Riding with the Blues: Deep South Travels Into Music History

Classic blues, one of America's most distinctive musical art forms, originated specifically in a portion of Mississippi known as "the Delta," a formerly cotton-growing feudal kingdom of sorts, stretching from Memphis, Tennessee, south to Vicksburg, hugging the great Mississippi River in between these cities along its eastern shore. For well over 100 years, these thousands of acres represented a private preserve ruled by white plantation owners. Black agricultural workers, initially as slaves and later as sharecroppers, were a deprived underclass.

Combining travelogue with history, this book traces the lives and careers of blues icons Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, B.B. King, and a host of others who created and shaped the blues in all its variants, both acoustic and electric. It explores the context that shaped their music, including segregation and Jim Crow laws, poverty, moonshine whiskey, and the evolving recording industry. In doing so, it illuminates both the origins of the blues and its longstanding cultural impact, blending many strands into a memorable narrative.