Download or read book Blues of a Lifetime written by Mark T. Bassett and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2011-06 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blues of a Lifetime is essential reading for people interested in suspense novelist Cornell Woolrich, author of Rear Window. Woolrich’s autobiography includes accounts of his working methods, his family and home, memories of childhood, college experience, and his philosophy of life.
Download or read book Jelly s Blues written by Howard Reich and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2008-11-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jelly's Blues vividly recounts the tumultuous life of Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941), born Ferdinand Joseph Lamonthe to a large, extended family in New Orleans. A virtuoso pianist with a larger-than-life personality, he composed such influential early jazz pieces as "Kansas City Stomp" and "New Orleans Blues." But by the late 1930s, Jelly Roll Morton was nearly forgotten as a visionary jazz composer. Instead, he was caricatured as a braggart, a hustler, and, worst of all, a has-been. He was ridiculed by the white popular press and robbed of due royalties by unscrupulous music publishers. His reputation at rock bottom, Jelly Roll Morton seemed destined to be remembered more as a flamboyant, diamond-toothed rounder than as the brilliant architect of that new American musical idiom: Jazz.In 1992, the death of a New Orleans memorabilia collector unearthed a startling archive. Here were unknown later compositions as well as correspondence, court and copyright records, all detailing Morton's struggle to salvage his reputation, recover lost royalties, and protect the publishing rights of black musicians. Morton was a much more complex and passionate man than many had realized, fiercely dedicated to his art and possessing an unwavering belief in his own genius, even as he toiled in poverty and obscurity. An especially immediate and visceral look into the jazz worlds of New Orleans and Chicago, Jelly's Blues is the definitive biography of a jazz icon, and a long overdue look at one of the twentieth century's most important composers.
Download or read book King of the Blues written by Daniel de Vise and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full and authoritative biography of an American—indeed a world-wide—musical and cultural legend “No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues.”—President Barack Obama “He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced.”—Eric Clapton Riley “Blues Boy” King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister’s guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, encouraged by his cousin, the established blues man Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge. King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in 90 countries over nearly 60 years)—in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including his landmark gig at Chicago’s Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color. Daniel de Visé has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King’s inner circle—family, band members, retainers, managers, and more—and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby “Blue” Bland simply called “the man.”
Download or read book The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold written by Billy Boy Arnold and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-11-19 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Billy Boy Arnold, born in 1935, is one of the few native Chicagoans who both cultivated a career in the blues and stayed in Chicago. His perspective on Chicago's music, people, and places is rare and valuable. Arnold has worked with generations of musicians-from Tampa Red and Howlin' Wolf and to Muddy Waters and Paul Butterfield-on countless recordings, witnessing the decline of country blues, the dawn of electric blues, the onset of blues-inspired rock, and more. Here, with writer Kim Field, he gets it all down on paper-including the story of how he named Bo Diddley Bo Diddley"--
Download or read book Rhythm And The Blues written by Jerry Wexler and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012-11-07 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Atlantic Records partner and producer, Wexler presided over the evolution of the modern music business and made prodigious contributions through to our cultural history. Wexler has worked with the entire range of American genius: Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and others. 75 photographs.
Download or read book Drew s Blues written by Drew Page and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1999-03-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Congratulations on a much needed book on the Big Band era, especially from the viewpoint of the ‘side man’. Having been one for about eight years before becoming a ‘leader’ I can really appreciate your approach. A bandleader is no better than the men behind him and I have had some great ones, including of course Drew Page.” —Freddy Martin Having lived behind the scenes during the Big Band era of the thirties and forties, Page invites us to share that era with him. An instrumentalist or sideman, in many touring bands, he recounts friendships with now-famous as well as unknown musicians who made American dance music. Like them, Drew Page loved his music and the road. He did not want to stay in one place and one job for thirty years, repeating one year or experience thirty times. He wanted to see things, to observe people and places. After a lifetime of traveling and music, “every town began to seem like home.” Page’s life was touched with humor, disappointment, triumph, and some tragedy. “ Perhaps it’s the variety of my experiences, none seeming to relate to the others, that has given my life its discontinuity.” Certainly, discontinuity characterized his daily life, but continuity–his music–characterized its essence. Brought together by their art, the traveling bandmembers were apt to encounter each other any place, any time, and so they avoided goodbyes. “I’ll be seeing you.’ That’s the way I left Harry James and the boys in the band,” recalls Page. In this well-illustrated autobiography, he tells us what it was like to travel in the days before paved roads, and how the Great Depression, the death of vaudeville, and World War II affected the music business. He gives us anecdotes about the famous musicians he worked with–Harry James, Red Nichols, Freddy Martin among others–and he talks about his fellow sidemen. His narrative unrolls like a scroll inscribed with the names of those who made American dance music and jazz famous. Every music lover, nostalgia seeker, and student of American culture will want to own this book.
