Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta BluesAt a crossroads in the Mississippi Delta, Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the Devil so that he could become a guitar virtuoso and King of the Delta Blues. Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues will tell you where that legendary deal was supposed to have been made and guide you to all the other hallowed grounds that nourished Mississippi's signature music. Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Memphis Minnie, Jimmie Rodgers, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Little Milton, Elvis Presley, Bobby Rush, Junior Kimbrough, R. L. Burnside-the list of great artists with Mississippi connections goes on and on. A trip through Mississippi blues sites is a pilgrimage every music lover ought to make at least once in a lifetime, to see the juke joints and churches, to visit the birthplaces and graves of blues greats, to walk down the dusty roads and over the levee, to eat some barbecue and greens, to sit on the bank of the Mississippi River, and to hear some down-home blues music. Blues Traveling is the first and only guidebook to Mississippi's musical places and blues history. With photographs, maps, easy-to-follow directions, and an informative, entertaining text, this book will lead you in and out of Clarksdale, Greenwood, Helena (Arkansas), Rolling Fork, Jackson, Natchez, Bentonia, Rosedale, Itta Bena, and dozens of other locales that generations of blues musicians have lived in, traveled through, and sung about. Stories, legends, and lyrics are woven into the text so that each backroad and barroom comes alive. Touring Mississippi with Blues Traveling is like having a knowledgeable and entertaining guide at your side. Even people with no immediate plans to visit Mississippi will enjoy reading the book for its photos, descriptions, and lore that will broaden their understanding and enhance their appreciation of the blues. Steve Cheseborough is an independent scholar and blues musician. His work has been published in Living Blues, Blues Access, Mississippi, and the Southern Register . |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 75
Page 5
... singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard. The tune stayed in my mind. It certainly did. A few years later, Handy would publish “The Yellow Dog Rag” (which he would ...
... singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard. The tune stayed in my mind. It certainly did. A few years later, Handy would publish “The Yellow Dog Rag” (which he would ...
Page 6
... singer. That first recorded singer was not a scraggly, self-taught, guitartoting southern man of the sort Handy had heard in Tutwiler, though. It was Mamie Smith, a well-dressed woman with a professionally trained voice, singing before ...
... singer. That first recorded singer was not a scraggly, self-taught, guitartoting southern man of the sort Handy had heard in Tutwiler, though. It was Mamie Smith, a well-dressed woman with a professionally trained voice, singing before ...
Page 7
... singers and an overwhelming proportion of the finest blues singers. That includes the whole Chicago blues scene from the 1930s to the present—nearly all its stars have been Mississippi-born. And that is true of both the prewar acoustic ...
... singers and an overwhelming proportion of the finest blues singers. That includes the whole Chicago blues scene from the 1930s to the present—nearly all its stars have been Mississippi-born. And that is true of both the prewar acoustic ...
Page 9
... singing brakeman whose yodeling versions of black blues songs were the start of country music, came from Meridian, in east-central Mississippi. And Memphis, Tennessee, has always attracted Mississippians, among them musicians who played ...
... singing brakeman whose yodeling versions of black blues songs were the start of country music, came from Meridian, in east-central Mississippi. And Memphis, Tennessee, has always attracted Mississippians, among them musicians who played ...
Page 10
... singers were mostly rambling sorts who didn't leave behind much in the way of es- tates, memoirs, letters, or other personal papers or belongings. They left their music, fortunately, and some sketchy details of the particulars of their ...
... singers were mostly rambling sorts who didn't leave behind much in the way of es- tates, memoirs, letters, or other personal papers or belongings. They left their music, fortunately, and some sketchy details of the particulars of their ...
Contents
3 | |
Memphis | 23 |
Down Highway 61 | 55 |
The Clarksdale Area | 81 |
The MidDelta | 105 |
The Greenwood Area | 131 |
Greenville to Vicksburg | 151 |
The Jackson Area | 183 |
East Mississippi | 213 |
North Mississippi Hill Country | 227 |
Recommended Reading | 251 |
Recommended Listening | 253 |
Index | 259 |
Other editions - View all
Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues, Third Edition Steve Cheseborough Limited preview - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
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