Read complete books and articles on: Blues Music

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Blues Music

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Blues Fell This Morning: The Meaning of the Blues » Read Now
by Paul Oliver. 355 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...portables. This was their music, the blues of their own race, and families...perplexity as to the nature of the blues. But within the music itself there is room...
2.

Africa and the Blues » Read Now
by Gerhard Kubik. 240 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

A narrative that explores the African genealogy of American.
3.

Sounds So Good to Me: The Bluesman's Story » Read Now
by Barry Lee Pearson. 175 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...point in my life I loved blues music. It had a special sound...trends in black popular music. Fewer clubs hired blues bands, but the blues musicians...later years most...
4.

Blues People: Negro Music in White America » Read Now
by LeRoi Jones, Imamu Amiri Baraka. 244 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Blues People Negro Music in White America by LeRoi Jones...permission to quote from "Married Woman Blues," words and music by Joe Turner and White Keys...contains constant...
5.

Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations » Read Now
by Brian Ward. 600 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

In one of the most innovative and ambitious books to appear on civil rights and black power movements in America, the author examines the relationship between rhythm and blues music and the struggle for black freedom and equality from the 50s to the 70s.
6.

The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music » Read Now
by Allan Moore. 208 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

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...
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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.
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7.

The Poetry of the Blues (1963) » Read Now
by Samuel Charters. 112 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...blues and if we can play music and play the blues we may play the blues...anything except church music. The preoccupations of the blues; love, sexuality, personal...in the...
8.

Good with Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt » Read Now
by Carlo Rotella. 269 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

"This is a brilliant study, warm and frequently thrilling, of an inspired combination of subjects. Postindustrial American urban culture has found its great poet-theorist in Carlo Rotella."--William Finnegan, author of "Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country"
"In the hands of others, we have...
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"This is a brilliant study, warm and frequently thrilling, of an inspired combination of subjects. Postindustrial American urban culture has found its great poet-theorist in Carlo Rotella."--William Finnegan, author of "Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country"
"In the hands of others, we have learned much about the process of deindustrialization. Rotella powerfully brings the reader to the core of these socio-economic transitions in a manner that is almost palpable in its ability to connect the reader to any one of his subjects. Rotella held me, taught me, opened my eyes to an appreciation of new ways of seeing. The writing is electric, the broader conceptual framework is rich and complex, and his touch is deft throughout the book."--Nick Salvatore, coauthor of "We All Got History: The Memory Books of Amos Webber"
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9.

Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music (Part Three "The Blues") » Read Now
by Peter Van der Merwe. 352 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Here, for the first time, is a book which analyses popular music from a musical, as opposed to a sociological, biographical, or political point of view. Peter van der Merwe has made an extensive survey of Western popular music in all its forms - blues, ragtime, music hall, waltzes, marches, parlour...
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Here, for the first time, is a book which analyses popular music from a musical, as opposed to a sociological, biographical, or political point of view. Peter van der Merwe has made an extensive survey of Western popular music in all its forms - blues, ragtime, music hall, waltzes, marches, parlour ballads, folk music - uncovering the common musical language which unites these disparate styles. The book examines the split between `classical' and `popular' Western music in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, shedding light, in the process, on the `serious' music of the time. With a wealth of musical illustrations ranging from Strauss waltzes to Mississippi blues and from the Middle Ages to the 1920s, the author lays bare the tangled roots of the popular music of today in a book which is often provocative, always readable, and outstandingly comprehensive in its scope.
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10.

Rhythm and Resistance: Explorations in the Political Uses of Popular Music (Chap. 4 "The Blues: America's National Song Form") » Read Now
by Ray Pratt. 246 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Beginning with the spirituals of the slaves and the gospel of the black church and continuing through the blues, jazz forms, country, folk, and rock, Rhythm and Resistance presents popular music as part of a continuing effort, over two centuries, to create community values and identity in the face...
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Beginning with the spirituals of the slaves and the gospel of the black church and continuing through the blues, jazz forms, country, folk, and rock, Rhythm and Resistance presents popular music as part of a continuing effort, over two centuries, to create community values and identity in the face of social transformations. The book refutes the idea that the use of popular music for expression by a "socially marginal" society is new. The author demonstrates that popular music as an expression of community identity is centuries old.
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11.

The Jazz Cadence of American Culture » Read Now
by Robert G. O'Meally. 665 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
12.

Blues Boy: The Life and Music of B. B. King » Read Now
by Sebastian Danchin. 164 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

A richly detailed & balanced portrait of the "King of the Blues."
13.

The World Don't Owe Me Nothing: The Life and Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards » Read Now
by Honeyboy Edwards, Janis Martinson, Michael Robert Frank. 290 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This vivid oral snapshot of an America that planted the blues is full of rhythmic grace. From the son of a sharecropper to an itinerant bluesman, Honeyboy's stories of good friends Charlie Patton, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, and Robert Johnson are a godsend to blues fans. History buffs...
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This vivid oral snapshot of an America that planted the blues is full of rhythmic grace. From the son of a sharecropper to an itinerant bluesman, Honeyboy's stories of good friends Charlie Patton, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, and Robert Johnson are a godsend to blues fans. History buffs will marvel at his unique perspective and firsthand accounts of the 1927 Mississippi River floo, vagrancy laws, makeshift courts in the back of seed stores, plantation life and the Depression.
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14.

Virginia Piedmont Blues: The Lives and Art of Two Virginia Bluesmen » Read Now
by Barry Lee Pearson. 291 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...ballads, ragtime, country, pre-blues dance music, and even marginal rock and...reels, hollers, and work songs, blues music is a twentieth-century form...other types of...
15.

Blues: The Basics » Read Now
by Dick Weissman. 206 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Blues: The Basicsgives a brief introduction to a century of the blues, ideal for students and interested listeners who want to learn more about this important musical style.The book is organized chronologically, focusing on the major eras in blues' growth and development. Each chapter includes a...
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Blues: The Basicsgives a brief introduction to a century of the blues, ideal for students and interested listeners who want to learn more about this important musical style.The book is organized chronologically, focusing on the major eras in blues' growth and development. Each chapter includes a timeline relating significant social and historical events to developments in the blues. The book concludes with lists of key recordings, books, and videos.Blues: The Basics serves as an excellent introduction to the players, the music, and the styles that make blues an enduring and well-loved musical style.
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16.

Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues » Read Now
by Steve Cheseborough. 244 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Updated and expanded, this indispensable guidebook maps out the blues birthplaces, juke joints and crossroads of the Mississippi Delta.