Download or read book Rabbit s Blues written by Con Chapman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his eulogy of saxophonist Johnny Hodges (1907-70), Duke Ellington ended with the words, "Never the world's most highly animated showman or greatest stage personality, but a tone so beautiful it sometimes brought tears to the eyes--this was Johnny Hodges. This is Johnny Hodges." Hodges' unforgettable tone resonated throughout the jazz world over the greater part of the twentieth century. Benny Goodman described Hodges as "by far the greatest man on alto sax that I ever heard," and Charlie Parker compared him to Lily Pons, the operatic soprano. As a teenager, Hodges developed his playing style by imitating Sidney Bechet, the New Orleans soprano sax player, then honed it in late-night cutting sessions in New York and a succession of bands lead by Chick Webb, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Luckey Roberts. In 1928 he joined Duke Ellington, beginning an association that would continue, with one interruption, until Hodges' death. Hodges' celebrated technique and silky tone marked him then, and still today, as one of the most important and influential saxophone players in the history of jazz. As the first ever biography on Johnny Hodges, Rabbit's Blues details his place as one of the premier artists of the alto sax in jazz history, and his role as co-composer with Ellington.
Download or read book Dirty Bird Blues written by Clarence Major and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quietly influential force in African American literature and art, Clarence Major makes his Penguin Classics debut with the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Dirty Bird Blues The PRH Audio book of Dirty Bird Blues by Clarence Major won a 2022 EARPHONE AWARD. Narrated by Dion Graham. A Penguin Classic Set in post-World War II Chicago and Omaha, the novel features Manfred Banks, a young, harmonica-blowing blues singer who is always writing music in his head. Torn between his friendships with fellow musicians and nightclub life and his responsibilities to his wife and child, along with the pressures of dealing with a racist America that assaults him at every turn, Manfred seeks easy answers in "Dirty Bird" (Old Crow whiskey) and in moving on. He moves to Omaha with hopes of better opportunities as a blue-collar worker, but the blues in his soul and the dreams in his mind keep bringing him back to face himself. After a nightmarish descent into his own depths, Manfred emerges with fresh awareness and possibility. Through Manfred, we witness and experience the process by which modern American English has been vitalized and strengthened by the poetry and the poignancy of the African-American experience. As Manfred struggles with the oppressive constraints of society and his private turmoil, his rich inner voice resonates with the blues.
Download or read book Beale Black and Blue written by Margaret McKee and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1993-09-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: W. C. Handy, Furry Lewis, Booker White, Lillie May Glover, Roosevelt Sykes, Arthur Crudup, B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Muddy Waters -- these and other musicians, singers, and songwriters, including the young Elvis Presley, eventually went to Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, to learn, improve, and practice their art. "To Handy and untold other blacks, Beale became as much a symbol of escape from black despair as Harriet Tubman's underground railroad," says Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall. They present Beale as a living microcosm of determination, survival, and change -- from its early days as a raucous haven for gamblers and grafters and as a black show business center to its present-day languishing. Choosing the former newspaper columnist, disc jockey, and schoolteacher Nat. D. Williams, as their main authority for the first part of this volume -- the street's history -- the authors have selected an individual with wisdom, perspective, and a distinctive voice that speaks from a lifetime of experience on Beale. His radio show on WDIA, "Tan Town Jamboree," was heard by thirteen-year-old Elvis Presley. Nat D. said, "We had a boast that if you made it on Beale Street, you can make it anywhere. And Elvis Presley made it on Beale first." Another Beale Streeter recalls, "He got that shaking, that wiggle, from Charlie Burse -- Ukulele Ike we called him -- right there at the Gray Mule on Beale." The street's history is richly complemented by the rare, extensive interviews that constitute the second half of the volume. "We undertook our research," the authors tell us, "not as a study of the blues but of the blues musicians themselves. They were a dying breed, these wandering minstrels who had become the principal storytellers of their people." Most of the musicians interviewed grew up in the rural southern areas where the authors found them, sometimes not far from their early homes. They tell of the music that took them to Memphis' street of the living blues. All show a resilience to despair, despite life's harsh times. Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, who never received his accumulated royalties, shrugs, "I come here with nothing and I ain't going away with nothing, and it's no need worrying my life with it." In the life of Beale Street and in the conversations of its musicians, we experience with penetrating awareness a delicate balance of humor, courage, and pain.
Download or read book Reincarnation Blues written by Michael Poore and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wildly imaginative novel about a man who is reincarnated over ten thousand lifetimes to be with his one true love: Death herself. “Tales of gods and men akin to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman as penned by a kindred spirit of Douglas Adams.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) First we live. Then we die. And then . . . we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to “get it right.” Answer all the Big Questions. Achieve Wisdom. And Become One with Everything. Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn’t make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her. More than just Milo’s lover throughout his countless layovers in the Afterlife, Suzie is literally his reason for living—as he dives into one new existence after another, praying for the day he’ll never have to leave her side again. But Reincarnation Blues is more than a great love story: Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle—if only he can piece them together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity. As darkly enchanting as the works of Neil Gaiman and as wisely hilarious as Kurt Vonnegut’s, Michael Poore’s Reincarnation Blues is the story of everything that makes life profound, beautiful, absurd, and heartbreaking. Because it’s more than Milo and Suzie’s story. It’s your story, too. Praise for Reincarnation Blues “The most fun you’ll have reading about a man who has been killed by both catapult and car accident.”—NPR “This book made me laugh out loud. And then a page later, it made me sob. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, Poore finds humor in the dark absurdities of life.”—Chicago Review of Books “Charming . . . surprisingly light and uplifting . . . It reads like a writer having fun.”—New York Journal of Books
Download or read book When Your Body Gets the Blues written by Marie-Annette Brown and published by Rodale. This book was released on 2002-02-23 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to sub-clinical depression presents an eight-week program which uses light therapy, moderate exercise, and vitamins to combat depression, overcome fatigue, and provide a greater sense of control, balance, and well-being.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of the Blues written by Edward M. Komara and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 1274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive two-volume set brings together all aspects of the blues from performers and musical styles to record labels and cultural issues, including regional evolution and history. Organized in an accessible A-to-Z format, the Encyclopedia of the Blues is an essential reference resource for information on this unique American music genre. For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit the Encyclopedia of the Blues website.
