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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You Thought You Knew, January 8, 2006
This review is from: The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Paperback)
Lovers of the Blues...... You thought you knew what those lyrics meant ....
Heck, I bet you even thought you knew what "cool" meant...
The Language of the Blues , from the hand and heart of Debra DeSalvo ,takes those lyrics you thought you knew , or perhaps may have wondered about; and provides the roots and beginnings of so many commonly used and well loved in blues phrases; from Belly Fiddle and Biscuit, to Toby and Trim , and so very many more . Based on the lives , culture and experiences of the greats who wrote them ; Debra picturesquely reveals humble , sometimes spiritual sometimes sexual, not always socially acceptable, but always entertaining origins of the beloved Language of the Blues
With a foreword by Dr John and comments by contemporary greats Bonnie Raitt and Bob Margolin , this book simply has to be in every blues lovers library.
Lovers of words and their origins .. etymology lovers ... lovers of the human soul .... all will find this book to be deliciously revealing and delightfully satisfying.
Love and HUGS
Swannie
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive to say the least!, January 3, 2006
This review is from: The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Paperback)
Being from Chicago, the "home away from home' of the Mississippi blues roots, as well as being a heavily blues influenced guitarist here for over 20 years, having even opened a show for Muddy Waters, I thought I knew most all there was about blues vernacular. Then I read Debra DeSalvo's "The Language Of The Blues" and realized how much I didn't know...
This book is the most comprehensive title I've ever read on the blues and the history of the blues. If you read blues history, bluesman's biographies, or are even a scholar of the genre, this book is as invaluable as Roget's Thesaurus to any author.
Excellent piece of work and should be required reading in any school of music teaching the blues as the art form it is.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Opens a big door to the world of the blues, February 18, 2006
This review is from: The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Paperback)
Based on the title, you might think that this book is a dictionary of blues terms, but it is much more than that. In discussing the meanings and origins of words and phrases, the author brings out much about the history of the blues and about African American culture. The book has a lot of really cool stuff including a sharecropper's contract, entertaining stories from the author's interviews with bluesmen (Hubert Sumlin, Little Milton, Bob Margolin and others) and a foreword by Dr. John in which he discusses how he learned to use street language to write songs. With this book, you can discover the meaning of Robert Johnson's "stones in my passway", learn the source for Willie Dixon's "Wang Dang Doodle", and learn about the African-American game of insults called the dozens.
Informative and very entertaining. My guess is that it could become a standard reference for blues fans and writers, and a must-have for blues researchers.
OK, the above is my version of a Publisher's Weekly review. But it doesn't do this book justice. This book really means a lot to me. Let me explain why...
In a certain sense, blues lyrics are written in a foreign language and this book allows the listener to translate that language. I got interested in the blues when I was in college, and I had no idea what Muddy Waters was singing about when he sang of John the Conqueror. Robert Johnson singing about "riding the blinds" was also a bit of a mystery. Over the years and after many pages of reading, I was able to solve some of these mysteries. But if I had this book some 25 years ago, I would have been way ahead of the game.
I remember once thumbing through a book at my college library by folklorist/musicologist Dr. Harry Oster (possibly his "Living Country Blues") and coming across the lyrics to a song titled "Smokes Like Lightning." It caught my eye because I was familiar with Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightnin'". The song used the term "coolin' board", and Oster explained that "coolin' board" means "deathbed". It seemed very poetic to me--a bed-ridden dying person's body slowly turning cold as life drips out of him. But years later, I learned that Oster was mistaken. Desalvo's Language of the Blues confirms what I learned. To quote from it, "a cooling board was a wooden plank used for laying out a corpse so it could be prepared for burial."
I'm the father of two little boys, and I'm sure that some day soon, they'll be into the latest and greatest pop/rock/rap/teeny-bop music sensation. I'll listen to it and maybe I'll think that some of it ain't that bad. But in the back of my mind will be the hope that one day I'll come home from work and find a college-age kid listening to some Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson. And if I do, I'll pull out my old blues LPs, show him the pictures on the covers, and play some of my favorite music for him. And I'll pull some books off the shelf too. The one on top of the stack will be The Language of the Blues.
Jim Hauser
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