A chronicle of the rise and development of a unique musical form.Inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame under its original title Walking to New Orleans, this fascinating history focuses on the music of major R&B artists and the crucial contributions of the New Orleans music industry. Newly revised for this edition, much of the material comes firsthand from those who helped create the genre, including Fats Domino, Ray Charles, and Wardell Quezergue.

A history of the unique sounds of the Cajun Bayous.Extensive research, fieldwork, and personal interviews combine to provide a fascinating look into the sounds of South Louisiana from early Cajun and Cajun-Country through Zydeco and Blues to the Cajun revival as the first comprehensive look into the history of this distinctive style of music. Included are the contributions of such legends as Joseph Falcon, whose "Allons a Lafayette" in 1928 was the first C...

A first-ever book on the subject, New York City Blues: Postwar Portraits from Harlem to the Village and Beyond offers a deep dive into the blues venues and performers in the city from the 1940s through the 1990s. Interviews in this volume bring the reader behind the scenes of the daily and performing lives of working musicians, songwriters, and producers. The interviewers capture their voices — many sadly deceased — and reveal the changes in styles, the connections between perform...

As Louis Armstrong forever tethered jazz to New Orleans and Clifton Chenier fixed Lafayette as home to zydeco, Slim Harpo established Baton Rouge as a base for the blues. In the only complete biography of this internationally renowned blues singer and musician, Martin Hawkins traces Harpo’s rural upbringing near Louisiana’s capital, his professional development fostered by the local music scene, and his national success with R&B hits like Rainin’ in My Heart, Baby Scratch My Back,...

In the vein of the classic Johnny Cash: The Life, this groundbreaking work explores the wild life and extraordinary musical career of "the definitive country singer of the last half century" ( New York Times), who influenced, among others, Bob Dylan, Buck Owens, Emmylou Harris, John Fogerty, George Strait, Alan Jackson, and Garth Brooks.In a masterful biography laden with new revelations, veteran country music journalist/historian Rich Kienzle offers a definitive,...

Ed Ward covers the first half of the history of rock & roll in this sweeping and definitive narrative—from the 1920s, when the music of rambling medicine shows mingled with the songs of vaudeville and minstrel acts to create the very early sounds of country and rhythm and blues, to the rise of the first independent record labels post-World War II, and concluding in December 1963, just as an immense change in the airwaves took hold and the Beatles prepared for their first American tour.

Celebrating the dark origins of our most American music, Country reveals a wild shadowland of history that encompasses blackface minstrels and yodeling cowboys; honky-tonk hell and rockabilly heaven; medieval myth and musical miscegenation; sex, drugs, murder; and rays of fierce illumination on Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others, famous and forgotten, whose demonology is America's own. Profusely and superbly illustrated, Country stands as one of the most brilliant explora...

A colorful and comprehensive history of bluegrass and old-time Appalachian music from its legendary roots to today's Grammy-winning stars.With simple instrumentation—banjo, guitar, and base—a great variety of musical traditions converged to create the "old-timey" music of Appalachia. Over time, that mountain sound evolved into numerous genres and subgenres that continue to thrive today. Now musician and roots music historian Craig Harris takes readers on an anecdota...

Robert Johnson, Ma Rainey, Billie Holiday, Howlin’ Wolf, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters—say their names out loud and you can just hear the blues. Now, acclaimed artist William Stout visualizes these artists and their music with 100 stunning portraits. This graphically powerful collection includes profiles of classic musicians drawn by a master illustrator. Stout beautifully captures the signature style of each blues legend and then adds authoritative biographical text with personal and humorou...

With country music as popular as ever-what other form of music has been honored on an official state quarter?-Country Music's Most Wanted™ hits the stage to bring you tales of country musics famous and infamous.Alan Jackson delivered mail to Hee Hawbefore he made it big. Garth Brooks was booed off the stage during an eleventh-grade talent show. Kris Kristofferson landed a borrowed helicopter on Johnny Cashs lawn so he could pitch Cash a song. Youll read about Vernon Dalhart, Kenny Chesney, Ha...

Charlie Gillett, a British journalist, loves the music, and his passion is evident throughout The Sound of the City. Yet the greatest strength of the book is the way Gillett tracks the resistance of the music industry to early rock-and-roll, which was followed (needless to say) by a frantic rush to engulf and devour it.When first published The Sound of the City was hailed as having 'never been bettered as the definitive history of rock' (Guardian). Now th...

American pop music is arguably this country’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, and its singular voice and virtuosity were created by a shining thread of Black women geniuses stretching back to the country’s founding. This is their surprising, heartbreaking, soaring story—from “one of the generation’s greatest, most insightful, most nuanced writers in pop culture” (Shea Serrano)“Sparkling . . . the overdue singing of a Black girl’s song, with per...