presented from the standpoint of voice, guitar, piano, and working musician.A concluding chapter discusses the impact that the genres have had on mainstream musical culture. ... Read more

Product Description
To unearth the true origins and meanings of blues terms like "alcorub," "mojo," and "killing floor," author Debra DeSalvo poured over lyrics, dug through obscure academic sources, and interviewed many blues artists. The result is a witty, ribald, and unparalleled dictionary of blues terminology, packed with anecdotes from DeSalvo’s interviews with such legends as Little Milton, Robben Ford, Henry Gray, John Hammond, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Bob Margolin, Bonnie Raitt, Smiley Ricks, Hubert Sumlin, and Jimmie Vaughan.The Language of the Blues also includes photos - some previously unpublished—of more than twenty artists, and an insightful foreword by Dr. John. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

The best Blues book around
If you enjoy the blues then this is the book for you. This book gives you the meaning of every blues phrase ever used in a song. This will give you an understanding of blues music like never before. Absolutely fabulous.

I love this book!
Now I know that in a blues song when they sing about the back door, they are not speaking in sexual terms, they are referring to a cheating man making a quick exit out of the back door when the husband comes home!The book is very entertaining and informative!

Yes!!! Perfect Book!
Just like the Blues, "The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu" by Debra DeSalvo, is the nitty gritty real deal with stories and definitions from Blues masters, not from non-musician researchers who think they're the authorities. This book is informative and fun rather than dry and scholarly. You will not be disappointed if you buy it.

It's this type of work that will make sure the Blues and Blues history lives on!

A work in progress that needs to be more scholarly
This is self-described as an anecdotal dictionary of the blues, but it suffers some serious flaws and while there is some useful information, it is far from authoritative or comprehensive and while it has some usefulness, it can be improved in so many ways. There are some 150 words and phrases which Ms. DeSalvo, former Blues Revue editor, focuses on, in a volume that emphasizes the African roots of the blues, but at times does not focus on other meanings the terms have. One review in Blues & Rhythm notes the focus on sex and hoodoo, but oddly enough very little on traveling which is a significant theme of the blues.

Much is made of the fact she interviewed a number of blues performers and included the material with various entries. However much if not most of the interview material is irrelevant to understanding the language of the blues, or the entry. For example she briefly discusses crossroads focusing on the African conception which leads to a discussion of the Robert Johnson meeting the devil at the crossroad myth and notes that some believe it. Then she included a discussion of Robert Lockwood, Johnson's stepson which bears very little relationship to the discussion of the term. This would have been better included in a sidebar about Johnson and Lockwood. It would have also been instructive to include lyrics of several songs for specific terms to show contrasting meanings. As an example, Elmore James' 'Standing at the Crossroads,' clearly does not have the connotation that some impute to Johnson.

Also some of her sources are not exactly scholarly. In an entry on the Delta, she discussed Charlie Patton working for Will Dockery. She provides as her reference correspondence with Stephen Lavere. There are lengthy published biographies on Patton by John Fahey, and Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow that should have been cited. There is no excuse to not citing these sources while citing private correspondence. Then there is this statement "In '34 Blues', Patton nails the desperation and anxiety of unemployment, but something good came out of leaving the plantation this time-Patton went to New York and recorded twenty-nine songs for the American Record Company. When these recordings were reissued in the mid-1960s, they sparked great interest in this Delta cropper who came to be known as the father of the blues." On the same page there is Patton's picture which noted he recorded for Paramount and became that label's biggest selling artist. It was the reissue of Patton's recordings by Yazoo, which presented mostly the Paramount recordings that led to this recognition of Patton's music.

Discussing Canned Heat which some strained to drink the alcohol from, DeSalvo notes that Canned Heat adopted their name from the Tommy Johnson recording and that the members of Canned Heat used their fame to help their blues heroes citing their collaboration in John Lee Hooker's "The Healer." Hmm, I would think that it was the classic double album, "Hooker and Heat," recorded when Alan Wilson, the Blind Owl, was still alive that not only was the recording that led to Hooker's crossover but it stands up with the best recordings Hooker ever made. It was an album the ghost band that is Canned Heat is today would be incapable of producing. Sorry for perhaps going off topic, but so many entries here go off topic. (Again sidebars would have been useful). However the fact she is so imprecise with this, makes me suspect the accuracy of some other entries.

