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Title details for The Blues by Chris Thomas King - Available

The Blues

by Chris Thomas King
Adam Lazarre-White
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
All prior histories on the blues have alleged it originated on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Not true, says author Chris Thomas King. In The Blues, King presents facts to disprove such myths. For example, as early as 1900, the sound of the blues was ubiquitous in New Orleans. The Mississippi Delta, meanwhile, was an unpopulated sportsman's paradise—the frontier was still in the process of being cleared and drained for cultivation. Moreover, this book is the first to argue that the blues began as a cosmopolitan art form, not a rural one. Protestant states such as Mississippi and Alabama could not have incubated the blues. New Orleans was the only place in the Deep South where the sacred and profane could party together without fear of persecution. Expecting these findings to be controversial in some circles, King has buttressed his conclusions with primary sources and years of extensive research, including a sojourn to West Africa and interviews with surviving folklorists and blues researchers from the 1960s folk-rediscovery epoch. They say the blues is blasphemous—the devil's music. King says they're unenlightened, that blues music is about personal freedom.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 1, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781666537765
      • File size: 691776 KB
      • Duration: 24:01:11

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This well-researched history of the blues and its connection to nineteenth-century Louisiana reveals that the popular music genre was not invented on plantations in rural Mississippi, as is often reported. The author, a Grammy-winning blues artist, says that it was an outgrowth of a well-established Black classical music culture in New Orleans, one that was systematically destroyed by Europeans who were threatened by the achievements of people they thought were inferior. Narrator Adam Lazarre-White has a wonderful vocal tone but narrates too slowly and with unnatural-sounding pauses between phrases. This drawn-out pacing is tolerable because the story is so compelling, but it often makes it harder to keep track of the ideas in complex sentences. Riveting to hear, nonetheless, this is a stunning history of how Europeans suppressed opportunities for Black people in a growing country. T.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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