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

Singing was just one element of blues performance in the early twentieth century. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and other classic blues singers also tapped, joked, and flaunted extravagant costumes on tent show and black vaudeville stages. The press even described these women as "actresses" long before they achieved worldwide fame for their musical recordings. In "Staging the Blues," Paige A. McGinley shows that even though folklorists, record producers, and festival promoters set the theatricality of early blues aside in favor of notions of authenticity, it remained creatively vibrant throughout the twentieth century. Highlighting performances by Rainey, Smith, Lead Belly, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee in small Mississippi towns, Harlem theaters, and the industrial British North, this pioneering study foregrounds virtuoso blues artists who used the conventions of the theater, including dance, comedy, and costume, to stage black mobility, to challenge narratives of racial authenticity, and to fight for racial and economic justice.

"Black Pearls" is an anthology of black women singers who made major contributions to American music. The word anthology derives from the Greek language meaning "gathering of flowers." In this collection, Josephine Qualls has described the evolution of Jazz music and its' related musical forms as embodied in the careers of these women ranging from Bessie Smith through Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie, Pearl Bailey, Ethel Waters, Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson (mother of pearls) and many others. Also included are descriptions of several early venues in which black women developed their talents. The musical art forms of Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Ragtime and Dixieland highlights the descriptions of the births, early years and lifelong careers of these African/American women. Spanning the years from 1895 to the present, this is an engaging and informative book leaving the reader fascinated by the amazing variety in this "collection of flowers." "Black Pearls" belongs in the library of any fan or historian of African/American music.

Deep Ellum, on the eastern edge of downtown Dallas, retains its character as an alternative to the city's staid image with loft apartments, art galleries, nightclubs, and tattoo shops. It first sprang up as a ramshackle business district with saloons and variety theatres and evolved, during the early decades of the twentieth century, into a place where the black and white worlds of Dallas converged.
This book strips away layers of myth to illuminate the cultural milieu that spawned such seminal blues and jazz musicians as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Buster Smith, and T-Bone Walker and that was also an incubator for the growth of western swing.
Expanding upon the original 1998 publication, this Texas A&M University Press edition offers new research on Deep Ellum's vital cross-fertilization of white and black musical styles, many additional rare historical photographs, and an updated account of the area in the early years of the twenty-first century.

An offbeat, strangely compelling on-the-road journal by blues singer, Carl Gustafson, who says he doesn't like music, in fact, he prefers silence. (Calling to mind keyboard immortal and eccentric Glenn Gould who he said he didn't like piano music.) Who is Carl Gustafson, you may ask? An iconoclast, a rebel, a provocateur. A flag bearer for human dignity? An Indiana Jones style adventurer, seeker of truth, justice and a better American Way? Yes, yes, certainly. An outsider artist, a Henry Darger working in obscurity on his grand vision for his oversize fabric of life, and wishing to share it? Oh, yes. And mix this in, too: one part Edward Abbey for his meticulous power of observation ("I wish that mankind, rich or poor, could at least plant a single flower or sign their signature upon their life in some distinct way. If they do, I will observe it."), one part Thoreau logging nature notes, one part Kerouac on the road, one part Dylan Thomas raging into the good night, and finally 19th century French composer Hector Berlioz writing his humorous and insightful Evenings in the Orchestra - only this time the orchestra is a blues band. Another part anthropologist Margaret Mead living among the natives, another part Zen Master with his Buddhist acceptance, reluctant or otherwise, of all things around him on any given day, he carefully observes and notates all the minutia around him on any given day, all the while keeping up a conversation with himself, sometimes bemused, sometimes angry, sometimes transcendent. The writing here is paradoxical, maddening, frustrating by turns....and then all at once riveting. You'll see yourself in these pages - that's the riveting - and then, I think you might just see the prospect of your better self, too. That's the magical. (Sample chapters, blurbs, table of contents, more at http: //sarkett.com/showtime.)

