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 Chasin'
The Devil's Music by Gayle Dean Wardlow, Edward Komara
(Editor)
Chasin'
The Devil's Music has the feel of a documentary about the
making of a thrilling motion picture. The main focus is on the
Delta blues singers of the early 20th century--artists such as
Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Son House, and Blind Lemon Jefferson
who've achieved near-mythic status in blues circles. In addition,
many of the articles gathered in this splendidly illustrated volume
capture the process and people involved in tracking long-lost
recordings nearly as elusive as the performers who made them.
Here, for example, is the story of author/blues scholar Gayle
Dean Wardlow's three-year hunt for the death certificate of Robert
Johnson, the celebrated Mississippi bluesman and a figure whose
legend has grown greater with each year since his much-debated
death in 1938. The text here is nearly as raw in spots as the
music that sparked it, but, as with those sounds (which can be
heard on a terrific CD sampler included with the book), enthusiasts
will find Chasin' The Devil's Music riveting. -- Steven
Stolder (Amazon.com)
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