The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider
to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was
ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now celebrated as the greatest figure in blues history.
Trying to separate myth from reality, biographer Elijah Wald studies the blues from the inside -- not only examining
recordings but also the recollections of the musicians themselves, the African-American press, as well as examining
original research. What emerges is a new appreciation for the blues and the movement of its artists from the shadows
of the 1930s Mississippi Delta to the mainstream venues frequented by today's loyal blues fans.
Table of Contents
1. What is Blues?
2. Race Records: Blues Queens, Crooners, Street Singers, and Hokum
3. What the Records Missed
4. Hollers, Moans, and 'Deep Blues'
5. The Mississippi Delta: Life and Listening
6. A Life Remembered
7. The Music
8. First Sessions, Part One: Going for Some Hits
9. First Sessions, Part Two: Reaching Back
10. Second Sessions: The Professional
11. The Legacy
12. Jump Shouters, Smooth Trios, and Down-Home Soul
13. The Blues Cult: Primitive Folk Art and The Roots of Rock
14. Farther On Up the Road: Wherefore and Whither the Blues
