Customer Reviews

The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu

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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

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.

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

So much research must have gone into the making of this book. I love finding out the origins of sayings and words and Debra has explored the infinite possibilities with enthusiasm and humor. If you have any interest in music, history, or words, this book is a must read!

I am a blues newbie and really enjoyed this book. It's an easy, any-point-is-a-good-entry format, and DeSalvo has clearly done her homework on this fascinating subject.

It's a quick read, and one that I'll refer to again and again, as I really enjoyed the author's "informed fan" writing style. It wasn't dry or overly academic. You get the sense that she's a swingin' chick with a more than healthy appreciation for the genre.

Highly recommended.

Every reader will pick up something new about lyrics, terms and phrases, noted cities and neighborhoods, instruments, performers, lore, and other aspects of this always popular and colorful style of music. With occasional material from interviews with top names in blues and closely-related types of popular music in entries as long as essays of three or so pages to as short as a couple of lines, DeSalvo relates origins of words and phrases, gives examples when relevant, describes nuances in different styles, locates the origins and outlines the course of different traditions, explains details of instruments and techniques of playing them, and draws profiles of significant singers and instrumentalists. And she includes considerable colorful lore and terminology unknown to only the most knowledgeable aficionados which can only add to enjoyment of the blues with more casual fans. A lively, informative, eminently readable companion to blues music in all its history and manifestations.

I'm one of those people who always liked Blues, but didn't know much about it. A couple hours with this book, and my knowledge and appreciation increased a lot.

This is an really good book, written in smart, down-to-earth language, like a friend sitting next to you explaining it all.

Intelligent without being pedantic, "The Language of the Blues" taught me the difference between delta, swamp and barrelhouse blues, as well as the difference between voodoo and hoodoo.

The book is topped off by an intro by Dr. John (!), the funniest, craziest bluesman left on the earth since the departure of Screamin' Jay Hawkins from this realm in 2000.

I was coming home from the post office with this book in my hand and ran into a friend who looked at it for a minute and tried to borrow it. Repeatedly.
I told him he'd have to wait.

This book is wonderful. Get it. Get it. Get it.

Yeah, I know "the Blues is Dead," or "Every damn song starts 'Woke up this Morning,'" or "Old folks Music," or insert your pet peeves.... At least that's what is said all too often. I bought "the Language of the Blues" by Debra DeSalvo, on a recommendation from Blues-L the mailing list, and am still going through the book. On every page there are insights to who, what and or why many words were, and are, used in Blues, Blues/Rock and Rock & Roll; "The Blues had a Baby..." The only thing I find missing is 'Sand' or 'Raising Sand,' which I always took to mean digging a grave, but as I said I'm still reading.

This is one of those books that you can pick up and start reading from wherever the page opens. Miss DeSalvo once wrote for Blues Review magazine so the book is more than a scholarly explanation of terms; it is interesting! So unless you are an expert already, wait is there such a thing as 'Blues expert,' buy this book you won't be disappointed!

Also the book has pictures by Dick Waterman, and others, and a forward by Dr. John. The Blues is a lot more than 'Woke up this Morning' 3 chords and guitar solos. The Blues was an oppressed people saying things, in song, that would have got them jailed or hung. But that ain't all, much of the language also was about, shall we say sex? Yes, S. E. X. many of those subjects would've been sent a man, or woman, straight to Hell; unless they made a deal at "the Crossroads."

Afro-Americans enriched American English, with their music and language. Now next thing will be, in 50 years or so, "the Language of Rap or Hip-Hop" will come out. But of course that won't be written until the "Rap is Dead" crowd has had a few years to say that. After the next "Hot, cool whatever, Musical genre." I'm sorry but 'genre;' isn't a word that has any meaning, to me at least, in music. Music is either Good or Bad!

Now I know that in a blues song when they sing about the back door, they are not speaking in sexual terms, they are referring to a cheating man making a quick exit out of the back door when the husband comes home! The book is very entertaining and informative!

If you enjoy the blues then this is the book for you. This book gives you the meaning of every blues phrase ever used in a song. This will give you an understanding of blues music like never before. Absolutely fabulous.