Book Description
Fully updated to reflect today's revitalized blues world, this guide is any blues fan's lifeline to the best blues past and present. It reviews and rates 7,000 recordings in all major styles across the blues map - from Delta blues to Louisiana, Memphis, Chicago, Texas, and beyond; from classic female singers to jump blues, blues slide guitar, blues in jazz, soul blues, blues-rock, modern acoustic and electric blues, and more. This fun and easy-to-use guide provides profiles of over 1,000 blues artists. Thirty historical essays plus supplemental "music maps" chart the roots and evolution of the blues, its various styles, instruments used, key artists, and more. The essays explore the blues from the Mississippi Delta to modern electric blues and everything in between.
All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Now in its third edition, the All Music Guide to the Blues help you choose the very best recordings from performers in all blues styles, including such masters as B. B. King, Muddy Waters, and Etta James, as well as a new generation of artists that includes Jonny Lang and Susan Tedeschi. The music comes alive in essays, music maps, capsule biographies, and reviews and ratings for nearly 9,000 albums." Whether your own tastes turn to traditional or modern blues driven by guitar, piano, harmonica, or vocals, this is the one book you need to start or expand a great record collection: new and expanded biographies of legendary blues artists and exciting new performers; reviews and ratings for the best recordings of each performer, plus the essential collections by various artists; critics' choices for the best place to start exploring each artist, plus recommended recordings for each blues style; thirty "top lists" recommending the best albums for each blues style; and essays and music maps charting the evolution of the blues, including its styles, instruments, and record labels.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Audiophiles are made, not born; a record collection plump with dud recordings and bad purchases is the inevitable lot of the learned enthusiast. But for people tight on shelf space and wary of blowing their cash on unknown records in a gamble for good ones, there are resources to help. For fans of popular music, the premium references are Backbeat's All Music Guides. Now in its third edition, with reviews of 8900 recordings and profiles of 1200 artists, the All Music Guide to the Blues eclipses other blues resources, such as Robert Santelli's The Big Book of Blues, which lists only essential records and has smaller, sketchier bios. (For example, Santelli got Jonny Lang's birth city wrong.) The new All Music Guide continues the biographies, album ratings, and first-buy recommendations found in previous editions and in other, similar guides while adding new artists like Shannon Curfman and Susan Tedeschi. The guide's musical roots descriptions and maps are also useful. Recommended for all libraries and for people consistently let down by Best Buy's bargain racks. [This year marks the 100th birthday of the blues, and the Experience Music Project and Memphis's Blues Foundation are sponsoring numerous "Year of the Blues" events (www.yearoftheblues.org) throughout the country this summer.-Ed.]-Eric Hahn, West Des Moines, IA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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