She does include some suggested recordings, but more lyric quotes for the entries
would have been very helpful. Also there should have been more cross entries, such as in her discussion of policy numbers, cross references back to that entry should have been provided for some of the policy combinations. And there are numerous terms that are not discussed here. This is a really rough first effort and this work needs some serious reworking if it is going to be a useful tool, which probably also means she should find herself a collaborator and take into account the serious criticisms if she wants to put together a work that will stand up as scholarly and a reference.

comprehensive, entertaining blues music reference
Every reader will pick up something new about lyrics, terms and phrases, noted cities and neighborhoods, instruments, performers, lore, and other aspects of this always popular and colorful style of music. With occasional material from interviews with top names in blues and closely-related types of popular music in entries as long as essays of three or so pages to as short as a couple of lines, DeSalvo relates origins of words and phrases, gives examples when relevant, describes nuances in different styles, locates the origins and outlines the course of different traditions, explains details of instruments and techniques of playing them, and draws profiles of significant singers and instrumentalists. And she includes considerable colorful lore and terminology unknown to only the most knowledgeable aficionados which can only add to enjoyment of the blues with more casual fans. A lively, informative, eminently readable companion to blues music in all its history and manifestations. ... Read more

Product Description
Cone explores two classic aspects of African-American culture--the spirituals and the blues. He tells the captivating story of how slaves and the children of slaves used this music to affirm their essential humanity in the face of oppression. The blues are shown to be a "this-worldly" expression of cultural and political rebellion. The spirituals tell about the "attempt to carve out a significant existence in a very trying situation." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Presenting a Full Gospel
The history of white Christianity reveals an otherworldliness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that eliminates much concern for the earth and its inhabitants.The overspiritualization of the Bible's concepts opens the door for oppression.People think that deliverance and liberation is not for this fallen world but the next.But the Black community would disagree, and they'd have the Bible to agree with them.

Cone shows wonderfully how the Black African community of the days of slavery and afterward actually had a more biblical view of the Gospel.Yes, the Gospel involves heaven, the next life, salvation unto eternal life.But the Gospel is clearly demonstrated, both in the Old and New Testaments, to be one that shows God's concern for the earth and its inhabitants without distinctions.The concept of God cannot co-exist with the concept of continuing oppression, even in a fallen world.

Cone shows how the spirituals and the blues (secular spirituals) are a foundational binding force, much like American Sign Language is for the Deaf community.Remove the Blues and the spirituals and you try to destroy the personhood, humanness, and the dignity of the people of the Black community who are also made in the image of God.

This book had quite an affect on me because I, as a white person, I held to much otherworldly interpretations of the Gospel and much else in scripture.I recently learned that the Hebrew word for vanity and vain is never used in the book of Ecclesiastes!The word simply means temporary and the book expresses that we are not to trust in temporary things, but we can joy in them as a gift from God.Both the Old and New Testaments teach that the earth and all else created is good (beneficial according to Hebrew and Greek).I have also seen that earthly liberation and dignity of all people, whether believers in God or not, is a focus of God.Many people are going to hell, but they still deserve to be shone dignity because they are made in the image of God (see Genesis 9 on why God instituted the death penalty:it was because it was an attack on God's image in man, and there weren't any white people yet).Cone has effectively shown me that while not perfect, earlier Black theology is quite biblical and shows the Gospel to be what it is:a power for transforming the earth as well as a power to take people to heaven.It provides not only spiritual liberation but earthly liberation as well.

Cone presents various interpretations of the spirituals and concisely teaches where some views are right and some are wrong.Spirituals were quite earth centered without ignoring heaven.Jordan and sweet chariot and other terms actually referred to earthly hopes, not heavenly ones.

I read this book in a few days and immediately began reading it again, it was that enlightening and freeing.With just over 130 pages, I became truly more bonded with my Black brethren in Christ and with my Black brethren who are not Christians but are made in the image of God.

