Deep BluesBlues is the cornerstone of American popular music, the bedrock of rock and roll. In this extraordinary musical and social history, Robert Palmer traces the odyssey of the blues from its rural beginnings, to the steamy bars of Chicago's South Side, to international popularity, recognition, and imitation. Palmer tells the story of the blues through the lives of its greatest practitioners: Robert Johnson, who sang of being pursued by the hounds of hell; Muddy Waters, who electrified Delta blues and gave the music its rock beat; Robert Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson, who launched the King Biscuit Time radio show and brought blues to the airwaves; and John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, B. B. King, and many others. "A lucid . . . entrancing study" -- Greil Marcus "Palmer has a powerful understanding of the music and an intense involvement in the culture." -- The Nation |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 36
Page 62
... bluesmen , began following Willie Brown from job to job and picking up pointers from him around 1926 , when the two of them were living near Robinsonville , forty miles south of Memphis . Patton would visit the area frequently to play ...
... bluesmen , began following Willie Brown from job to job and picking up pointers from him around 1926 , when the two of them were living near Robinsonville , forty miles south of Memphis . Patton would visit the area frequently to play ...
Page 133
... bluesmen of Patton's generation . Most of the younger bluesmen now played mostly or only for blacks . This was one more symptom of the general tendency for whites and blacks in the Delta to draw further and further apart and regard each ...
... bluesmen of Patton's generation . Most of the younger bluesmen now played mostly or only for blacks . This was one more symptom of the general tendency for whites and blacks in the Delta to draw further and further apart and regard each ...
Page 146
... bluesmen and the more commercially minded jazz musicians began favoring a heavy , insistent beat . The new r & b , or jump blues , appealed to black listeners who no longer wished to identify themselves with life down home , and the ...
... bluesmen and the more commercially minded jazz musicians began favoring a heavy , insistent beat . The new r & b , or jump blues , appealed to black listeners who no longer wished to identify themselves with life down home , and the ...
Common terms and phrases
African ain't album Arkansas artists B. B. King baby ballads band bass began blues records blues singers bluesmen boogie Charley Patton Chess Chicago blues Clarksdale club cotton dance Delta blues discs Dockery Dockery's drummer drums early electric Elmore James Flyright goin gonna guitar guitarist harmonica hear heard Helena Hooker Howlin instrument jazz Jimmy Rogers John Lee Johnny juke joint King Biscuit label learned listen Little Walter lived Lockwood Louis Louisiana Mississippi Muddy Waters Muddy's night performed pianist piano plantation player playing popular r&b hit radio rhythm rhythmic Rice Miller Robert Johnson Robert Nighthawk rock and roll sang says session singing slave Slim solo Son House songs Sonny Boy Williamson sound South Stackhouse Street string studio style Sunnyland Tampa Red thing Tommy Johnson town tune verses vocal wanted West Memphis who'd Willie Wolf woman Yazoo