The Blues Come To Texas

From October 1959 until sometime in 1974, Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick collaborated on what was to be a definitive history and analysis of the blues in Texas. Both men were prominent scholars and researchers: Oliver had already established an impressive record of publications; and McCormick was well on his way to building what would eventually become a sprawling collection of primary materials, consisting primarily of field recordings and interviews with blues musicians from all over Texas and the greater South. But the project eventually fell apart of its own weight, a victim of ongoing disagreements between the two authors. Despite being eagerly awaited by the blues historians and ethnomusicologists who knew about the Oliver-McCormick collaboration and being openly discussed in various interviews and articles by Oliver, the intended manuscript was never brought to completion and the book was never published. In 1996, Alan Govenar, a respected ethnomusicologist in his own right, began a conversation with Oliver, whose work he had long admired, about the unfinished book on Texas blues. At Oliver's request, he arranged a meeting with McCormick, hoping to act as an intermediary, with the goal of aiding the project toward completion. His attempts were unsuccessful. Subsequently, Oliver invited Govenar to assist him in finishing the work. Much like the site report from an archaeological dig, The Blues Come to Texas: Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick's Unfinished Book provides not only a fascinating view into the results of a massive fieldwork and writing effort that is unlikely to ever be duplicated, but also affords scholars of American roots music a glimpse into the minds and work methods of two giants of blues scholarship.

The rich, complex lives of African Americans in Texas were often neglected by the mainstream media, which historically seldom ventured into Houston's Fourth Ward, San Antonio's East Side, South Dallas, or the black neighborhoods in smaller cities. When Bill Minutaglio began writing for Texas newspapers in the 1970s, few large publications had more than a token number of African American journalists, and they barely acknowledged the things of lasting importance to the African American community. Though hardly the most likely reporter—as a white, Italian American transplant from New York City—for the black Texas beat, Minutaglio was drawn to the African American heritage, seeking its soul in churches, on front porches, at juke joints, and anywhere else that people would allow him into their lives. His nationally award-winning writing offered many Americans their first deeper understanding of Texas's singular, complicated African American history. This eclectic collection gathers the best of Minutaglio's writing about the soul of black Texas. He profiles individuals both unknown and famous, including blues legends Lightnin' Hopkins, Amos Milburn, Robert Shaw, and Dr. Hepcat. He looks at neglected, even intentionally hidden, communities. And he wades into the musical undercurrent that touches on African Americans' joys, longings, and frustrations, and the passing of generations. Minutaglio's stories offer an understanding of the sweeping evolution of music, race, and justice in Texas. Moved forward by the musical heartbeat of the blues and defined by the long shadow of racism, the stories measure how far Texas has come . . . or still has to go.

Contains piano accompaniment and guitar chords

With this volume, Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff complete their groundbreaking trilogy on the development of African American popular music. Fortified by decades of research, the authors bring to life the performers, entrepreneurs, critics, venues, and institutions that were most crucial to the emergence of the blues in black southern vaudeville theaters; the shadowy prehistory and early development of the blues is illuminated, detailed, and given substance. At the end of the nineteenth century, vaudeville began to replace minstrelsy as America's favorite form of stage entertainment. Segregation necessitated the creation of discrete African American vaudeville theaters. When these venues first gained popularity ragtime coon songs were the standard fare. Insular black southern theaters provided a safe haven, where coon songs underwent rehabilitation and blues songs suitable for the professional stage were formulated. The process was energized by dynamic interaction between the performers and their racially-exclusive audience. The first blues star of black vaudeville was Butler "String Beans" May, a blackface comedian from Montgomery, Alabama. Before his bizarre, senseless death in 1917, String Beans was recognized as the "blues master piano player of the world." His musical legacy, elusive and previously unacknowledged, is preserved in the repertoire of country blues singer-guitarists and pianists of the race recording era. While male blues singers remained tethered to the role of blackface comedian, female "coon shouters" acquired a more dignified aura in the emergent persona of the "blues queen." Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and most of their contemporaries came through this portal; while others, such as forgotten blues heroine Ora Criswell and her protégé Trixie Smith, ingeniously reconfigured the blackface mask for their own subversive purposes. In 1921 black vaudeville activity was effectively nationalized by the Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.). In collaboration with the emergent race record industry, T.O.B.A. theaters featured touring companies headed by blues queens with records to sell. By this time the blues had moved beyond the confines of entertainment for an exclusively black audience. Small-time black vaudeville became something it had never been before--a gateway to big-time white vaudeville circuits, burlesque wheels, and fancy metropolitan cabarets. While the 1920s was the most glamorous and remunerative period of vaudeville blues, the prior decade was arguably even more creative, having witnessed the emergence, popularization, and early development of the original blues on the African American vaudeville stage.

