Blues Who’s Who: A Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers, by Sheldon Harris. New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1979. 1981-1992 editions published by Da Capo Press, New York.
Blues Who’s Who, a monumental compilation of blues data painstakingly assembled by New York advertising executive and jazz and blues journalist Sheldon Harris over an 18-year-period, remains an essential blues reference volume in spite of the fact that no entries have been added or substantially updated since the book was first published in 1979. Harris revised some of the 571 biographical entries by adding artists’ death dates up until his own death in 2005. Each objectively presented entry contains basic biographical and family information, a chronological list of performances and notable career events, and quotes attesting to the artist’s significance. Indexes of songs, names, places, and radio, television and film appearances take up the final 164 pages. This is a book direly in need of a revised edition, even though with all the facts on blues singers that have been documented in the intervening decades, a new Blues Who’s Who would literally require thousands of pages.
–Jim O’Neal
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