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The Blues
- The Authentic Narrative of My Music and Culture
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 24 hrs and 1 min
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Publisher's summary
All prior histories on the blues have alleged it originated on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Not true, says author Chris Thomas King. In The Blues, King presents facts to disprove such myths. For example, as early as 1900, the sound of the blues was ubiquitous in New Orleans. The Mississippi Delta, meanwhile, was an unpopulated sportsman’s paradise - the frontier was still in the process of being cleared and drained for cultivation. Moreover, this book is the first to argue that the blues began as a cosmopolitan art form, not a rural one.
Protestant states such as Mississippi and Alabama could not have incubated the blues. New Orleans was the only place in the Deep South where the sacred and profane could party together without fear of persecution. Expecting these findings to be controversial in some circles, King has buttressed his conclusions with primary sources and years of extensive research, including a sojourn to West Africa and interviews with surviving folklorists and blues researchers from the 1960s folk-rediscovery epoch. They say the blues is blasphemous - the devil’s music. King says they’re unenlightened, that blues music is about personal freedom.
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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 10, 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 and 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.
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Cool if you know all interviewed artists
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Revealing little-known Details does Captivate!
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Great book, but needed pro narrator
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Trite!
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Revised and expanded, with a new afterword by the author, this is the definitive biography of Duane Allman, one of the most revered guitarists of his generation. Skydog reveals the complete story of the legendary guitarist: his childhood and musical awakening; his struggling first bands; his hard-won mastery of the slide guitar; his emergence as a successful session musician; his creation of the Allman Brothers Band; his tragic death at age 24; and his thriving musical legacy.
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duane was the best great story
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A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop. Smith has been writing this history for more than five years. But as a music fan, and then as an essayist, editor (Vibe, Billboard), and podcast host (Black Girl Songbook), she has been living this history since she was a latchkey kid listening to “Midnight Train to Georgia” on the family stereo.
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Ok might have been better reading the hard copy
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pitiable, lovable, despicable,understandable
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The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a record company that becomes a monument to racial harmony in 1960’s segregated south Memphis. Their success is startling, and Stax soon defines an international sound. Then, after losses both business and personal, the siblings part, and the brother allies with a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, they fall from great heights to a tragic demise.
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Great narration
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Great book.
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What listeners say about The Blues
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- John Yutzy
- 08-27-21
Required Reading for Blues Lovers!
This book skewers the popular held myth that Blues is descended from primitive musicians in the Mississippi Delta. Mr. King sets the record straight with compelling evidence that the Blues originated from Creole roots of New Orleans. I highly encourage anyone who loves the Blues to listen to this book. It’s time to stop repeating the big Blues lie!
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- J Edwards
- 10-06-24
More about Chris Thomas King than the blues
The first few chapters were what I was hoping the book to be. A view that the blues didn’t originate in the delta. I had recently read “Escaping the Delta” by Wald and hoped “The Blues”, would be similar. Chris gave his views and provided some evidence to confirm his opinion.
All people have confirmation bias and it was very evident in the book. Evidence confirming Chris’s views was acknowledged as fact and evidence for other theories was dismissed as either ignorance or lies, often with racial overtones.
When discussing his life, much of it was interesting and well written. My complaint is the victim mentality Chris repeatedly expresses throughout his life. He believes the “Blues Mafia” is behind many of the theories that differ from his and when things do go the way he wanted them to, he blames the Blues Mafia.
There are quite a few pointedly racist opinions about white people playing blues and repressing early singers. He didn’t give any credit to the English musical groups that revived blues in the US and only accuses them of white appropriation.
Also, he brags about his unique blend of hip-hop and blues, and how many others have stolen his unique idea. Run DMC’s cover of Walk this Way, was before his release of his 21st Century Blues. The title track, is reminiscent of Walk this Way. Many other cuts remind me of the Beastie Boys.
Finally, he seems to credit his portrayal of Tommy Johnson and his cover of Skip James’s “killing floor blues” as the reason the movie and soundtrack was so successful. He played Tommy Johnson well, and his cover was good, but it’s a huge ego to think his role was the reason for the success of the movie
That said, he does give some convincing data that Louisiana was the birth place of the blues, and his theory is as believable as any other theory of the blues origin. I wished he spoke less of his own victimized life and more about the blues.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-11-22
OK but I have some issues with some of the content
Good book...I'm a musicologist myself with 37 years on the guitar I know the blues came out of New Orleans. My only beef is to call white people appropriators? As a real musician with a brain, once music is out there anyone can take from. Everybody steals. My other beef is that Dylan wouldn't be Dylan without his producer...anyone who understands Dylan knows Bob calls the shots and a producer's job is to get out of his way. That part was retarded...the part about PJ Harvey and the blues was equally dumb...PJ is an original artist who can't be defined. The last part they mentioned England and Scotland...but no mention of Ireland? Celtic folk song were the blueprint of all American music. Anyway it was a good rrad.
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