Blues is the cornerstone of American popular music, the bedrock of rock and roll. In this extraordinary musical and social history, Robert Palmer traces the odyssey of the blues from its rural beginnings, to the steamy bars of Chicago’s South Side, to international popularity, recognition, and imitation. Palmer tells the story of the blues through the lives of its greatest practitioners: Robert Johnson, who sang of being pursued by the hounds of hell; Muddy Waters, who electrified Delta blues and gave the music its rock beat; Robert Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson, who launched the King Biscuit Time radio show and brought blues to the airwaves; and John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, B. B. King, and many others.
"A lucid . . . entrancing study" -- Greil Marcus
"Palmer has a powerful understanding of the music and an intense involvement in the culture." -- The Nation
- ISBN10 0670495115
- ISBN13 9780670495115
- Publish Date 29 May 1981
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 16 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Viking Books
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 310
- Language English