Blues Music

A narrative that explores the African genealogy of American.

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.

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.

"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"

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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