Winner ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Outstanding Book on Music
Foreword by Dr. John, Recommended by Bonnie Raitt and Joe Bonamassa
What a great resource, as fascinating as it is informative. Debra Devi s passion for the blues shines through. Bonnie Raitt

Find out what the words in your favorite blues songs "really" mean In "The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu," rock musician and "Huffington Post" blogger Debra Devi defines over 150 blues terms like mojo, hoodoo, buffet flat and killing floor with wild stories and fresh insights from her interviews with such blues stars as Hubert Sumlin, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Henry Gray, Little Milton Campbell, Bob Margolin, Jody Williams, Robben Ford, Jimmie Vaughan and more. As a musician myself, Devi explains, I thought I could make a contribution by talking to blues legends about what the words in these songs mean to them.

"The Language of the Blues" includes over 30 photos (17 color) and a remarkable foreword by Dr. John, who helped Devi uncover the illegal gambling origins of terms like gig and axe. Winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Outstanding Book on Music, "The Language of the Blues" has earned praise from Bonnie Raitt, Joe Bonamassa, former Muddy Waters guitarist Bob Margolin, producer Hal Willner and even Ministry singer Al Jourgensen Joe Bonamassa says, Devi's book will teach you what you really need to know about blues history and where the blues are coming from. Al Jourgensen notes: Finally one can understand the mechanics behind the overwhelming viscera of the Blues. Debra Devi's work is a true guide book to the soul.

Devi combines her interviews with in-depth research into etymology, African language, voodoo and the origins of blues, rock and jazz. The result is a lively read "Reuters" calls one of the wittiest, bawdiest, most fascinating dictionaries ever. "Blues Revue" deems "The Language of the Blues" an essential purchase for scholars and fans and "New York Times" columnist Shelton Ivany adds, If you have any questions about blues songs, lyrics, musicians or events, chances are you will find your answers in this unparalleled publication. Don't think that "The Language of the Blues" might read like a dictionary or reference book, explains Bob Margolin. There's no plot, but you can open it at random and fall into the world of your favorite blues songs, finding out more about the lyrics than you would by guessing from context. I learned a lot more about the blues music I love.

Devi is an "American Blues Scene" columnist and former "Blues Revue" associate editor. She is the lead singer/guitarist for the rock band DEVI and a Fender Girl Rock Nation artist. Visit her at www.devi-rock.com.

This book is fascinating Take it to the bathroom and don't come out until you're done reading it. - Jimmy Vivino

This is a beautiful book. After hearing 'Hellhound on My Trail' in high school I bought every vintage blues record available at the time. Upon receiving "The Language of the Blues" I discovered my knowledge only scratched the surface. Debra Devi has written an invaluable reference book. And it's also great fun to read. - Hal Willner

Congratulations to Debra Devi for "The Language of the Blues." Its candor and witty honesty bring us into the world she describes so well with beautiful strength. This is a book that lovers of music and just plain old lovers will love to have in their collections. - Ed Sanders

By melding a bourbon distillery of today with a famous blues musician, Hans tells the history of bourbon and the artistry of the blues in an entertaining manner never before seen in print. This is a book that bourbon enthusiasts as well as blues fans will certainly enjoy. After reading the first page it will be difficult for a reader to lay the book down before the last word has been absorbed.

A practical comprehensive guide to rock, jazz and pop arranged by one of Britain's most gifted and versatile musicians. Written in lively, accessible and entertaining style, this book contains everything the professional arranger or aspiring amateur needs to know, from setting out a lead sheet to scoring a full arrangement. The problems and pitfalls of writing for every group of instrument are discussed, from keyboards, drums and bass to brass strings, woodwind, percussion, guitar and a 'cappella' vocal writing. Packed with vital tips and hints, and presented in easy-to-use reference format, Rock, Jazz and Pop Arranging also includes two valuable appendices - on time saving shortcuts and chord symbols - and indispensable glossary.

A remarkable blend of history and drama seen through the eyes of a noted New Orleans bluesman. This extraordinary life history is the result of more than 15 years of recorded conversations, pieced together into a narrative of a uniquely American experience. Joseph's colorful portrayals of the characters who parade through his life document more than 70 years of changing relationships between blacks and whites. In his own words, he describes growing up in Louisiana, working a rice plantation, and how Gospel music put him on a career path. His candid remarks underscore the economic necessity prevalent in a musician's life. Within the tales of gigs, card games, and romantic exploits are intimate glimpses of legendary figures, including Billie Holiday and Muddy Waters. His descriptions of performing in New Orleans, New York, and Europe are especially revealing, filled with life experiences as rich as the rhythm and lyrics of the blues he played .

