Walking a Blues Road: A Blues Reader 1956-2004

A walk through the Blues from the 1950s to the 1970s

Publishers Weekly

Charters has devoted his life to studying and writing about the blues, and this book (covering 1956 through 2004) includes thoughtful liner notes, larger essays and deeply felt excerpts from his books The Legacy of the Blues and The Roots of the Blues. After he heard Bessie Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" in 1937, he says, "blues became my life." The music helped him through a friendless, poverty-plagued childhood, and when he realized he was incapable of writing scathing record reviews, he concentrated on spotlighting the virtues of those he admired. Colorful figures in this work include Blind Willie Johnson, a guitar-playing evangelist who lost his sight when his mother, in a fit of rage, threw a pan of lye water in his face; legendary Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins; and Robert Johnson, master of "superb sexual imagery." Charters analyzes styles, repertoires and chords in a lean, comprehensive manner that will appeal to musical sophisticates and laypersons alike. His most visceral portrayal of a musician's emotional commitment to music is of Memphis Willie B. When steel guitar strings had worn blisters on his fingers and the blisters had broken, he refused to quit, saying he wasn't feeling a thing. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Now in his seventies, Sam Charters is a jazz expert with over 11 books on jazz to his name. His 1959 book The Country Blues was the first serious examination of this seedbed of virtually all American music. He followed this book with The Legacy of the Blues and The Roots of the Blues (all Marion Boyars publications).