The University of Mississippi

Music 517: African American Musical Traditions

Supplementary readings


                         GENERAL STUDIES

W. Barlow, Looking Up at Down: The Emergence of Blues Culture
F. Davis, The History of the Blues
G. Oakley, The Devil's Music

                    REGIONAL AND TOPICAL STUDIES

J.H.K. Nketia, The Music of Africa
R.F. Thompson, Flash of the Spirit
Art Rosenbaum and J.S. Buis, Shout Because You're Free: The African 
  American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia
A. Gussow, Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues 
  Tradition
J.M. Spencer, Blues and Evil
P. Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music
A. Shaw, Black Popular Music in America
A. Heilbut, The Gospel Sound
K. Lornell, Happy in the Service of the Lord
B. Bastin, Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast
N. W. Pearson, Goin' to Kansas City
R. Palmer, Deep Blues
D. Evans, Big Road Blues
W. Ferris, Blues from the Delta
T. Gioia, Delta Blues (2008)
M. Rowe, Chicago Blues
P. Oliver, Songsters and Saints: Vocal Traditions on Race Records
P. Oliver, Savannah Syncopators
R. Stone, Let the Inside be Sweet
B. Jackson, Wake Up Dead Man
H. Nathan, Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy
D. Cockrell, Demons of Disorder
A. Ward, Dark Midnight When I Rise (Fisk Jubilee Singers)
T. Russell, The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray (1997)


                       SELECTED BIOGRAPHY

B. Pearson, Sounds So Good to Me: The Bluesman's Story
M. Gray, Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: in search of Blind Willie McTell (2007) 
P. Ratcliffe, Mississippi John Hurt (2011)
D. Harrison, Black Pearls: Blues Queens pf the 1920s
F. Taylor, Alberta Hunter
S. Lieb, Mother of the Blues: The Story of Ma Rainey
S. Colt & G. Wardlow, King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music 
     of Charley Patton
D. Robertson, W. C. Handy
W. Dixon, I Am the Blues: The Willie Dixon Story
P. Guralnick, Searching for Robert Johnson
C. Sawyer, The Arrival of B. B. King
P. & B. Garon, Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues (1992)

Warren Steel

[ Warren Steel | Music Department | UM Home ]