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Nicholas Cook
£7.99
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Philip V. Bohlman
£7.99
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The Blues: A Very Short Introduction
Elijah Wald
152 pages
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10 black and white halftones
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174x111mm
978-0-19-539893-9
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Paperback
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24 June 2010
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- Features blues stars Ma Rainey, Jelly Roll Morton, W.C. Handy, Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, the Memphis Jug Band, and Charlie Patton
- Provides a concise history of a musical genre that interests both jazz and folk fans, and students of popular music
- Bestselling author of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n' Roll: published by OUP in June 2009 and has sold over 10,000 copies to date
Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture.
It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a
set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." Wald sees blues less as a style than as a broad musical tradition within a constantly evolving pop culture. He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was transformed by such professional performers as W. C. Handy, who first popularized the blues a century ago. He follows its evolution from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith through Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix; identifies the impact of rural field recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and others; explores the role of blues in the development of both country music and jazz; and looks at the popular rhythm and blues trends of the 1940s and 1950s, from the uptown West Coast style of T-Bone Walker to the "down
home" Chicago sound of Muddy Waters. Wald brings the story up to the present, touching on the effects of blues on American poetry, and its connection to modern styles such as rap.
Readership: General readership interested in the blues
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Elijah Wald, teaches blues history, UCLA Elijah Wald is a musician who teaches blues history at UCLA. His books include How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll, Global Minstrels, and Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues.
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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