Book description
Keil's classic account of blues and its artists is both a guide to the development of the music and a powerful study of the blues as an expressive form in and for African American life. This updated edition explores the place of the blues in artistic, social, political, and commercial…
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked Urban Blues as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
It began as a master’s thesis in the early Sixties, when the blues was still (just) alive and evolving, and still celebrated by its traditional black audiences. By the time the book was published in 1966, however, white fans had ‘discovered’ the music, and everything was changing. Pounding, repetitive tunes of the kind written by Willie Dixon at Chess and popularised by English R&B bands, became the canon. The blues, with a new rock audience unaware of its rich variety and deep hinterland, was reduced to a single rather tedious idea. It didn’t have to be like this. It’s not…
From Alan's list on The best books about the blues, Chicago, and the Chicago blues.
If you love Urban Blues...
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On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
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