Blues Amongst the Stars

Blues Amongst the Stars
Author: Aleksandr Tararevs
Publisher: T/O "Neformat"
Total Pages: 110
Release:
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Thousands of light years separated him from his home stellar system, when troubling unfamiliar overload notes clearly resounded from the spaceship’s sustainer engines. Vey glanced over the control panels. It was clear – he will not make it back home in time. And whether he will ever even make it home remains to be seen. The spaceship entered the typical space in a galaxy unknown to Vey. In the vicinity there spun a stellar system. One of this system’s planets was inhabited and populated by rational beings who called themselves Humans. He braked, left the spaceship and headed for this planet on his atmospheric unit.

100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own

100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own
Author: Edward Komara
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2014-02-07
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0810889226

Search the Internet for the 100 best songs or best albums. Dozens of lists will appear from aficionados to major music personalities. But what if you not only love listening to the blues or country music or jazz or rock, you love reading about it, too. How do you separate what matters from what doesn’t among the hundreds—sometimes thousands—of books on the music you so love? In the Best Music Books series, readers finally have a quick-and-ready list of the most important works published on modern major music genres by leading experts. In 100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own, Edward Komara, former Blues Archivist of the University of Mississippi, and his successor Greg Johnson select those histories, biographies, surveys, transcriptions and studies from the many hundreds of works that have been published about this vital American musical genre. Komara and Johnson provide a short description of the contents and the achievement of each title selected for their “Blues 100.” Entries include full bibliographic citations, prices of copies in print, and even descriptions of specific editions for book collectors. 100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own also includes suggested blues recordings to accompany each recommended work, as well as a concluding section on key reference titles—or as Komara and Johnson phrase it: “The Books behind the Blues 100.” 100 Books Every Blues Fan Should Own serves as a guide for any blues fan looking for a road map through the history of—and even history of the scholarship on—the blues. Here Komara and Johnson answer the question of not only what is a “blues” book, but which ones are worth owning.

Book of Blues

Book of Blues
Author: Jack Kerouac
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1995-09-01
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1101548800

Best known for his "Legend of Duluoz" novels, including On the Road and The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac is also an important poet. In these eight extended poems, Kerouac writes from the heart of experience in the music of language, employing the same instrumental blues form that he used to fullest effect in Mexico City Blues, his largely unheralded classic of postmodern literature. Edited by Kerouac himself, Book of Blues is an exuberant foray into language and consciousness, rich with imagery, propelled by rythm, and based in a reverent attentiveness to the moment. "In my system, the form of blues choruses is limited by the small page of the breastpocket notebook in which they are written, like the form of a set number of bars in a jazz blues chorus, and so sometimes the word-meaning can carry from one chorus into another, or not, just like the phrase-meaning can carry harmonically from one chorus to the other, or not, in jazz, so that, in these blues as in jazz, the form is determined by time, and by the musicians spontaneous phrasing & harmonizing with the beat of time as it waves & waves on by in measured choruses." —Jack Kerouac

Early Blues

Early Blues
Author: Jas Obrecht
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2015-11-09
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1452945659

Winner of the 2016 Living Blues Award for Blues Book of the Year Since the early 1900s, blues and the guitar have traveled side by side. This book tells the story of their pairing from the first reported sightings of blues musicians, to the rise of nationally known stars, to the onset of the Great Depression, when blues recording virtually came to a halt. Like the best music documentaries, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar interweaves musical history, quotes from celebrated musicians (B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Ry Cooder, and Johnny Winter, to name a few), and a spellbinding array of life stories to illustrate the early days of blues guitar in rich and resounding detail. In these chapters, you’ll meet Sylvester Weaver, who recorded the world’s first guitar solos, and Paramount Records artists Papa Charlie Jackson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Blind Blake, the “King of Ragtime Blues Guitar.” Blind Willie McTell, the Southeast’s superlative twelve-string guitar player, and Blind Willie Johnson, street-corner evangelist of sublime gospel blues, also get their due, as do Lonnie Johnson, the era’s most influential blues guitarist; Mississippi John Hurt, with his gentle, guileless voice and syncopated fingerpicking style; and slide guitarist Tampa Red, “the Guitar Wizard.” Drawing on a deep archive of documents, photographs, record company ads, complete discographies, and up-to-date findings of leading researchers, this is the most comprehensive and complete account ever written of the early stars of blues guitar—an essential chapter in the history of American music.

Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music

Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music
Author: Ted Gioia
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2009-11-02
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0393069990

“The essential history of this distinctly American genre.”—Atlanta Journal-Constitution In this “expertly researched, elegantly written, dispassionate yet thoughtful history” (Gary Giddins), award-winning author Ted Gioia gives us “the rare combination of a tome that is both deeply informative and enjoyable to read” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). From the field hollers of nineteenth-century plantations to Muddy Waters and B.B. King, Delta Blues delves into the uneasy mix of race and money at the point where traditional music became commercial and bluesmen found new audiences of thousands. Combining extensive fieldwork, archival research, interviews with living musicians, and first-person accounts with “his own calm, argument-closing incantations to draw a line through a century of Delta blues” (New York Times), this engrossing narrative is flavored with insightful and vivid musical descriptions that ensure “an understanding of not only the musicians, but the music itself” (Boston Sunday Globe). Rooted in the thick-as-tar Delta soil, Delta Blues is already “a contemporary classic in its field” (Jazz Review).