Download or read book The Blues written by Robert J. Carson and published by Keokee Books. This book was released on 2018-11 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Give My Poor Heart Ease written by William Ferris and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-11-01 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, folklorist William Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the authentic roots of the blues. Now, Give My Poor Heart Ease puts front and center a searing selection of the artistically and emotionally rich voices from this invaluable documentary record. Illustrated with Ferris's photographs of the musicians and their communities and including a CD of original music, the book features more than twenty interviews relating frank, dramatic, and engaging narratives about black life and blues music in the heart of the American South. Here are the stories of artists who have long memories and speak eloquently about their lives, blues musicians who represent a wide range of musical traditions--from one-strand instruments, bottle-blowing, and banjo to spirituals, hymns, and prison work chants. Celebrities such as B. B. King and Willie Dixon, along with performers known best in their neighborhoods, express the full range of human and artistic experience--joyful and gritty, raw and painful. In an autobiographical introduction, Ferris reflects on how he fell in love with the vibrant musical culture that was all around him but was considered off limits to a white Mississippian during a troubled era. This magnificent volume illuminates blues music, the broader African American experience, and indeed the history and culture of America itself.
Download or read book Muddy written by Michael Mahin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Ezra Jack Keats Book Award Winner A New York Times Best Illustrated Book An NPR Best Book of the Year A Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book A Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner A picture book celebration of the indomitable Muddy Waters, a blues musician whose fierce and electric sound laid the groundwork for what would become rock and roll. Muddy Waters was never good at doing what he was told. When Grandma Della said the blues wouldn’t put food on the table, Muddy didn’t listen. And when record producers told him no one wanted to listen to a country boy playing country blues, Muddy ignored them as well. This tenacious streak carried Muddy from the hardscrabble fields of Mississippi to the smoky juke joints of Chicago and finally to a recording studio where a landmark record was made. Soon the world fell in love with the tough spirit of Muddy Waters. In blues-infused prose and soulful illustrations, Michael Mahin and award-winning artist Evan Turk tell Muddy’s fascinating and inspiring story of struggle, determination, and hope.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of the Blues K Z index written by Edward M. Komara and published by Taylor & Francis US. This book was released on 2006 with total page 746 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Brother Robert written by Annye C. Anderson and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Rolling Stone-Kirkus Best Music Book of 2020 “[Brother Robert} book does much to pull the blues master out of the fog of myth.”—Rolling Stone An intimate memoir by blues legend Robert Johnson's stepsister, including new details about his family, music, influences, tragic death, and musical afterlife Though Robert Johnson was only twenty-seven years young and relatively unknown at the time of his tragic death in 1938, his enduring recordings have solidified his status as a progenitor of the Delta blues style. And yet, while his music has retained the steadfast devotion of modern listeners, much remains unknown about the man who penned and played these timeless tunes. Few people alive today actually remember what Johnson was really like, and those who do have largely upheld their silence-until now. In Brother Robert, nonagenarian Annye C. Anderson sheds new light on a real-life figure largely obscured by his own legend: her kind and incredibly talented stepbrother, Robert Johnson. This book chronicles Johnson's unconventional path to stardom, from the harrowing story behind his illegitimate birth, to his first strum of the guitar on Anderson's father's knee, to the genre-defining recordings that would one day secure his legacy. Along the way, readers are gifted not only with Anderson's personal anecdotes, but with colorful recollections passed down to Anderson by members of their family-the people who knew Johnson best. Readers also learn about the contours of his working life in Memphis, never-before-disclosed details about his romantic history, and all of Johnson's favorite things, from foods and entertainers to brands of tobacco and pomade. Together, these stories don't just bring the mythologized Johnson back down to earth; they preserve both his memory and his integrity. For decades, Anderson and her family have ignored the tall tales of Johnson "selling his soul to the devil" and the speculative to fictionalized accounts of his life that passed for biography. Brother Robert is here to set the record straight. Featuring a foreword by Elijah Wald and a Q&A with Anderson, Wald, Preston Lauterbach, and Peter Guralnick, this book paints a vivid portrait of an elusive figure who forever changed the musical landscape as we know it.
