The winner of the 2006 IPPY Award for best non-fiction book from the South (presented by the Independent Publishers Association), the Mojo Triangle tells the true story--at long last--of the birth of the blues, rock 'n' roll, country and jazz! Draw a straight line from New Orleans to Nashville, then over to Memphis and back down to New Orleans, following the curves of the Mississippi River, and you have the Mojo Triangle, a phrase coined by the author in the early 2000's. "So much of what has been written about the music of the South is untrue," says Dickerson. "I wanted to set the record straight and put the development of the music in perspective. The Mojo Triangle is a land area in which all of America's original roots music was created: country, blues, jazz, and rock 'n' roll. How did this music come about? What is there about the Mojo Triangle that has contributed to the creation of so much original music?" The book points out that although the music itself was created in the geographical area defined by the Mojo Triangle, the two portals through which the various musical components entered and then morphed into the finished products were Natchez, Mississippi and Nashville, Tennessee, with the Natchez Trace serving as the main artery. Based on interviews with the recording artists, musicians, producers and songwriters who created and performed the music, it traces the development of the music from the early 1800s up to the present day. There is probably no author in history who has interviewed as many music legends and musicians as the author--and the reader benefits from that experience in a big way. Among the music legends who participate are: Al Green, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, Carl Perkins, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Chet Atkins, Ike Turner, Jack Clement, Marty Stuart, Mose Allison, Rita Coolidge, Roy Orbison, Scotty Moore, Tammy Wynette, Vince Gill, Waylon Jennings, Garth Brooks, Chips Moman, Billy Sherrill, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Jimme Vaughan, Willie Mitchell, Booker T. & the MGs, Bobby Womack, Estelle Axton, Dave Edmunds, Pinetop Perkins, Bobbie Gentry, and the list goes on and on. This incredible book, which contains rare photographs, some of which were taken by the author himself, not only allows the music greats themselves to express themselves about the music they made famous, it explains for the first time the development of America's music.

(Harmonica Play-Along). The Harmonica Play-Along Series will help you play your favorite songs quickly and easily. Just follow the notation, listen to the CD to hear how the harmonica should sound, and then play along using the separate backing tracks. The melody and lyrics are also included in the book in case you want to sing, or to simply help you follow along. The audio CD is playable on any CD player, and also enhanced so PC and Mac users can adjust the recording to any tempo without changing pitch Volume 10 includes: Baby, Scratch My Back * Eyesight to the Blind * Good Morning Little Schoolgirl * Honest I Do * I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man * My Babe * Ride and Roll * Sweet Home Chicago.

Winner, Best History, 2012 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. When Mississippi John Hurt (1892-1966) was ""rediscovered"" by blues revivalists in 1963, his musicianship and recordings transformed popular notions of prewar country blues. At seventy-one he moved to Washington, D.C., from Avalon, Mississippi, and became a live-wire connection to a powerful, authentic past. His intricate and lively style made him the most sought after musician among the many talents the revival brought to light. Mississippi John Hurt provides this legendary creator's life story for the first time. Biographer Philip Ratcliffe traces Hurt's roots to the moment his mother Mary Jane McCain and his father Isom Hurt were freed from slavery. Anecdotes from Hurt's childhood and teenage years include the destiny-making moment when his mother purchased his first guitar for $1.50 when he was only nine years old. Stories from his neighbors and friends, from both of his wives, and from his extended family round out the community picture of Avalon. US census records, Hurt's first marriage record in 1916, images of his first autographed LP record, and excerpts from personal letters written in his own hand provide treasures for fans. Ratcliffe details Hurt's musical influences and the origins of his style and repertoire. The author also relates numerous stories from the time of his success, drawing on published sources and many hours of interviews with people who knew Hurt well, including the late Jerry Ricks, Pat Sky, Stefan Grossman and Max Ochs, Dick Spottswood, and the late Mike Stewart. In addition, some of the last photographs taken of the legendary musician are featured for the first time in Mississippi John Hurt.

The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake (""the devil's music""), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as ""the crossroads"" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.

