Full Description
The Blues, that unique form of African-American music, continues to hold a fascination with each successive generation of young people. Scots-born Londoner Robert Nicholson is just one such person. Grabbed first as a teenager by the white blues sounds of the Rolling Stones and George Thorogood, he quickly became aware of the real roots of the Blues. Inspired by the great Chicago musicians Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and B. B. King and the Mississippi Blues originators Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton, the author embarked on a journey to trace the roots of the electric sounds of Chicago's Chess record label back to the Mississippi Delta itself, the birthplace of the Blues.Together with Memphis-based photographer, Logan Young, Robert Nicholson has conducted a series of extended field trips to the South. Their travels have brought them into contact with the Blues musicians of today. This book presents in words and images a behind-the-scenes, often intimate, portrait of the main players on the current Delta Blues scene, including Lonnie Pitchford, Booba Barnes, Scott Dunbar, Son Thomas, and others.
This important book gives a vivid account of an economically impoverished people and examines the often brittle conviviality, hidden racial tensions, and undercurrents of violence from which the Blues has grown and in which it continues to thrive. The stunning original photographs by Logan Young enhance Nicholson's informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking text. Together they present a unique sociological and musical picture of the Mississippi Blues, and of the ways it has endured and evolved in contemporary America.
Contents
* Introduction: "The Weirdest Music I Had Ever Heard" * Mavericks and Minstrels: A Brief Historical Background * Diddley-Bow to Dinner Suit: Lonnie Pitchford * This Ain't No Beale Street: Booba Barnes * Hog's-Head Blues in Bentonia: Jack Owens and Bentonia Blues * Don't Call Me No Nigger: Scott Dunbar and Son Thomas * Breaking Down the Walls: The Memphis Blues Scene * Blues at Murphy's Bar: Robert 'The Wolfman' Belfour * Drums is a Calling Thing: The Fife and Drum Bands of Mississippi * Still the Delta Queen: Jessie Mae, Last of the Hemphills * The Fishing Musician: Big Jack Johnson * I Love the Life I Live and I Live the Life I Love: Willie Foster * The King is Dead, Long Live the King: Memphis Blues Today - Little Jimmy King and the Hollywood All Stars * Juke-Joint Blues in the Hills: Junior Kimborough and R. L. Burnside * Keeping the Blues Alive: The Delta Blues Education Fund * Cappuccino in Clarksdale: The Revitalization of the Delta * Epilogue * Discography * Bibliography * Index