**As featured on Barack Obama's Summer 2022 Reading List** Winner of the Gordon Burn Prize Winner of the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist for the Pen/Diamonstein-Spievogel Award for the Art of the Essay Shortlisted for the National Book Award 'Gorgeous' - Brit Bennett 'Pure genius' - Jacqueline Woodson 'One of the most dynamic books I have ever read' - Clint Smith At the March on Washington, Josephine Baker reflected on her life and her legacy. She had spent decades as one of the most successful entertainers in the world, but, she told the crowd, "I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too". Inspired by these words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a stirring meditation on Black performance in the modern age, in which culture, history and his own lived experience collide. With sharp insight, humour and heart, Abdurraqib explores a sequence of iconic and intimate performances that take him from mid-century Paris to the moon -- and back down again, to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio. Each one, he shows, has layers of resonance across Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and his own personal history of love and grief -- whether it's the twenty-seven seconds of 'Gimme Shelter' in which Merry Clayton sings, or the magnificent hours of Aretha Franklin's homegoing; Beyonce's Super Bowl show or a schoolyard fistfight; Dave Chapelle's skits or a game of spades among friends.

In this extraordinary reconstruction of the origins of the blues, historian Marybeth Hamilton demonstrates that the story as we know it is largely a myth. Following the trail of characters like Howard Odum, who combed Mississippi's back roads with a cylinder phonograph to record vagrants, John and Alan Lomax, who prowled Southern penitentiaries and unearthed the rough, melancholy vocals of Leadbelly, and James McKune, a recluse whose record collection came to define the primal sounds of the Delta blues, Hamilton reveals this musical form to be the culmination of a longstanding white fascination with the exotic mysteries of black music.

By excavating the history of the Delta blues, Hamilton reveals the extent to which American culture has been shaped by white fantasies of racial difference.

The American singer and guitarist Ramblin' Jack Elliott (1931- ) is a seminal figure in the folk music revivals of the United States and Great Britain. Declared an American treasure by former President Bill Clinton, Elliott has traveled and performed for more than 50 years, and his life and career neatly parallel the ascension of folk music's "renaissance" from the 1940s through the present day. Ramblin' Jack Elliott: The Never-Ending Highway is the first complete biography of this important figure in the history of folk music. Elliott's music and Beat-era sensibility influenced countless artists in the fields of folk, rock, and country and western music, and Hank Reineke provides the full story of Elliott's relationships and influences. Most notably, his associations with Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan are well-documented: Elliott is considered Guthrie's most famous protege and Elliott mentored Dylan in his early career. Reineke also recounts how Elliott's life intersected with Derroll Adams, Jack Kerouac and the Beats, Princess Margaret, James Dean, and scores of others. The book examines the full breadth of Elliott's career, discussing how the rough-edged cowboy singer survived in the music industry and eventually won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Recording and the prestigious National Medal of the Arts. In addition to the biography, Reineke has amassed the first exhaustive and comprehensive discography of albums from the singer's notable back-catalog (1955-2009), including nearly 60 LP and CD issues, many rare and sought-after 78rpm discs, EPs, and 45rpm recordings, as well as a number of contributions to compilations, soundtracks, festival recordings, and guest appearances. This impressive volume is rounded out with a bibliography, an index, and more than 30 photographs, making this a must-have for scholars and fans of American folk music."

In the past, they were the Queens, strong women who took an unconventional path. They were the Blues Women, and they changed the face of music. To undertand their history is to understand not only a great deal about black history but about the history of the country as a whole. Today, blues women still change the face of music and explore the feminine side of the human condition. This book explores the lives and legacies of eighteen great blues women, old and new. From Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and other legends to Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, and more contemporary blues women, this book explores their art and tells their stories.