The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake (""the devil's music""), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as ""the crossroads"" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.

Development Drowned and Reborn is a "Blues geography" of New Orleans, one that compels readers to return to the history of the Black freedom struggle there to reckon with its unfinished business. Reading contemporary policies of abandonment against the grain, Clyde Woods explores how Hurricane Katrina brought long-standing structures of domination into view. In so doing, Woods delineates the roots of neoliberalism in the region and a history of resistance. Written in dialogue with social movements, this book offers tools for comprehending the racist dynamics of U.S. culture and economy. Following his landmark study, Development Arrested, Woods turns to organic intellectuals, Blues musicians, and poor and working people to instruct readers in this future-oriented history of struggle. Through this unique optic, Woods delineates a history, methodology, and epistemology to grasp alternative visions of development. Woods contributes to debates about the history and geography of neoliberalism. The book suggests that the prevailing focus on neoliberalism at national and global scales has led to a neglect of the regional scale. Specifically, it observes that theories of neoliberalism have tended to overlook New Orleans as an epicenter where racial, class, gender, and regional hierarchies have persisted for centuries. Through this Blues geography, Woods excavates the struggle for a new society.

Development Drowned and Reborn is a "Blues geography" of New Orleans, one that compels readers to return to the history of the Black freedom struggle there to reckon with its unfinished business. Reading contemporary policies of abandonment against the grain, Clyde Woods explores how Hurricane Katrina brought long-standing structures of domination into view. In so doing, Woods delineates the roots of neoliberalism in the region and a history of resistance. Written in dialogue with social movements, this book offers tools for comprehending the racist dynamics of U.S. culture and economy. Following his landmark study, Development Arrested, Woods turns to organic intellectuals, Blues musicians, and poor and working people to instruct readers in this future-oriented history of struggle. Through this unique optic, Woods delineates a history, methodology, and epistemology to grasp alternative visions of development. Woods contributes to debates about the history and geography of neoliberalism. The book suggests that the prevailing focus on neoliberalism at national and global scales has led to a neglect of the regional scale. Specifically, it observes that theories of neoliberalism have tended to overlook New Orleans as an epicenter where racial, class, gender, and regional hierarchies have persisted for centuries. Through this Blues geography, Woods excavates the struggle for a new society.

Boom's Blues stands as both a remarkable biography of J. Frank G.Boom (1920-1953) and a recovery of his incredible contribution to blues scholarship originally titled The Blues: Satirical Songs of the North American Negro. Wim Verbei tells how and when the Netherlands was introduced to African American blues music and describes the equally dramatic and peculiar friendship that existed between Boom and jazz critic and musicologist Will Gilbert, who worked for the Kultuurkamer during World War II and had been charged with the task of formulating the Nazi's Jazzverbod, the decree prohibiting the public performance of jazz. Boom's Blues ends with the annotated and complete text of Boom's The Blues, providing the international world at last with an English version of the first book-length study of the blues. At the end of the 1960s, a series of thirteen blues paperbacks edited by Paul Oliver for the London publisher November Books began appearing. One manuscript landed on his desk that had been written in 1943 by a then twenty-three-year-old Amsterdammer Frank (Frans) Boom. Its publication, to which Oliver gave thetitle Laughing to Keep from Crying, was announced on the back jacket of the last three Blues Paperbacks in 1971 and 1972. Yet it never was published and the manuscript once more disappeared. In October 1996, Dutch blues expert and publicist Verbei went in search of the presumably lost manuscript and the story behindits author. It only took him a couple of months to track down the manuscript, but it took another ten years to glean the full story behind the extraordinary Frans Boom, who passed away in 1953 in Indonesia.

