Mississippi Blues Today

By Robert Nicholson

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306808838
• ISBN13: 9780306808838
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: Da Capo
• Length: 196 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.4" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

Super Book

This book is fascinating for any blues or history lover. My husband bought it--we both read it and have passed it on--it is on it's way to a different state with a friend and we are buying another copy which we will also share with friends and family. Really makes one understand and appreciate REAL blues and what it has done to influence all kinds of music through the years. Highly recommend especially for music and history teachers as well as musicians.