Canadian professor Rob Bowman, leading authority on the legendary Stax operation out of Memphis, spent 12 years researching Soulsville USA, and his familiarity both with music and the business operations of the iconic label makes [...]
The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine, edited by Jim O'Neal & Amy van Singel, New York and London: Routledge, 2002. In the belief that the ultimate authorities and historians on [...]
Chicago Breakdown, by Mike Rowe. London: Eddison, 1973; New York: Drake, 1975. Reprinted as Chicago Blues: The City & the Music, New York: DaCapo, 1981. Chicago Breakdown chronicles the city's storied blues history from the [...]
Bessie, by Chris Albertson, New York: Stein and Day, 1972; revised edition: New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Bessie was hailed as the best biography ever written about a black performer when it was first [...]
New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. This saga of Chess Records and the brothers who ran it, Leonard and Phil, ranks as one of the most probing histories ever written about the independent record business. [...]
The Story of the Blues, by Paul Oliver. London: Penguin, 1969. Reprinted with revisions by author: Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. Paul Oliver's comprehensive history of the blues became an essential reference work after its [...]
Living Blues magazine, founded by Bruce Iglauer, Jim O'Neal, Amy van Singel, Paul Garon, Diane Allmen, Andre Souffront and Tim Zorn. Chicago, 1970. Living Blues, America's first blues magazine, was created to fill a stateside [...]
Boston, New York and London: Little, Brown and Company, 2002. Memphis author never met Muddy Waters but came up with plenty of material to work with, including a number of interviews done by other researchers [...]
New York: Harper & Row, 1986. While Peter Guralnick established his credentials with his early writings on blues and rock 'n' roll, Sweet Soul Music revealed him to be also be an astute observer and [...]
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 [...]