Blues
Ma Rainey's Traveling Blues
Ma Rainey’s Traveling Blues is the fullest and most nuanced portrait to date of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939), once promoted as the “Mother of the Blues.” Although Rainey’s place in American music history is firmly ...
Avenue Breakdown
Avenue Breakdown uncovers the rich yet often overlooked legacy of Black music in Shreveport, Louisiana—a city better known for country tunes and the Louisiana Hayride. This compelling history shines a s ...
Speakeasies to Symphonies
James P. Johnson (1894–1955) is one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American music. However, few people other than scholars and serious fans know of his life and work. Rare jazz aficionados k ...
The Life and Music of Booker "Bukka" White
2025 Recipient of a Certificate of Merit in the category of Best Historical Research in Blues, R&B, Gospel, Hip Hop, or Soul Music from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections
Booker “Bukka” White (19 ...
Wichita Blues
NAMED A 2025 KANSAS NOTABLE BOOK BY THE STATE LIBRARY OF KANSAS
In conversations on regional blues, the traditions of the Mississippi Delta, the Carolina Piedmont, Chicago, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, ...
Out of the Blue
VOTED BEST BLUES BOOK OF 2024 IN THE LIVING BLUES MAGAZINE READERS’ POLL
Out of the Blue: Life on the Road with Muddy Waters begins with a moment lifted from a young musician’s dreams. Brian Bisesi, a guitarist b ...
Deep Inside the Blues
Deep Inside the Blues collects thirty-four of Margo Cooper’s interviews with blues artists and is illustrated with over 160 of her photographs, many published here for the first time. For thirty years, C ...
Literacy in a Long Blues Note
Literacy in a Long Blues Note: Black Women’s Literature and Music in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries traces the evolution of Black women’s literacy practices from 1892 to 1934. A dynamic c ...
Going Up the Country
At the height of the blues revival, Marina Bokelman and David Evans, young graduate students from California, made two trips to Louisiana and Mississippi and short trips in their home state to do fieldwork ...
Blues and Trouble
Exploring the diverse landscape of American life, the stories in Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories capture the lives of people caught between circumstance and their own natures or on the run from fate, ...