Book cover of Beale Black and Blue: Life and Music on Black America's Main Street

Book description

W. C. Handy, Furry Lewis, Booker White, Lillie May Glover, Roosevelt Sykes, Arthur Crudup, B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Muddy Waters - these and other musicians, singers, and songwriters, including the young Elvis Presley, eventually went to Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, to learn, improve, and practice their art.…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Beale Black and Blue as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Written by Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall and published by Louisiana State University Press.  A fine, detailed book centered on Memphis, Tennessee’s famous Beale Street, the birthplace of the Blues.

Beale Black & Blue covers the history of civil rights, economics, politics, and musicians starting from the early 20th Century until the late 1960s and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The two authors collect deep and accurate oral histories from Nat D. Williams—scholar, columnist, and pioneering Black disc Jockey. The book illuminates the poverty, cultural oppression, and features the lives of B. B. King, Muddy Waters,…

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A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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