Customer Reviews

The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray

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Getting straight to the point, I really enjoy the way this book is laid out.

The book opens with an essay you might call the state of the blues today, written by the author in 1997.
After that comes a rudimentary blues time line covering some of the more important blues events and recordings.

Next comes a series of essays covering different eras in the evolution of the blues. The titles include, 'Birth of the Blues', 'The Early Twenties', 'The Late Twenties', 'The Thirties', 'Post War Chicago', 'West and South', 'The Sixties', 'The Seventies and Eighties', and finally 'The Blues Today'.

The meat and potatoes of the book comes next. The index of blues musicians. The first section covers some of the more Legendary figures in the blues, like Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and Buddy Guy. The musicians covered in this section are given longer bios which are accompanied by several pictures.
After the legends section comes the A-Z Blues Artists section. This is basically a list of blues musicians in alphabetical order with a short bio and picture when available.
Two more sections follow covering milestone blues recordings and blues festivals around the world.

My one gripe with this volume, as you probably figured, is that some artists are not included. For what reason I'm not sure. But it is extremely difficult to be all-inclusive with this type of work. If you are trying to find a specific artist, it is best to check the index in the back as if the artist is featured in the legends section, then there will not be a duplicate entry in the A-Z section. If you are looking for a comprehensive history of the blues you would be better of looking elsewhere. This book is more of a who's who of the blues, offering insights on many blues artists from legendary to relatively unknown.

It's arranged to be like a reference guide, but readers would have no problem reading it from cover to cover. It's big, has lots of pictures and looks great on the coffee table.
Great gift for your favorite blues fan, or for a music connoisseur looking to learn more about blues musicians.

This is a big book, almost coffee-table sized, and it takes full advantage with hundreds of amazing photos. But it's also got some great essays and lots of little fact boxes and other doodads to catch your eye. Everybody's here, of course, from Charlie Patton to Muddy, Buddy, B.B., Albert (Collins and King), Stevie Ray Vaughan, and the rest. Even R&B artists such as Fats Domino get top billing. A section on Milestone Recordings is a nice addition, as is a list of the major blues festivals, blues magazines, and other related books.

There are cheaper guides to the blues and cheaper ways to get some of this information, but this is a fun book to page through. The photos here make it worth the price of admission. Joe Bob sez check it out. ;-)

This one is done right. The book is logically organized. Section include a well-written introduction essay, a blues timeline to ground us in the history, decade-by-decade highlights, great coverage of "blues legends" and an A to Z section covering everyone who's important in blues. Great photographs and insightful captions throughout enhance the text.

At first, I found myself looking up my favorites - Albert King, Bobby "Blue" Bland, James Cotton but very quickly I was soaked in the stories of artists I knew much less about. A good read that captures the blues atmosphere in all its forms.