Originally Posted by
splanky
...what blues? whose blues? when? where?...Virtually every American genre of music
was born out of the blues.There is no one single book that's going to cover every aspect
of blues birth and history. You'll do best by starting where you are. You said you have blues
recordings so what are they, what do you enjoy? Individual singers? Musicians? Guitarists?
Pianists? Horn players, harmonica players? What styles? The big city jump blues that
birthed much R&B or that deep heavy low delta blues that Ted Gioia wrote so well about? The Albert Murray book was good to me but I didn't expect it be the last word because the blues are still a living entity. Taj Mahal, Keb Mo and their contemporaries
would surely tell you that. Blues People by Amiri Baraka when he was still Leroi Jones
was landmark but keep in mind it's not a history, more a reflection of his ideology.
Start where you are...
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