With careful openness and alertness, one realizes that the plight of the Black community is a shared one all over the world.People of differing color all over the world, in every nation, can have earthly hope for the same reasons that Blacks in America had earthly hope:The Gospel can free anybody from oppression.Every oppression in the world has the light of the hope of liberation over it, and it is very well taught in Black liberation theology as found in the spirituals.

One other important point, I was reminded that most people in the world, including in America, and throughout all history, have not had the opportunity or the time to be studied theologians, even of the layman's type.Yet, the "ignorant" of scripture often have a better understanding of the Bible for contemporary life than do theologians.I've learned once again that the less learned in the scriptures may, in fact, have much more to teach me, especially about how to change the world.I mean, hey, heaven is perfect, so obviously the transforming power of the Gospel must be for an imperfect place, and we are living in it.

For such a short, concise book, it speaks to so many issues even outside the Black community and the spiritual and blues themselves.It is a book written on a very specific topic that gives hope to everyone, for the spirituals and the blues are, in fact, a common issue to all men, women, and children, especially those of color. ... Read more

Product Description
A one-of-a-kind new guide to recorded blues

This informative, insightful, and easy-to-use A–Z guide surveys the recorded work of more than a thousand blues artists. From towering figures of the past like Charley Patton, Bessie Smith, and Robert Johnson to stars of the modern era such as B. B. King, Buddy Guy, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, this valuable resource provides crisp, expert, and witty reviews of almost six thousand recordings and is required reading for blues aficionados as well as anyone just starting a collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Okay
This is extensive and that's great.But the writers are so snobby.We're talking about the blues here, people.Folk music.Music of the people.Yet this feels like it was written by the kinds of people who write classical/art music books.How exactly can you become snobby about popular music?Yes, music criticism does require a certain level of snobbishness, but this goes far beyond that.They regularly reject admitted blues rock classics because they aren't pure blues.For one thing it's ridiculous to believe in "pure" forms of any kind of music, since music is never static.But to claim that records are bad because they aren't "blues" is ridiculous.The appropriate thing to do would be to say this is "rock" not "blues" and not pass judgement (if one was a blues critic who claimed no knowledge of rock).

CONFUSING OPINIONATED MESS OF A BOOK
These british chaps put down Lurrie Bell- which is one of the best blues players still alive. If Lurrie's life with its ups and downs and ability to finally pull himself out of abyss by the bootstraps is not "the blues"- than what is?
Then, there is omnipresent "white men can't play blues" byas throughout the book.
You'd be better served by blues guides written by americans- AllMusicGuide, etc.

THE BEST OF ALL BLUES GUIDES-IGNORE THE PREVIOUS IGNORANCE
I've seriously had enough of American ignorance and outright resentment about the contents of this, the best of all guides to blues recordings. One chap points out that the authors complain that Lurrie Bell's output is poor, but his best work was simply not made until after the book was written. You didn't realize that? Another complains that the book is "snobbish", a very shakey value judgment indeed, which tells me way more about him than the authors; yet another tells us that the authors don't like anything they review; apart from being arrrant nonsense, it simply isnt true. Not everything recorded in the name of Blues is great. Clearly, the reviewer skimmed the book while multi tasking, or his ignorance would not be quite so flamboyantly displayed. Some Blues records are well below par. That's the POINT of a critical review. A third tells us that North Americans will need an arcane dictionary to comprehend what is being said. Whatever happened to education? That's YOUR responsibily, not the authors. I feel now, as I always have done, that this book represents the best critical review you can invest in. It is well informed, trustworthy, honest and backed by over 40 years of experience by people who know what they are doing and saying. I've been listening since 1963 myself, so I too know what I'm talking about

And, to answer the chap who asked "what do these British chaps know about the Blues anyway", I am, first and formost astonished by his ignorance. The UK has produced the bulk of the best blues writing, all the serious discographical reference works, a slew of important and vaulueable reissues, first on vynil, as early as 1951, then on CD; ever heard of Ace or Document records? Since 1951 when Big Bill toured Europe for the first time, blues performers, most especially in the 1960's, received warm welcomes in the UK and continental Europe, were treated as human beings during the segregationst period, paid well and given the chance to record for Europan companies AND get royalties. It isnt stretching the truth to say that without European interest the blues would probably have died sometime in the 1960's. And bear this in mind too; much of what passes for Blues in the US these days is essentially bar-band boogie by people who came to it via rock and never got much further. The Blues is now global. The Brits and the Euros gave it support when the Americans, with a few heroic exceptions like Chris Strachwitz, Pete Welding and Bob Koester, were busy ignoring their own history. Deal with it; oh, and for those of you who want to start shouting about the right of foreigners to interfere with US matters, let me tell you that, while British originally, I've been an American citizen now for 14 years, served my country overseas and lost an eye in the process. So deal with that too.

