Transcribed from 78 rpm recordings and preserved here long after many of the records have disappeared, this collection of nearly three hundred songs from more than one hundred singers celebrates the diversity of feeling and form that defines the blues. Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith, Leadbelly, Memphis Minnie, Robert Johnson, and Muddy Waters are represented with their lesser-known contemporaries—Barefoot Bill, Barbecue Bob, Bumble Bee Slim, and Black Ivory King. This complete anthology also features lyrics by Blind Blake, Victoria Spivey, Blind Willie Johnson, "Funny Paper" Smith, Texas Alexander, Lightning Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, Ma Yancey, King Solomon Hill, Skip James, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Son House, Willie Brown, Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White, Furry Lewis, Sleepy John Estes, Rev. Gary Davis, Roosevelt Sykes, Peetie Wheatstraw, Sonny Boy Williamson, Kokomo Arnold, Tampa Red, Howlin'Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Patton, and more than 100 others.Dozens of illustrations are included.
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"If you love the blues and if you love books, this one is worth the money."
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly wonderful
Aug 12 2012
By R. Earle Harris
- Published on Amazon.com
This book is chock-full of about 400 blues lyrics. They have been lovingly and intelligently transcribed. This is a big help to people, like me, who want to play old-style blues and struggle with getting the lyrics off CDs where the original was made from a wax master in some furniture store in 1920 and the hiss drives you mad.
Beyond that the presentation of the lyrics makes them more than just poems because the use of whitespace and punctuation conveys a sense of how they sound on those old tracks. It is very enjoyable to just sit and read through this book.
The author may not include an index but he does include a really interesting table of contents which connects similar artists under different helpful headings. You can find the lyrics you want by artist or title by quickly skimming the 7 pages of the contents and just doing this connects the different artists in space and time. It's great.
It might be helpful to know that these lyrics pretty much ignore the postwar (WWII) era although there is a Howling Wolf lyric and a John Lee Hooker lyric that the author couldn't resist including. But basically, its all the old blues.
For the budget-minded, the old editions are here: The Blues Line: A Collection of Blues Lyrics and here: The Blues Line a Collection of Blues Lyrics From Leadbelly to Muddy Waters
Beyond that the presentation of the lyrics makes them more than just poems because the use of whitespace and punctuation conveys a sense of how they sound on those old tracks. It is very enjoyable to just sit and read through this book.
The author may not include an index but he does include a really interesting table of contents which connects similar artists under different helpful headings. You can find the lyrics you want by artist or title by quickly skimming the 7 pages of the contents and just doing this connects the different artists in space and time. It's great.
It might be helpful to know that these lyrics pretty much ignore the postwar (WWII) era although there is a Howling Wolf lyric and a John Lee Hooker lyric that the author couldn't resist including. But basically, its all the old blues.
For the budget-minded, the old editions are here: The Blues Line: A Collection of Blues Lyrics and here: The Blues Line a Collection of Blues Lyrics From Leadbelly to Muddy Waters
4 of 8 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Missed Opportunity
Nov 16 2009
By G. farina
- Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase
I pulled this book off my shelf hoping to use it for a Blues History class I'm teaching this semester. Then I remembered why it's been sitting on the shelf unused for years: this would-be wonderful anthology has on index of musicians or song titles. Yes, in this collection of hundreds of blues lyrics, there is absolutely no way to locate the lyrics of a particular musician, or the lyrics to a particular song. Instead, the lyrics of King Solomon hill are located in the "New Orleans to Jackson" chapter, and Robert Pete Williams "I Got So Old" is located in the chapter titled "Somewhere to End." How clever and useful. There IS a clear index of illustrations. Gee, thanks.
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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