The Blues Singers: Ten Who Rocked the World

The Blues Singers: Ten Who Rocked the World
Author: Julius Lester
Publisher: Jump At The Sun
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2001-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Highlights the careers of Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Mahalia Jackson, Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday, B.B. King, Ray Charles, Little Richard, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin.

House of Blues

House of Blues
Author: Daniel Siwek
Publisher: Insight Editions
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-10-22
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781608872534

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the House of Blues is an institution in music history. Since opening its doors in 1992 in a converted historical house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it has been home to live music, original folk art, and delta-inspired cuisine. The concert and restaurant chain grew out of a founding ideal to introduce the world to the music of the rural south, including the blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, jazz, and roots-based rock and roll. Today, House of Blues boasts thirteen unique venues across the country. Countless famous musicians have performed on those stages, from the Blues Brothers, Bootsy Collins, Al Green, and Eric Clapton, to Lenny Kravitz, 50 Cent, and Snoop Dogg. Concertgoers, music fans, and pop culture junkies alike will dig this illustrated account of the story behind the music. Chapters explore the venues, musicians, performances, and food, providing readers with a backstage pass to everything House of Blues. Personal interviews with company founders and famous musicians tell the story, revealing behind-the-scenes details and outrageous party anecdotes. Vivid photography showcases iconic performers on stage as well as in private moments in dressing rooms. Tucked among the pages are concert memorabilia, including special reproductions of tickets, posters, and menus.

Beyond the Baby Blues

Beyond the Baby Blues
Author: Rebecca Fox Starr
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2017-12-22
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1442273917

Most people have heard of post-partum depression. What many people do not know is that anxiety and depression can be experienced during pregnancy, as well, and the impact can be both debilitating and devastating. This book is a unique combination of one woman’s story of her struggle with perinatal distress and actionable advice from a professional in the field. Rebecca Fox Starr shares her personal story of marriage, motherhood, prenatal anxiety and depression, severe postpartum anxiety and depression, recovery process and hope for the future. Woven throughout the narrative, Dr. Amy Wenzel, a specialist in the field of Perinatal Mood Disorders, provides readers with clinical information and advice, addressing risk factors, warning signs, definitions and recovery options. Stories from other women who experienced prenatal anxiety or depression are included as well. No longer do women have to suffer in silence, question their symptoms, or try to hide their feelings. Here, readers will see themselves in the narrative and understand that the devastating effects of prenatal and post-partum depression can be confirmed, treated, and managed, giving them hope for a brighter future.

Give My Poor Heart Ease

Give My Poor Heart Ease
Author: William Ferris
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2009-11-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 080789852X

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, folklorist William Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the authentic roots of the blues. Now, Give My Poor Heart Ease puts front and center a searing selection of the artistically and emotionally rich voices from this invaluable documentary record. Illustrated with Ferris's photographs of the musicians and their communities and including a CD of original music, the book features more than twenty interviews relating frank, dramatic, and engaging narratives about black life and blues music in the heart of the American South. Here are the stories of artists who have long memories and speak eloquently about their lives, blues musicians who represent a wide range of musical traditions--from one-strand instruments, bottle-blowing, and banjo to spirituals, hymns, and prison work chants. Celebrities such as B. B. King and Willie Dixon, along with performers known best in their neighborhoods, express the full range of human and artistic experience--joyful and gritty, raw and painful. In an autobiographical introduction, Ferris reflects on how he fell in love with the vibrant musical culture that was all around him but was considered off limits to a white Mississippian during a troubled era. This magnificent volume illuminates blues music, the broader African American experience, and indeed the history and culture of America itself.

Listen to the Blues!

Listen to the Blues!
Author: James E. Perone
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2019-02-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1440866155

Listen to the Blues! Exploring A Musical Genre provides an overview of this distinctly American musical genre for fans of the blues and curious readers alike, with a focus on 50 must-hear artists, albums, and subgenres. Unlike other books on the blues, which tend to focus on musician biographies, Listen to the Blues! devotes time to the compositions, recordings, and musical legacies of blues musicians from the early 20th century to the present. Although the author references musical structure, harmony, form, and other musical concepts, the volume avoids technical language; therefore, it is a volume that should be of interest to the casual blues fan, to students of blues music and its history, and to more serious blues fans. The chapters on the impact of the blues on popular culture and the legacy of the blues also put the genre in a broader historical context than what is found in many books on the blues. The book opens with a background chapter that provides an overview of the history and structure of blues music. A substantial, encyclopedic chapter that focuses on 50 must-hear blues musicians follows, as does a chapter that explores the impact on popular culture of blues music and musicians and a chapter that focuses on the legacy of the genre. A bibliography rounds out the work.