Beyond the Crossroads

Beyond the Crossroads
Author: Adam Gussow
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1469633671

The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake ("the devil's music"), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as "the crossroads" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.

Everybody Gets the Blues

Everybody Gets the Blues
Author: Leslie Staub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2012
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0152063005

Simple, rhyming text reveals that "Blues Guy" visits everyone now and then, from rodeo clowns to scary bullies. Full color.

100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own

100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own
Author: Edward Komara
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2014-02-07
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0810889226

Search the Internet for the 100 best songs or best albums. Dozens of lists will appear from aficionados to major music personalities. But what if you not only love listening to the blues or country music or jazz or rock, you love reading about it, too. How do you separate what matters from what doesn’t among the hundreds—sometimes thousands—of books on the music you so love? In the Best Music Books series, readers finally have a quick-and-ready list of the most important works published on modern major music genres by leading experts. In 100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own, Edward Komara, former Blues Archivist of the University of Mississippi, and his successor Greg Johnson select those histories, biographies, surveys, transcriptions and studies from the many hundreds of works that have been published about this vital American musical genre. Komara and Johnson provide a short description of the contents and the achievement of each title selected for their “Blues 100.” Entries include full bibliographic citations, prices of copies in print, and even descriptions of specific editions for book collectors. 100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own also includes suggested blues recordings to accompany each recommended work, as well as a concluding section on key reference titles—or as Komara and Johnson phrase it: “The Books behind the Blues 100.” 100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own serves as a guide for any blues fan looking for a road map through the history of—and even history of the scholarship on—the blues. Here Komara and Johnson answer the question of not only what is a “blues” book, but which ones are worth owning.

Jelly Roll

Jelly Roll
Author: Kevin Young
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2005-02-01
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0375709894

In this jaunty and intimate collection, Kevin Young invents a language as shimmying and comic, as low-down and high-hearted, as the music from which he draws inspiration. With titles such as “Stride Piano,” “Gutbucket,” and “Can-Can,” these poems have the sharp completeness of vocalized songs and follow a classic blues trajectory: praising and professing undying devotion (“To watch you walk / cross the room in your black / corduroys is to see / civilization start”), only to end up lamenting the loss of love (“No use driving / like rain, past / where you at”). As Young conquers the sorrow left on his doorstep, the poems broaden to embrace not just the wisdom that comes with heartbreak but the bittersweet wonder of triumphing over adversity at all. Sexy and tart, playfully blending an African American idiom with traditional lyric diction, Young’s voice is pure American: joyous in its individualism and singing of the self at its strongest.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Author: Tom Robbins
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2003-06-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0553897896

“This is one of those special novels—a piece of working magic, warm, funny, and sane.”—Thomas Pynchon The whooping crane rustlers are girls. Young girls. Cowgirls, as a matter of fact, all “bursting with dimples and hormones”—and the FBI has never seen anything quite like them. Yet their rebellion at the Rubber Rose Ranch is almost overshadowed by the arrival of the legendary Sissy Hankshaw, a white-trash goddess literally born to hitchhike, and the freest female of them all. Freedom, its prizes and its prices, is a major theme of Tom Robbins’s classic tale of eccentric adventure. As his robust characters attempt to turn the tables on fate, the reader is drawn along on a tragicomic joyride across the badlands of sexuality, wild rivers of language, and the frontiers of the mind.

Escaping the Delta

Escaping the Delta
Author: Elijah Wald
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 510
Release: 2012-04-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062018442

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. Trying to separate myth from reality, biographer Elijah Wald studies the blues from the inside -- not only examining recordings but also the recollections of the musicians themselves, the African-American press, as well as examining original research. What emerges is a new appreciation for the blues and the movement of its artists from the shadows of the 1930s Mississippi Delta to the mainstream venues frequented by today's loyal blues fans.

Stomping the Blues

Stomping the Blues
Author: Albert Murray
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2017-10-17
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1452956154

In this classic work of American music writing, renowned critic Albert Murray argues beautifully and authoritatively that “the blues as such are synonymous with low spirits. Not only is its express purpose to make people feel good, which is to say in high spirits, but in the process of doing so it is actually expected to generate a disposition that is both elegantly playful and heroic in its nonchalance.” In Stomping the Blues Murray explores its history, influences, development, and meaning as only he can. More than two hundred vintage photographs capture the ambiance Murray evokes in lyrical prose. Only the sounds are missing from this lyrical, sensual tribute to the blues.

Mastering Blues Keyboard

Mastering Blues Keyboard
Author: Merrill Clark
Publisher: Alfred Music Publishing
Total Pages: 98
Release: 1992-06
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780882849423

The conclusion to this power-packed blues method begins with a review of concepts of improvisation and harmony. Techniques such as tremolos, octaves, grace notes and two-handed chords will be introduced. Various styles such as Chicago blues, New Orleans R&B and jazz blues are covered. This book lays the foundation for a lifetime of exploration and enjoyment playing the blues by including many other topics such as chromaticism, motivic development, melodic expansion, groove and articulation.