Blue S Fall Day

Readers can lift the flaps to find more of Blue's clues as Joe, Periwinkle, and Green Puppy try to figure out what Blue's favorite season is.

Crime stories from 21 Chicago authors.

From the revered Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and writer, comes his National Bestseller on one of the world’s oldest and most popular activities, fishing. Presented in narrative form as a conversation between a Fisherman and the Stranger, Hersey draws upon his own experiences and passion as the fisherman reflects on the age old sport, offering his own insights and thoughts. From the depths of the ocean to the creatures near the shore, Hersey perfectly answers why fishing has been such an integral part of humanity. “Almost no one has answered “why fish?” better than Mr. Hersey . . . what he does best of all is evoke wonder.”—New York Times Book Review “Blues is, of course, about much more than the pleasures and techniqu3es of fishing; it is, as Fisherman tells Stranger, about interconnections—the ties between mankind and the natural world, among others.”—The New Yorker “Wonderful . . . He gives us a rich and vivid sense of ocean life. . . . The whole thing is as stately as a minuet, and as graceful.”—Chicago Sun-Times

The first book by David Dicaire, Blues Singers: Biographies of 50 Legendary Artists of the Early 20th Century, (McFarland, 1999), included pioneers, innovators, superstars, and cult heroes of blues music born before 1940. This second work covers those born after 1940 who have continued the tradition. This work has five sections, each with its own introduction. The first, Modern Acoustic Blues, covers artists that are major players on the acoustic blues scene of recent time, such as John Hammond, Jr. The second, Contemporary Chicago Blues, features artists of amplified, citified, gritty blues (Paul Butterfield and Melvin Taylor, among others). Section three, Modern American Electric Blues, includes some Texas blues singers such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmie Vaughan and examines how the blues have spread throughout the United States. Contemporary Blues Women are in section four. Section five, Blues Around the World, covers artists from four different continents and twelve different countries. Each entry provides biographical and critical information on the artist, and a complete discography. A bibliography and supplemental discographies are also provided.

A chronicle of the rise and development of a unique musical form. Inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame under its original title Walking to New Orleans, this fascinating history focuses on the music of major R&B artists and the crucial contributions of the New Orleans music industry. Newly revised for this edition, much of the material comes firsthand from those who helped create the genre, including Fats Domino, Ray Charles, and Wardell Quezergue.

A groundbreaking appreciation of Dylan as a literary practitioner WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH AGEE PRIZE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE The literary establishment tends to regard Bob Dylan as an intriguing, if baffling, outsider. That changed overnight when Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, challenging us to think of him as an integral part of our national and international literary heritage. No One to Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan places Dylan the artist within a long tradition of literary production and offers an innovative way of understanding his unique, and often controversial, methods of composition. In lucid prose, Raphael Falco demonstrates the similarity between what Renaissance writers called imitatio and the way Dylan borrows, digests, and transforms traditional songs. Although Dylan’s lyrical postures might suggest a post-Romantic, “avant-garde” consciousness, No One to Meet shows that Dylan’s creative process borrows from and creatively expands the methods used by classical and Renaissance authors. Drawing on numerous examples, including Dylan’s previously unseen manuscript excerpts and archival materials, Raphael Falco illuminates how the ancient process of poetic imitation, handed down from Greco-Roman antiquity, allows us to make sense of Dylan’s musical and lyrical technique. By placing Dylan firmly in the context of an age-old poetic practice, No One to Meet deepens our appreciation of Dylan’s songs and allows us to celebrate him as what he truly is: a great writer.

2020 Blues Hall of Fame Classic of Blues Literature Jimi Hendrix called Earl Hooker “the master of the wah-wah pedal.” Buddy Guy slept with one of Hooker's slides beneath his pillow hoping to tap some of the elder bluesman's power. And B. B. King has said repeatedly that, for his money, Hooker was the best guitar player he ever met. Tragically, Earl Hooker died of tuberculosis in 1970 when he was on the verge of international success just as the Blues Revival of the late sixties and early seventies was reaching full volume. Second cousin to now-famous bluesman John Lee Hooker, Earl Hooker was born in Mississippi in 1929, and reared in black South Side Chicago where his parents settled in 1930. From the late 1940s on, he was recognized as the most creative electric blues guitarist of his generation. He was a “musician's musician,” defining the art of blues slide guitar and playing in sessions and shows with blues greats Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, and B. B. King. A favorite of black club and neighborhood bar audiences in the Midwest, and a seasoned entertainer in the rural states of the Deep South, Hooker spent over twenty-five years of his short existence burning up U.S. highways, making brilliant appearances wherever he played. Until the last year of his life, Hooker had only a few singles on obscure labels to show for all the hard work. The situation changed in his last few months when his following expanded dramatically. Droves of young whites were seeking American blues tunes and causing a blues album boom. When he died, his star's rise was extinguished. Known primarily as a guitarist rather than a vocalist, Hooker did not leave a songbook for his biographer to mine. Only his peers remained to praise his talent and pass on his legend. “Earl Hooker's life may tell us a lot about the blues,” biographer Sebastian Danchin says, “but it also tells us a great deal about his milieu. This book documents the culture of the ghetto through the example of a central character, someone who is to be regarded as a catalyst of the characteristic traits of his community.” Like the tales of so many other unheralded talents among bluesmen, Earl Hooker, Blues Master, Hooker's life story, has all the elements of a great blues song—late nights, long roads, poverty, trouble, and a soul-felt pining for what could have been.