It is our most passionate music, rooted in ancient Africa but brought to blossom in America at the doorstep of the twentieth century. It is a living heritage of song born in poverty, persecution, and hard labor, born of love and love betrayed, of holiness and sin, the pleasures and the pains of the flesh, the experience of tragedy, comedy, drunkenness, despair, desolation, and pure joy. It is the blues. At root, the blues is rich in its simplicity, but it has flowered across the years in a variety of rare complexity. Perhaps no form of popular art is more immediately appealing than the blues, yet so rewards a thorough knowledge of its finer points. In eleven authoritative essays commissioned especially for the book, Nothing But the Blues traces the African-American origins of the music, its early development as popular entertainment, its early recorded manifestations, its regional differentiation (Mid-South, Tidewater-Piedmont, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles), its many stylistic dimensions, and its contemporary manifestations. Country blues, urban blues, the evolution of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, and the blues revival are all fully covered. But the written history is only part of the story. Blues fans have always treasured rare photographs of their heroes, and Nothing But the Blues is gloriously illustrated with posed and candid shots of the musicians as well as photographs of such one-of-a-kind artifacts and documents as Leadbelly's NYPD rap sheet and classic recording contracts. Nothing But the Blues features an introduction by one of the genre's living legends, B. B. King, and a comprehensive "best of the best" discography, including current and rereleased recordings as well as the collectors' treasures to go after. Blues is more popular than ever before. Not only are reissues of historical blues classics selling in unprecedented numbers, but a whole new crop of vital young blues artists is active in clubs and on record today. Nothing But the Blues is a lavishly illustrated comprehensive history of the music and the musicians, as well as the promoters, producers, and others who have shaped--and continue to shape--this powerful and enduringly popular American musical art form.

This sizzling revue of the blues and blues infused songs that changed the way the world hears the human heartbeat took New York by storm. Ravishing songs trace the evolution of the blues from Africa to Mississippi to Memphis to Chicago.

The blues have contained the very essence of the jazz sound since the 1920s. A player who masters the sound and feel of the blues will play other jazz tunes in a manner that will inspire the listener. Contains 11 different blues melodies and is a natural follow-up to Volume 1 or Volume 21. Tempos are not fast. Presented in various keys with a variety of moods from slow to rock. Chords and scales are written in the staff for each track. A special guitar edition is now available (item #24-V02G)! Beginning/Intermediate. Rhythm Section: Dan Haerle (p); Rufus Reid (b); Mike Hyman (d). Suggested Prerequisites: Volumes 24, 1, and 21. Titles: Mr. Super Hip * Horizontal (C Blues) * 6/8 Modal Blues * Slow Blues in G * Slow Blues in F * Fast Blues in F * Fast Blues in B-flat * Minor Blues in C * Home Stretch * Long-Meter Jazz/Rock * Bird Blues.

Daily meditations cover identity, life assessment, goals, self-esteem, fear, risk taking, humility, and freedom.

“This is one of those special novels—a piece of working magic, warm, funny, and sane.”—Thomas Pynchon The whooping crane rustlers are girls. Young girls. Cowgirls, as a matter of fact, all “bursting with dimples and hormones”—and the FBI has never seen anything quite like them. Yet their rebellion at the Rubber Rose Ranch is almost overshadowed by the arrival of the legendary Sissy Hankshaw, a white-trash goddess literally born to hitchhike, and the freest female of them all. Freedom, its prizes and its prices, is a major theme of Tom Robbins’s classic tale of eccentric adventure. As his robust characters attempt to turn the tables on fate, the reader is drawn along on a tragicomic joyride across the badlands of sexuality, wild rivers of language, and the frontiers of the mind.

Better known as Dr. Demento on nationally syndicated radio, Hansen traces the history of blues music and its social and cultural mores and profiles its legendary players. Published in cooperation with Rhino Records. 200 color and B&W photos.