Sometimes a very tough read
The British version of this is a beautiful huge oversized book, US version is a standard fat trade paperback.

The tone is dry, almost academic, and maybe a little British humor. The listings and research are very good. They cover rural and electric blues, pre war and post war BUT, they don't like most of what they review. Some of the writing is so unclear and dense, it comes across as Alan Greenspan writing/speaking about economics. If you want to know what artist to check out and if a CD/album is good don't come here.

This book is not a good first choice, but a great second choice for serious blues fans looking for some challenging reading. This book will supplement the much more reader friendly ALLMUSIC GUIDE TO THE BLUES very nicely.

Comprehensive but Biased
This book provides extensive reviews of many Blues recordings on compact disc, both currently available and deleted.The authors have cut a wide swath through the history of blues from day one, up to and including artists who are performing today.

The reviews themselves however, are highly subjective in nature and in some cases, may deter readers unnecessarily from purchasing a selected title for the simple reason that the reviewer didn't like it.

At other times, the metaphors used to "slot" a particular artist miss the mark entirely.The following clunker from a review of Rosco Gordon's material ... " but in the main R&B's answer to Thelonious Monk " ... only serves to reinforce this point. Purchasers of this text book need to be warned that they will require a large English dictionary on hand when going through it due to the number of words no longer in circulation in day-to-day North American English.

Blues completists will want (or already have) Godrich, Dixon, and Rye "Blues and Gospel Records 1890 - 1943" and Leadbitter, Slaven, Fancourt, Pelletier "Blues Records 1943 - 1970".Readers less obsessed with collecting will likely fare better by searching out the "All Music Guide to Blues - 3rd Ed." (Miller Freeman Books) and the "All Music Guide to Jazz - 4th Ed." (Miller Freeman) where the reviews tend to be more evenly paced. ... Read more

Product Description
Travel back in time as acclaimed mandolinist Rich DelGrosso, author of the best-selling Hal Leonard Mandolin Method (00695102), traces the history and music of America's rich blues tradition through the eyes of the mandolinist. Follow the lives of players like Yank Rachell, Howard Armstrong and Charlie McCoy, and then learn their timeless music with standard notation, tablature, and an accompanying full-band CD of all the tunes in the book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Fantastic historical compendium and musical examples
I'm a guitarist who has played mando for a while. Along the way, I've realized that any style of music played on any instrument has its own idiomatic stylings and blues on mando is no different.So, I started looking for a book or dvd that could relay those mando blues "tricks" to me and save me from having to figure them out.This book does just that.What a time saver and what a great set of insights this book provides. Rich Delgrosso has winner with this book.If you want to understand mando blues history with great examples to play, get this book.

Great fun for........
the mandolin player! I played a bit in the 70's and thought I'd give the mandolin another try. I had only played Bluegrass mandolin but have played Blues guitar a little so I thought I'd give this course a try. Being familiar with the Blues and the scales involved is making it a bit easier for me than the beginner but I still have to work! In fact this course isn't for the beginner unless you're very aggressive. I just love it! The music stands on it's own, of course, but it will help me add some Blues to my Bluegrass also. I can't see how any mandolin player wouldn't have fun with this course. One hint: I actually found some of the later straight Blues songs easier to learn than a couple of the rags, stomps,etc. Don't be afraid to skip around but be sure and go back and learn what you skipped. Every song in the book is just great fun. Five stars all the way for this course! Rich, we need a book two!!

Great book on the blues
This is a wonderful book on the blues never mind being one of the best resources for mando blues. The back story to the history and development of the mando blues is very well done. However in my mind it is the tunes tabbedout and well performed on the CD that make this book shine. They are fun to listen to and fun to play.

