Good Books on the Blues

[Alan]

Has anyone got any recommendations? Read some Paul Oliver and Lomax stuff, is there anything below the radar thats worth reading? Some of the stuff I've looked at seems to read more like a list of who, where, when.

[Michael Messer]

DEEP BLUES > by ROBERT PALMER
BIG ROAD BLUES > by DAVID EVANS
THE BLUESMEN > by SAM CHARTERS

There's three good ones to get the thread going.

Shine On,
Michael.

[blueshome]

"Chasin' that Devil Music" by Gayle Deam Wardlow - also comes with a great cd.

Phil

[LouisianaGrey]

If you like fiction I recommend "R L's Dream" by Walter Mosley.

I also enjoyed "Boogie Man", Charles Shaar Murray's biography of John Lee Hooker.

[rickS]

Honeyboy Edwards 'The World Don't Owe me Nothin' '

Calt/Wardlow 'King Of The Delta Blues;Charlie Patton' is great, but hard to find

Elijah Wald's 'Escaping the Delta' book on Robert Johnson

Paul & Beth Garon's 'Woman With Guitar;Memphis Minnie's Blues'

[martin w]

The Bluesmen by Sam Charters , as Michael says, is very good indeed.

I also found The Devils Music, the BBC publication for the '70s TV series a good starting point.

If you can find it, Mance Lipscomb's autobiography, " I say me for a parable" is informative, entertaining and, in turn, shocking. Well worth reading if you can cope with the fact that it is written exactly as he spoke.

[Alan]

Has anyone bought anything from Amazon.com in the UK, ( not .co.uk)?

[Deleted]

Bought from Amazon.com some time ago (by accident logged onto wrong one!) - only problem was the stuff took AGES to come!
FICTION BLUES BOOKS -
Anyone read any of Ace Atkins TWO blues mysteries (fiction) - quite good with blues, booze, and a bit of sex and violence. Can't remember the titles offhand but one was about a hidden vinyl copy of an unknown Robert Johnson song

[LouisianaGrey]

Yes, lots of times, Alan. Bizarrely the stuff usually comes from Frankfurt.

I recall a couple of times buying comparatively obscure American CDs when Amazon UK kept delaying the delivery date and in the end I ordered from Amazon.com and got the stuff in a couple of weeks.

[Alan]

Its the used stuff that won't ship internationally

[Bottleneck John]

I'm reading a book by Alan Lomax called "The land where the Blues began"..
Supernice, very interesting!!

BJ

[Alan]

I read that and thought it was interesting too, interesting interviews - reading it again. Just strated 'Conversation With the Blues' that I picked up for a couple of quid.

Is it me or are some of the second hand things on Amazon way over priced?

[Deleted]

It's one of those strange things - Amazon often has a new CD at half the price of some second-hand ones, sometimes I wonder if any of the second hand dealers actually sell much! In the same way as eBay Amazon is providing a platform & I suppose they take a cut of the sell price.
When I'm considering buying second hand CDs on eBay I always have a second browser window open so I can see what the Amazon new price is & pitch my custom accordingly.
I remember calling in a reknowned second hand CD shop in Sydney to see a "very rare" second-hand CD priced at A$75, a few streets away it was in a retail shop at A$15!!
You pays your money & makes your choice.

[Simon thompson]

Whilst not exclusively about the blues, three of the best books ever written about American music are "Feel Like Going Home", "Lost Highway " & "Sweet Soul Music" all by Peter Guralnick. ("Sweet Soul Music" is exclusively about soul music, but none the worse for that)
All are superbly written, very much from the heart & with excellent photos. A quick check on Amazon.co.uk shows all three as being available.