Customer Reviews

Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues (Jack and Doris Smothers Series in Texas History, Life, and Culture)

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Fans of the blues will thoroughly enjoy this outstanding book by Roger Wood and James Fraher, who spent seven years researching and interviewing folks involved with the largely "invisible" blues music scene in Houston and the surrounding area. Fraher's photographs are outstanding, and they help drive the lively text. The authors interviewed musicians, club owners, producers and many others associated with the music scene in Houston's Third Ward and the Fifth Ward. The book moves easily from clubs to ballrooms to barbecue joints, where the music first took root and is still played today. Many legendary blues musicians such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Clifton Chenier, Gatemouth Brown and others of similar rank make appearances in the text. This is a high-quality book from a production standpoint and is an incredible bargain at full price or the Amazon.com sale price.

Roger Wood begins this labor of love with a tacit admission that, on moving to H-town in 1981 for job related purposes, he was unaware of the blues history lining the cracks of the nearby Third Ward sidewalks until the February 1, 1982 obituary in the Houston Chronicle of lifelong native Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins. With this tome under his belt it appears he's made up for lost time since then.

In addition to covering the wealth of blues greats who were either born in Houston or called the area home for any length of time, Wood also documents the underbelly of the lower class club scene, those low rent juke joints and converted shotgun houses that kept the I-IV-V alive all those decades, and still continues to do so. Wood rightfully laments the city's growing distance from it's blues heritage as well as the disappearance of it's historic venues, but "Down in Houston" is a verbal and pictorial testament to the bedrock that no one can strip away.

finally! a book on houston blues--there are plenty of missives about chicago and mississippi river/delta cities and their blues traditions, but none that have been written so comprehensively on the bayou city until now. houston blues are a unique subgenre of "the blues;" thankfully they have been respectfully cataloged here. i had the privilege of hearing joe "guitar" hughes play in one of the small joints in the third ward just weeks before he died and was moved by the intensity and depth (for lack of better descriptors) of the performance. the musicians described here were the blues--they didn't just play at it. also, this is a side of houston that most houstonians aren't even aware of--it was fascinating to read about this parallel world going on, at the same time, just a few miles from where i grew up. an excellent book for anyone with an interest in music or even just houston's history.

I have purchased this book many times over - from the time it came out and will keep buying to give as gifts and donate for silent auctions at benefits. It was my major introduction to the history and the current blues scene in Houston. It has taken me places that you envision like in the movies - juke joints, etc. I have met people that were written about in the book and had them autograph the page or their photographs. The photographs are a fine collection of Houston blues history - some are still here and some are long gone. I have one set aside for a "Houston Blues Museum" when it becomes a reality - read the book and you will see - we have a huge place in blues history.

Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues (Jack and Doris Smothers Series in Texas History, Life, and Culture, No. 8)