An instant New York Times bestseller! The definitive biography of guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan, with an epilogue by Jimmie Vaughan, and foreword and afterword by Double Trouble’s Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon. Just a few years after he almost died from a severe addiction to cocaine and alcohol, a clean and sober Stevie Ray Vaughan was riding high. His last album was his most critically lauded and commercially successful. He had fulfilled a lifelong dream by collaborating with his first and greatest musical hero, his brother Jimmie. His tumultuous marriage was over and he was in a new and healthy romantic relationship. Vaughan seemed poised for a new, limitless chapter of his life and career. Instead, it all came to a shocking and sudden end on August 27, 1990, when he was killed in a helicopter crash following a dynamic performance with Eric Clapton. Just 35 years old, he left behind a powerful musical legacy and an endless stream of What Ifs. In the ensuing 29 years, Vaughan’s legend and acclaim have only grown and he is now an undisputed international musical icon. Despite the cinematic scope of Vaughan’s life and death, there has never been a truly proper accounting of his story. Until now. Texas Flood provides the unadulterated truth about Stevie Ray Vaughan from those who knew him best: his brother Jimmie, his Double Trouble bandmates Tommy Shannon, Chris Layton and Reese Wynans, and many other close friends, family members, girlfriends, fellow musicians, managers and crew members.

(Fake Book). Since the 1970s, The Real Book has been the most popular book for gigging jazz musicians. Hal Leonard is proud to publish completely legal and legitimate editions of the original volumes as well as exciting new volumes to carry on the tradition to new generations of players in all styles of music! All the Real Books feature hundreds of time-tested songs in accurate arrangements in the famous easy-to-read, hand-written notation. 300 blues essentials are included in this collection: All Your Love (I Miss Loving) * Baby Please Don't Go * Big Boss Man * Blues Before Sunrise * The Blues Is Alright * Boom Boom * Born Under a Bad Sign * Cheaper to Keep Her * Come on in My Kitchen * Crosscut Saw * Damn Right, I've Got the Blues * Dust My Broom * Every Day I Have the Blues * Evil * Five Long Years * Further on up the Road * Gangster of Love * Give Me Back My Wig * Good Morning Little Schoolgirl * Got My Mo Jo Working * Have You Ever Loved a Woman * Hide Away * How Long, How Long Blues * I Ain't Got You * I Got Love If You Want It * I'm Tore Down * I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man * It Hurts Me Too * Juke * Key to the Highway * Killing Floor * Let Me Love You Baby * Look on Yonder's Wall * Mama Talk to Your Daughter * Master Charge * Messin' with the Kid * My Babe * Phone Booth * Pride and Joy * Reconsider Baby * Rock Me Baby * Rock Me Right * Smokestack Lightning * Somebody Loan Me a Dime * Statesboro Blues * (They Call It) Stormy Monday (Stormy Monday Blues) * Sweet Home Chicago * Texas Flood * The Things That I Used to Do * The Thrill Is Gone * Wang Dang Doodle * and more.

"Guitar Licks of the Texas Blues-Rock Heroes" details the solo styles of the legendary Lone Star State guitarists. Complete with essential stylistic details that make the music come alive, this volume contains 100 licks in the authentic styles of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Billy Gibbons, Johnny Winter, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Freddie King, Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Johnson, and more. Each lick has its own mini-lesson and is performed by the author at half and full tempo on the accompanying CD.

Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." Wald sees blues less as a style than as a broad musical tradition within a constantly evolving pop culture. He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was transformed by such professional performers as W. C. Handy, who first popularized the blues a century ago. He follows its evolution from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith through Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix; identifies the impact of rural field recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and others; explores the role of blues in the development of both country music and jazz; and looks at the popular rhythm and blues trends of the 1940s and 1950s, from the uptown West Coast style of T-Bone Walker to the "down home" Chicago sound of Muddy Waters. Wald brings the story up to the present, touching on the effects of blues on American poetry, and its connection to modern styles such as rap. As with all of Oxford's Very Short Introductions, The Blues tells you--with insight, clarity, and wit--everything you need to know to understand this quintessentially American musical genre.