Blues, The, Chris Thomas King
Blues, The, Chris Thomas King
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Blues, The
The Authentic Narrative of My Music and Culture

Author: Chris Thomas King

Narrator: Adam Lazarre-White

Unabridged: 24 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/01/2021

Categories: Nonfiction, Music, Blues

Synopsis

All prior histories on the blues have alleged it originated on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Not true, says author Chris Thomas King. In The Blues, King presents facts to disprove such myths. For example, as early as 1900, the sound of the blues was ubiquitous in New Orleans. The Mississippi Delta, meanwhile, was an unpopulated sportsmans paradisethe frontier was still in the process of being cleared and drained for cultivation. Moreover, this book is the first to argue that the blues began as a cosmopolitan art form, not a rural one. Protestant states such as Mississippi and Alabama could not have incubated the blues. New Orleans was the only place in the Deep South 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 blasphemousthe devils music. King says theyre unenlightened, that blues music is about personal freedom.

About Chris Thomas King

Chris Thomas King was discovered in Louisiana in 1979 by a folklorist from the Smithsonian Institute and introduced to the world by folk label Arhoolie Records as an authentic folk-blues successor to Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Jelly Roll Morton. He played the itinerant bluesman Tommy Johnson in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou, and he has earned numerous awards, including an Album of the Year Grammy and an Album of the Year Country Music Award.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dan on August 14, 2021

This offering would deserve 5 Stars with a little more effort. The central topic of the first half is that 'the blues' originated in the greater New Orleans area among Creoles and the general population. The confusion many of us have had over the years results from two things: the Mississippi Delta,......more

Goodreads review by Summer on April 14, 2023

A love letter to blues music, his dad, Tabby Thomas, and his family’s Baton Rouge juke joint, Tabby’s Blues Box. This is a fascinating, well researched masterpiece and provides a convincing argument for the origins of the blues being in Creole New Orleans, Louisiana, and not the Delta of Mississippi......more

Goodreads review by RA on July 09, 2022

A very compelling "biography," and more, from Chris Thomas King. Primarily it's a well-researched and informative book about the "origins" of the "blues." This includes some history of Louisiana - New Orleans & Baton Rouge, and the development of the Mississippi Delta. Mr. Thomas does include his pe......more

Goodreads review by Eric on February 25, 2024

This amazing book resets the origin story of the blues that has been commonly told since the middle of the 20th Century. Mr. Thomas argues that the origins of the blues stem not from enslaved people in the Mississippi Delta, but from culturally rich New Orleans, where all the genre’s founders grew u......more

Goodreads review by Michael on July 30, 2021

The book is really two books in one that are in a sense interrelated. CTK provides a detailed and well researched overview supporting his thesis that the origin of the blues is not what has traditionally been suggested. He explores how this traditional narrative came into being and why he thinks it......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List