Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book, Great Price, September 19, 2006
I'm just delighted with this book. It's nice to have all of Crumb's colorful jazz, blues and country portraits together for the first time in one place. Each portrait is accompanied by a short biography of the artist and usually a few tidbits about their records. It also comes with a 21 track CD featuring Jimmie Noone, King Oliver, The Memphis Jug Band, Dock Boggs, The East Texas Serenaders, Skip James and others. Filmmaker and musician Terry Zwigoff also contributes an introduction detailing how Crumb's involvement in the portraits (originally released as trading cards) came about.
All in all this is a good package for a novice or a hardcore music fan. Neither will be disappointed.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"So what is it you like about that old music?" *, March 7, 2008
Wow! Every so often you run across something that knocks your socks off. R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz, & Country left me barefooted.
In the 1980s, Robert Crumb, whom Robert Hughes appropriately once called the "Breughel of the 20th century," created sets of trading cards featuring some of his favorite blues, jazz, and country musicians. (The plan was to include one card per LP sold by innovative record firm Yazoo.) This collection, edited by Terry Zwigoff, the same guy who directed the documentary "Crumb," pulls together the illustrations from all three sets. They're wonderful. The blues and country illustrations are drawn, and are vintage Crumb: crosshatched, brooding characters. The jazz illustrations are water-colored. They're identifiably Crumb, but have a definitely different feel to them.
Crumb is a fascinating genius. Although his art and comics tend to be avant-garde (a term he might well disdain) and iconoclastic, Crumb also has a real affinity for late 19th and early 20th century American culture. Part of this love for an earlier time, no doubt, stems from his intense dislike of the fast-paced, loud, and garish American culture he eventually fled in the 1990s (Crumb now lives in France). But part of it is that he thinks the music produced in the early 20th century represents folk art at its finest and purest, before music became an industry. Crumb began collecting old 78s when he was still a teenager, and his love for the older music has never waned.
And so to the piece de resistance of this book: the accompanying 21 cut CD. Crumb personally chose the pieces, and they're absolutely fantastic. Except for a couple of the blues and jazz musicians, all of the artists are virtually unknown except to the afficionado. But man oh man, are they wonderful. Skip James' rendering of "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues" is a heart-breaker. Dock Boggs' "Sugar Baby" and Burnett & Rutherford's "All Night Long Blues" are haunting in their strange but beautiful ways. And no matter how bad things get, Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra's "Kater Street Rag" will pick you up. My son and I have listened to the CD over and over and over, and we never get tired of it. He prefers the blues and jazz, I'm in love with the hillbilly blue grass cuts. But the whole CD--well, it just knocks your socks off.
Wow.
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* From R. Crumb's essay "To Be Interested in Old Music is To Be a Social Outcast!", The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book, p. 191. "You play old records for most people, and, if they listen at all, after the record's over they turn to you and say, 'So what is it you like ab out that old music?' You just want to throw up your hands."
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pictures plus music equals happiness, February 20, 2007
This is an excellent deal. The recordings are certainly esoteric, but I must be in the correct demographic (or something.) I like just about all of the music. I'm a kind of old-time music dilettante, so it's a great way for someone like me to check out some more obscure stuff.
As for the book... hard cover, heavy paper and just the right size to carry around (if so desired.)
Of course the main selling point of this book is the drawings. They are uniformly excellent. Someone with an obsessive personality may wish to collect the actual trading cards which are reproduced in this book, but this is a far more economical and practical means of collecting these drawings.
There is mention of Crumb's decision to use a different coloring technique for the jazz trading card set in the book's introduction. This means that some of Crumb's trademark cross-hatch shading is obscured by the overlay of color. Rather than being a detriment to the jazz drawings, it actually helps to give them a distinct character.
Anyway, buy this book. It's worth double the price.
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Interact With Your Music: Discover, listen to, and buy new music, all from the pages of SPIN's digital edition, free to Amazon customers.
DVD ~ Robert Crumb
by Crumb
by Brian Robertson
~ Uncle Dave Macon