I am relatively new to the mandolin but as I have several years of guitar behind me, it is coming quickly, but it is certainly not for beginners to stringed instruments. There is enough here for months of learning pleasure.

mando blues
You have to hand it to Rich Delgrosso- he's written a well thought out book on the history of the blues **as played on mandolin** and goes in-depth with historical blues mando players (who knew there were any?), the evolution of the genre, and the application of the blues basics to a more contemporary context.I've seen him on stage and met him at a mando workshop- great guy- and you can tell he strives to carry on the mando blues tradition as seriously as Eric Clapton does for guitar- paying full homage to all of those who came before him (Yank Rochelle is the mando equivalent to Robert Johnson).It's probably safe to say that guitar will always be the dominating instrument of choice for the blues-- and I think it may have an edge over mando because it just sounds better on guitar-- but if you want to expand your mando horizons and be a well rounded player who understands the mandolin in a blues context, you would be hard pressed to find a better book--

Incredibly great book
This is a really great piece of writing.It starts out teaching you how to play 12-bar blues in the keys of C and G (there are two nice duets in the key of G).Next comes sixteen beautiful blues songs written in traditional music and tablature.
Everything is played nicely in the accompanying CD.
The book also contains some interesting information about mandolins and about the composers of the songs used in the book -- and a list of blues mandolin recordings that are (hopefully) available.
I am VERY happy with this book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a complete handbook of information and opinion about the history of blues music. Based on the "Encyclopedia of Popular Music", this book contains over 1000 entries covering musicians, bands, songwriters, producers and record labels which have made a significant impact on the development of blues music. It brings together people such as Robert Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, the influence of Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon and more recent figures such as Keb' Mo and Jonny Lang. Each entry offers information such as dates, career facts, discography and album ratings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Interesting and yet disappointing format forreference book
I was given this tome by a friend for Christmas and was thrilled to have such useful book(or so I thought at the time) but was dismayed at the star ratings dished out at the end of each entry to the various discs,albums etc.. I dislike gurus of taste, fashion, music ,politics and this is noexeption. (Brown may be the 'new' black but it still looks dreadful on me.)and so many others reading this book may have the same thoughts about thisdegrading format used by the author / editor. Music like other art forms isall a matter of individual taste and when two or more like and enjoy thesame or similar genre,artist(s) sound ,production then that is good for themusic /art form and business but when some one stands up or even writeswhat is good or not so good - even bad then that is only his opinion andshould remain so. Not wishing to remain on the negative side of this book Ihave to say it has been excellent as a reference book on numerousoccassions - especially competition time in the Blues mags I take and whenfriends not into the blues as much as myself require info on someone. A fewmonths further down the road from receiving the book I now have otherexcellent even superior reference books to hand and advanced to the oddbiography or two on blues men and women. It was a useful 'starter' book formy interest in books on the blues.

"Blues" encyclopedia for pop/rock lovers
If you're a "bluesnatic" and what to get mad by reading some unbelievable cd ratings (and if you don't know where to spend your money), buy this book now! Three examples (it would be too painful to quote more):Robert Nighthawk's "Live on Maxwell Street is rated 3/5; PaulButterfield's Blues Band's "Original Lost Elektra Sessions" gets2/5. The only John Lee Hooker album to get 5 stars is "TheHealer", which would be appropriate in a "Pop" encyclopedia,but is almost offensive in a "Blues" encyclopedia. Just comparethese ratings with the reviews on AMG Music Guide Online.

In many cases,poor discographies.

Horrible Blues Reference Book
Avoid this one at all costs.While the artist biographies are O.K. no information that may have been learned is added --especially on the obscure artists.Futhermore this book is full of offensive CD ratings and theeditor is clearly enamored with British blues stars!In addition, it isformatted to save pages (money) so it is very hard to read. Also, manyartists are not even mentioned.

In the beginning of the book they talkabout the one "*" thru five "*****" star ratings andindicate that while a four star is an excellent CD and "highlyrecommended," a five star is "OUTSTANDING in every way" andtherfore essential to any music collection.

Well frankly, the couple ofexamples below speak for themselves.I have all of these recordings in oneform or another and strongly disagree with every last rating.Avoid thisthis one and pick up the AMG guide instead.