Other people locked themselves away and hid from their demons. Townes flung open his door and said 'Come on in.' So writes Harold Eggers Townes Van Zandt's longtime road manager and producer in EMy Years with Townes Van Zandt: Music Genius and RageE a a gripping memoir revealing the inner core of an enigmatic troubadour whose deeply poetic music was a source of inspiration and healing for millions but was for himself a torment struggling for dominance among myriad personal demons.THTownes Van Zandt often stated that his main musical mission was to write the perfect song that would save someone's life. However his life was a work in progress he was constantly struggling to shape and comprehend. Eggers says of his close friend and business partner that like the master song craftsman he was he was never truly satisfied with the final product but always kept giving it one more shot one extra tweak one last effort. THA vivid firsthand account exploring the source of the singer's prodigious talent widespread influence and relentless path toward self-destruction EMy Years with Townes Van ZandtE presents the truth of that all-consuming artistic journey told by a close friend watching it unfold.

A major figure in American blues and folk music, Big Bill Broonzy (1903-58) left his Arkansas Delta home after World War I, headed north, and became the leading Chicago bluesman of the 1930s. His success came as he fused traditional rural blues with the electrified sound that was beginning to emerge in Chicago. This, however, was just one step in his remarkable journey: Big Bill was constantly reinventing himself, both in reality and in his retellings of it. Bob Riesman's groundbreaking biography tells the compelling life story of a lost figure from the annals of music history. "I Feel So Good" traces Big Bill's career from his rise as a nationally prominent blues star, including his historic 1938 appearance at Carnegie Hall, to his influential role in the post-World War II folk revival, when he sang about racial injustice alongside Pete Seeger and Studs Terkel. Riesman's account brings the reader into the jazz clubs and concert halls of Europe, as Big Bill's overseas tours in the 1950s ignited the British blues-rock explosion of the 1960s. Interviews with Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, and Ray Davies reveal Broonzy's profound impact on the British rockers who would follow him and change the course of popular music. Along the way, Riesman details Big Bill's complicated and poignant personal saga: he was married three times and became a father at the very end of his life to a child half a world away. He also brings to light Big Bill's final years, when he lost first his voice, then his life, to cancer, just as his international reputation was reaching its peak. Featuring many rarely seen photos, as well as a foreword by the celebrated music writer and historian Peter Guralnick, "I Feel So Good" will be the definitive account of Big Bill Broonzy's life and music.

Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature is a multidisciplinary exploration of the ways that African American "hot" music-minstrelsy, ragtime, jazz, and especially blues-emerged into the American cultural mainstream in the nineteenth century and ulti mately dominated American music and literature from 1920 to 1929. Exploring the deep and enduring relationship between music and literature, Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature examines the diverse ways in which African American "hot" music in fluenced American culture-particularly literature-in early twentieth century America. Steven C. Tracy provides a history of the fusion of Afri can and European elements that formed African American "hot" music, and considers how terms like ragtime, jazz, and blues developed their own particular meanings for American music and society. He draws from the fields of literature, literary criticism, cultural anthropology, American studies, and folklore to demonstrate how blues as a musical and poetic form has been a critical influence on American literature. Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature begins by highlighting instances in which American writers, including Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, and Gertrude Stein, use African American cul ture and music in their work, and then characterizes the social context of the Jazz Age, discussing how African American music reflected the wild abandon of the time. Tracy focuses on how a variety of schools of early twentieth century writers, from modernists to members of the Harlem Renaissance to dramatists and more, used their connections with "hot" music to give their own work meaning. Tracy's extensive and detailed understanding of how African American "hot" music operates has produced a fresh and original perspective on its influence on mainstream American literature and culture. An experienced blues musician himself, Tracy draws on his performance background to offer an added dimension to his analysis. Where an other blues scholar might only analyse blues language, Tracy shows how the language is actually performed. Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature is the first book to offer such a refreshingly broad interdisciplinary vision of the influence of African American "hot" music on American literature. It is an essential addition to the library of serious scholars of American and African American literature and culture and blues aficionados alike.

In this book we will learn the basic tools for soloing, which include scales and partial chords. We will play several 12 bar solos and analyze how they are built. Along the way you will learn all of the above techniques, but MOST importantly you will learn to create musical phrases. As the word suggests, a phrase is based on the language skills you already possess. If you think of your daily speech as a template for soloing you will bring life and vitality to your playing. *If ordering this book from Amazon there will not be a CD. Instead you can download all the audio files at: http: //learnbluesguitarnow.com/book