Blues is the cornerstone of American popular music, the bedrock of rock and roll. In this extraordinary musical and social history, Robert Palmer traces the odyssey of the blues from its rural beginnings, to the steamy bars of Chicago’s South Side, to international popularity, recognition, and imitation. Palmer tells the story of the blues through the lives of its greatest practitioners: Robert Johnson, who sang of being pursued by the hounds of hell; Muddy Waters, who electrified Delta blues and gave the music its rock beat; Robert Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson, who launched the King Biscuit Time radio show and brought blues to the airwaves; and John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, B. B. King, and many others.
"A lucid . . . entrancing study" -- Greil Marcus
"Palmer has a powerful understanding of the music and an intense involvement in the culture." -- The Nation
A Southerner himself, Palmer tells much of the blues story through the journey of Muddy Waters, who began as an acoustic Delta guitarist, then got famous for plugging that guitar into an amplifier, in the process helping to create ‘50s Chicago blues. Palmer weaves it all into a rich, broad narrative of 20th century America.
