This is the most important instruction guide to blues style piano playing in print. It covers all styles of playing from 1900 to the present day and includes transcriptions of the recordings of twenty-two of the greatest exponents of barrelhouse and boogie piano. Among these are such greats as Memphis Slim, Alex Moore, Kid Stormy Weather, Cow Cow Davenport, Jelly Roll Morton, to mention just a few. All the transcriptions are accompanied by histo...

From the time the first "Diddley Bo" appeared on a wooden barnyard wall, countless great sounding blues songs, acoustic and electric, have been written and recorded by many talented artists.These ten legendary songs, among them "Boom Boom," "Little Red Rooster" and "The Thrill is Gone," from fabled musicians like John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon and B.B.King, provide some of the critical links in the chain of the American blues tradition.

The result of careful research, this stylish biography of infamous blues musician Robert Johnson reveals the real story behind the mythical talent that made him a musical legend. According to some, Robert Johnson learned guitar by trading his soul away to the Devil at a crossroads in rural Mississippi. When he died at age 27 of a mysterious poisoning, many superstitious fans came to believe that the Devil had returned to take his due. This diligent study of Johnson’s life debunks these myt...

A companion book to the PBS documentary series exploring the history of the blues and its contribution to American culture and music worldwide.A companion to the groundbreaking documentary series, this volume is a unique and timeless celebration of the blues, from writers and artists as esteemed and revered as the music that moved them.Included in this stunning collection are:Essays by David Halberstam, Hilton Als, Suzan-Lori Parks, Elmore Leona...

"There are no definitive histories," writes Elijah Wald, in this provocative reassessment of American popular music, "because the past keeps looking different as the present changes." Earlier musical styles sound different to us today because we hear them through the musical filter of other styles that came after them, all the way through funk and hiphop. As its blasphemous title suggests, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll rejects the conventional pieties of mainstream jazz and rock ...

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...

The Guardian and Observer newspapers have covered jazz in all its shapes and forms for almost a century. Jazz: From New Orleans to the new generation is a collection of reviews and profiles that charts the development of the music from its first appearance in London in 1917 right through to latter day arguments over fusion. Contributors including Kingsley Amis, Benny Green, Michael Frayn and John Fordham provide a uniquely British perspective on the history of jazz that features all the top n...

The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now celebrated as the greatest figure in blues history.Trying to separate myth from reality, biographer Elijah Wald studies the blues from the inside -- not only examining recordings but also the recollections of...

Poised to become a classic of jazz literature, Visions of Jazz: The First Century offers seventy-nine chapters illuminating the lives of virtually all the major figures in jazz history. From Louis Armstrong's renegade-style trumpet playing to Sarah Vaughan's operatic crooning, and from the swinging elegance of Duke Ellington to the pioneering experiments of Ornette Coleman, jazz critic Gary Giddins continually astonishes the reader with his unparalleled insight. Writing with the g...

Now in paperback, the definitive anthology from a writer who “set the standard for newspaper pop-music criticism” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), the New York Times’ first chief pop music critic and Rolling Stone contributor Robert Palmer.Robert Palmer’s extraordinary knowledge and boundless love of music were evident in all his writing. He was an authority on rock & roll, blues, jazz, punk, avant-garde, and world music—often discovering new...

The acclaimed classic biography, now available as an ebook.Please note that this edition does not include illustrations.The revised edition of Ian Carr’s classic biography of Miles Davis throws new light on his life and career from the early days in New York, with Charlie Parker, to his Birth of the Cool band, through his drug addiction in the early 1950s, and the years of extraordinary achievements, 1954-1960, during which he created a whole series of masterpieces on recor...

From the time the first "Diddley Bo" appeared on a wooden barnyard wall, countless great sounding blues songs, acoustic and electric, have been written and recorded by many talented artists.These ten legendary songs, among them "Boogie Chillun," "John the Revelator" and "St. James Infirmary" from fabled musicians like John Lee Hooker, Son House and Doc Watson, provide some of the critical links in the chain of the American blues tradition.