Customer Reviews

The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings

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I've seriously had enough of American ignorance and outright resentment about the contents of this, the best of all guides to blues recordings. One chap points out that the authors complain that Lurrie Bell's output is poor, but his best work was simply not made until after the book was written. You didn't realize that? Another complains that the book is "snobbish", a very shakey value judgment indeed, which tells me way more about him than the authors; yet another tells us that the authors don't like anything they review; apart from being arrrant nonsense, it simply isnt true. Not everything recorded in the name of Blues is great. Clearly, the reviewer skimmed the book while multi tasking, or his ignorance would not be quite so flamboyantly displayed. Some Blues records are well below par. That's the POINT of a critical review. A third tells us that North Americans will need an arcane dictionary to comprehend what is being said. Whatever happened to education? That's YOUR responsibily, not the authors. I feel now, as I always have done, that this book represents the best critical review you can invest in. It is well informed, trustworthy, honest and backed by over 40 years of experience by people who know what they are doing and saying. I've been listening since 1963 myself, so I too know what I'm talking about

And, to answer the chap who asked "what do these British chaps know about the Blues anyway", I am, first and formost astonished by his ignorance. The UK has produced the bulk of the best blues writing, all the serious discographical reference works, a slew of important and vaulueable reissues, first on vynil, as early as 1951, then on CD; ever heard of Ace or Document records? Since 1951 when Big Bill toured Europe for the first time, blues performers, most especially in the 1960's, received warm welcomes in the UK and continental Europe, were treated as human beings during the segregationst period, paid well and given the chance to record for Europan companies AND get royalties. It isnt stretching the truth to say that without European interest the blues would probably have died sometime in the 1960's. And bear this in mind too; much of what passes for Blues in the US these days is essentially bar-band boogie by people who came to it via rock and never got much further. The Blues is now global. The Brits and the Euros gave it support when the Americans, with a few heroic exceptions like Chris Strachwitz, Pete Welding and Bob Koester, were busy ignoring their own history. Deal with it; oh, and for those of you who want to start shouting about the right of foreigners to interfere with US matters, let me tell you that, while British originally, I've been an American citizen now for 14 years, served my country overseas and lost an eye in the process. So deal with that too.

The British version of this is a beautiful huge oversized book, US version is a standard fat trade paperback.

The tone is dry, almost academic, and maybe a little British humor. The listings and research are very good. They cover rural and electric blues, pre war and post war BUT, they don't like most of what they review. Some of the writing is so unclear and dense, it comes across as Alan Greenspan writing/speaking about economics. If you want to know what artist to check out and if a CD/album is good don't come here.

This book is not a good first choice, but a great second choice for serious blues fans looking for some challenging reading. This book will supplement the much more reader friendly ALLMUSIC GUIDE TO THE BLUES very nicely.

This book provides extensive reviews of many Blues recordings on compact disc, both currently available and deleted. The authors have cut a wide swath through the history of blues from day one, up to and including artists who are performing today.

The reviews themselves however, are highly subjective in nature and in some cases, may deter readers unnecessarily from purchasing a selected title for the simple reason that the reviewer didn't like it.

At other times, the metaphors used to "slot" a particular artist miss the mark entirely. The following clunker from a review of Rosco Gordon's material ... " but in the main R&B's answer to Thelonious Monk " ... only serves to reinforce this point. Purchasers of this text book need to be warned that they will require a large English dictionary on hand when going through it due to the number of words no longer in circulation in day-to-day North American English.

Blues completists will want (or already have) Godrich, Dixon, and Rye "Blues and Gospel Records 1890 - 1943" and Leadbitter, Slaven, Fancourt, Pelletier "Blues Records 1943 - 1970". Readers less obsessed with collecting will likely fare better by searching out the "All Music Guide to Blues - 3rd Ed." (Miller Freeman Books) and the "All Music Guide to Jazz - 4th Ed." (Miller Freeman) where the reviews tend to be more evenly paced.

This is extensive and that's great. But the writers are so snobby. We're talking about the blues here, people. Folk music. Music of the people. Yet this feels like it was written by the kinds of people who write classical/art music books. How exactly can you become snobby about popular music? Yes, music criticism does require a certain level of snobbishness, but this goes far beyond that. They regularly reject admitted blues rock classics because they aren't pure blues. For one thing it's ridiculous to believe in "pure" forms of any kind of music, since music is never static. But to claim that records are bad because they aren't "blues" is ridiculous. The appropriate thing to do would be to say this is "rock" not "blues" and not pass judgement (if one was a blues critic who claimed no knowledge of rock).

These british chaps put down Lurrie Bell- which is one of the best blues players still alive. If Lurrie's life with its ups and downs and ability to finally pull himself out of abyss by the bootstraps is not "the blues"- than what is?

Then, there is omnipresent "white men can't play blues" byas throughout the book.

You'd be better served by blues guides written by americans- AllMusicGuide, etc.