Blues

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• 6/20/2021
  

  "Juke": Bluesman Bobby Rush on the Roots of Rock and Roll

  by Bobby Rush with Herb Powell

  Blues musician Bobby Rush's new autobiography chronicles his life and career, and the way that the appropriation of Black music into American popular culture often left Black entertainers behind. Read here how he remembers the roots of rock and roll. 

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• SOURCE: American Scholar
  3/13/2021
  

  The Baddest Man in Town

  by Eric McHenry

  Writer Eric McHenry recounts picking up the documentary trail (started in the 1970s by John Russell David) of the notorious "Stagger Lee" Shelton, whose reign of terror in early 20th century St. Louis became immortalized in song and legend.

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  11/19/2020
  

  The Devil Had Nothing to Do With It

  by Greil Marcus

  The music writer looks at three recent books on the Mississippi blues singer and guitarist Robert Johnson, looking to pull his story out of the realm of myth. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/8/2020
  

  A Song That Changed Music Forever

  by David Hajdu

  With “Crazy Blues,” Mamie Smith opened the door to a surge of powerfully voiced female singers who defied the conventions of singerly gentility to make the blues a popular phenomenon in the 1920s.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  6/26/2020
  

  We Insist: A Century Of Black Music Against State Violence

  Like music itself, this spirit of resistance takes many shapes, but has never been silenced.

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• 6/7/2020
  

  "I Imagine Everything Happened on Beale Street": Remembering Memphis in "Brother Robert"

  by Annye C. Anderson and Preston Lauterbach

  In an excerpt from the new book Brother Robert, Annye Anderson, sister of blues legend Robert Johnson, describes time spent with Johnson in Memphis, and the trends in music, movies, and black politics that shaped Johnson's personality as well as his innovative music.

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• SOURCE: Vanity Fair
  5/20/2020
  

  Exclusive First Look at New Photograph of Blues Legend Robert Johnson

  Even if he didn’t sell his soul at the Crossroads, the massively influential Mississippi guitarist remains shrouded in mystery. An upcoming memoir from his 94-year-old stepsister brings new depth to Johnson’s mythos—and the third verified picture of him in existence.