Research Catalog

The blues : the authentic narrative of my music and culture

Title

The blues : the authentic narrative of my music and culture / Chris Thomas King.

Author

King, Chris Thomas

Publication

Chicago, Illinois : Chicago Review Press, [2021]
©2021

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Item details
Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	Sc E 22-141	Schomburg Center - Research & Reference
Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JNE 21-150	Performing Arts Research Collections - Music

Details

Description

xvi, 400 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Chis Thomas King came of age immersed in the music and culture of the blues on the Louisiana Bayou. His late father, Tabby Thomas, was a working blues musician and juke joint owner-operator. King's enlightening narrative reveals tragedy and heroism as he struggles to preserve the authentic historical memory of his music and culture. All prior histories on the blues have alleged it originated on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. The Blues is the authentic counternarrative, revealing how and why this music has been misappropriated and its history whitewashed--and how and why Black people have been removed as gatekeepers and participants on stage and off and in the boardrooms. King not only diagnoses the problem but also provides a remedy: a reformation based on facts, not White myths. This book is the first to argue the blues began as a cosmopolitan art form, not a rural one. In New Orleans, as early as 1900, the sound of the blues was ubiquitous. The Mississippi Delta, meanwhile, was an unpopulated sportsman's paradise--the frontier was still in the process of being cleared and drained for cultivation. Protestant states such as Mississippi and Alabama could not have incubated the blues. New Orleans was the only place in the Deep South in the early twentieth century where the sacred and profane could party together without fear of persecution. Expecting these findings to be controversial in some circles, King has buttressed his conclusions with primary sources and years of extensive research, including a sojourn to West Africa and interviews with surviving folklorists and blues researchers from the 1960s folk-rediscovery epoch. They say the blues is blasphemous, the devil's music--King says they're unenlightened. Blues music is about personal freedom." --

Alternative Title

Authentic narrative of my music and culture

Subject

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 369-382) and index.

Contents

My culture -- The authentic narrative -- My music.

Call Number

Sc E 22-141

ISBN

9781641604444
1641604441

LCCN

2021933190

OCLC

1179258827

Author

King, Chris Thomas, author.

Title

The blues : the authentic narrative of my music and culture / Chris Thomas King.

Publisher

Chicago, Illinois : Chicago Review Press, [2021]

Copyright Date

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 369-382) and index.

Local Note

Schomburg copy with dust jacket.

Local Subject

Black author.

Research Call Number

Sc E 22-141

JNE 21-150

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