This is a wild insider's ride with one of music's most notorious journalists. Here are 15 gothic music profiles guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat from the author of "Tales of Times Square".Legendary musicians and songwriters captured in moments of crisis despair revelation and glory including: Leiber and Stoller the white fathers of RandB and rock and roll who possess what is perhaps the last great untold story of the music biz. Their history began at the twilight of the Guys and Dolls era when their declared mission statement was to Make Black Folks Laugh. And this they did creating the American songbook of the '50s and '60s led by Elvis the Coasters and the Drifters; Doc Pomus the only white blues singer in America making records in the 1940s; Half of the hit songwriting team of Pomus-Shuman during the Brill Building era Doc had the biggest heart in the music business.It also includes: The New York recording studio scene of the 1970s as told by the studio cats who played on the most important records of that era from Aretha to Steely Dan bassist Chuck Rainey Texas tenor saxman David Fathead Newman guitarist Cornell Dupress and Atlantic Records producer Joel Dorn. Dorn's profile reveals exactly how the record biz spiraled down its ruinous course that led to the sad corporate culture of today; A sad romance with the Ronettes' Ronnie Spector dubbed an oldie once she left her teens; Hard-luck-Texas fables of Austin musicians Keith Ferguson and Tommy Shannon, the original bass players behind the Fabulous Thunderbirds Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan; and, the story of Rick Sikes and the Rhythm Rebels the Texas band that founded the Outlaw Country movement, but never got to recap its rewards since they were convicted of robbing banks in 1970.

Soul Covers is an engaging look at how three very different rhythm and blues performers-Aretha Franklin, Al Green, and Phoebe Snow-used cover songs to negotiate questions of artistic, racial, and personal authenticity. Through close readings of song lyrics and the performers' statements about their lives and work, the literary critic Michael Awkward traces how Franklin, Green, and Snow crafted their own musical identities partly by taking up songs associated with artists such as Dinah Washington, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, and the Supremes.Awkward sees Franklin's early album Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington, released shortly after Washington's death in 1964, as an attempt by a struggling young singer to replace her idol as the acknowledged queen of the black female vocal tradition. He contends that Green's album Call Me (1973) reveals the performer's attempt to achieve formal coherence by uniting seemingly irreconcilable aspects of his personal history, including his career in popular music and his religious yearnings, as well as his sense of himself as both a cosmopolitan black artist and a forlorn country boy. Turning to Snow's album Second Childhood (1976), Awkward suggests that through covers of blues and soul songs, Snow, a white Jewish woman from New York, explored what it means for non-black enthusiasts to perform works considered by many to be black cultural productions. The only book-length examination of the role of remakes in American popular music, Soul Covers is itself a refreshing new take on the lives and work of three established soul artists.

For more than five decades, BB King has been the consummate Blues performer. His unique guitar playing, powerful vocals and repertoire of songs have taken him from Mississippi to worldwide renown. Published to coincide with his 80th birthday, this extensively revised edition includes 18 interviews. In this comprehensive volume, the best articles, interviews and reviews about BB King's life and career have been gathered. Learn how he made his mark as a disc jockey in Memphis; trace his early tours and recordings; see him be swept up in the blues revival; and finally, enjoy his fame as the greatest living exponent of the blues style.

Jook Right On: Blues Stories and Blues Storytellers is what author and compiler Barry Lee Pearson calls a "blues quilt." These blues stories, collected by Pearson for thirty years, are told in the blues musicians' own words. The author interviewed over one hundred musicians, recording and transcribing their stories. These are stories from well-known musicians such as John Lee Hooker, Koko Taylor, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, and Little Milton, and from more obscure artists such as Big Luck Carter, Henry Dorsey, Joseph Savage, and J. T. Adams. Pearson provides an introduction to the world of the blues and the genre of blues stories as well as brief biographies of the musicians. Divided into five sections--Blues Talk, Living the Blues, Learning the Blues, Working the Blues, and The Last Word--the book provides an overview of the inner workings of the blues tradition from the artist's point of view. Wordsmiths by trade, the storytellers bring to their tales qualities also found in blues song performance and philosophical perspectives characteristic of the blues tradition such as improvisation, ironic humor, ambivalence, and a life-affirming sense of hope in the face of adversity. Pitched somewhere between story and song, this remarkable chorus of voices provides concrete illustrations of what it means to live the blues, to feel the blues, and to play the blues. Taken together, these artists provide a collective history of one of America's most influential art forms. Blues fans and those interested in African American music, folklore, American music history, popular culture, and southern history will want to read Jook Right On: Blues Stories and Blues Storytellers.