Examples:

Them - The WorldOf Them ***** Bobby "Blue" Bland - I Pity The Fool: The DukeRecordings Vol. 1 ***

Chicken Shack - Forty Blue Fingers Freshly PackedAnd Ready To Serve **** Lowell Fulson - San Francisco Blues***

Groundhogs - Split **** Lightnin' Hopkins - Complete Aladin****

John Mayall - Bare Wires ***** Johnny Littlejohn & The ChicagoBlues Allstars *** Walter Horton - Mouth Harp Maestro *** Howlin' Wolf -Memphis Days Vol. 1 and 2 ***

Savoy Brown - Blue Matter **** RobertNighthawk - Live On Maxwell Street *** Otis Rush - Cobra Recordings (noteven mentioned) Tampa Red - Guitar Wizard ***

Cream - Disraeli Gears***** Allman Brother Band - Live Filmore East **** ... Read more

Product Description
The Blues Highway is a classic road trip through the cradle of musical innovation in America. This definitive travel and music guide follows Highway 61 and the Mississippi River to explore the roots of jazz, blues, Cajun, zydeco, country, gospel, soul, and rock & roll music. Trace the story from Congo Square in New Orleans to down-home Delta blues joints then on to Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis, Davenport, and eventually to Chicago. Written by award-winning author, Richard Knight, this fully updated second edition features:*Comprehensive city guides with 55 maps--from New Orleans to Chicago*What to see, where to stay, and where to eat--hotels and restaurants for a range of budgets*The best music clubs and bars--shabby juke joints to smooth jazz clubs*Music landmarks--visit Jerry Lee Lewis' ranch or Charley Patton's grave*People, culture, and cuisine of the Blues Highway--Creole cooking to voodoo magic*Who's who of Blues Highway music--from Louis Armstrong to Sonny Boy Williamson II*Music festivals and events--Mardi Gras in New Orleans to the Chicago Blues Festival*Exclusive interviews--with music legends "Honeyboy" Edwards, Little Milton, Wilson Pickett, Sam Phillips, Rufus Thomas, Ike Turner, and many more
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Highway 61 Revisited
It's with a twinge of regret that I've never made this trek.I grew up in Chicago, I love the people of the south, I adore the blues and I've always wanted to experience this seminal journey.

After reading the author's exquisite reporting (with lots of great pics) now I'm really jones-ing to carve out some time and do this!

I expect when I finally do, I'll even hear the ghosts of the great bluesmen who've populated the delta region through the years.

From Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters and Chicago to New Orleans, this is the definitive guide to Blues Highway.

I can't believe it took an outsider like a Brit to finally bring this wonderful history and travel guide to light, but I sure am glad he did.

Highly recommended.

If you love blues you'll love this!
Read this and you'll soon be packing your bags and heading for the Blues Highway. A great book, full of detail but entertaining too. Highly recommended to anyone who loves blues and jazz or just loves great American road trips!

Read this and you'll want to make the trip
I bought this book after hearing a great review on NPR, thinking I had no real plans to travel the Blues Highway. But when you read it you can almost hear the music and you can practically see those juke joints and crossroads! Buy this book and you'll want to go!

Awesome!
Amazing amount of research, beautiful writing, great pix and full of respect for the music and the area. Every blues lover should have one.

Brilliant!
As well as being a comprehensive travel and music guide, this book provides excellent information about the history of the music of the region. The mapping detail is incredible. A must for all jazz and blues fans. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

really shows how music startedfrom 1900 to today
Mr. Mancuso has really integrated visualls into music through his teachingand lectures... His book is a reflection of his style. Not one book hasmore pictures (a lot rare) of artists and composers to show how music hasgrown in the last 100 years.

excellent
It is the most thorough accessment of American Popular Music I have seen.Mancuso's theory of underground inluences is a unique slant on the subject.

The ultimate look at the first 50 yrs of music available.
This is the most comprehensive look at the first half of this century of music ever put to paper. From the first jazz recording ever, to Mel Torme, to Mark Murphy...to ROY ROGERS.....it's all there!

As a reference, this book is invaluable.

Unbelievable. ... Read more