Red River blues : the blues tradition in the Southeast /

Bastin's study of the blues as folk music in the southeastern portion of the US is not only a major compilation of existing information but will be a significant resource for future studies. Focusing on the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, and Virginia, Bastin has collected a tremendous amount of historical and sociological information on the emergence, development, and dispersal of the blues. Although the blues is also performed as jazz and popular music, Bastin maintains his essential focus throughout the book. He touches upon technological developments (e.g., commercial and noncommercial record making), the marketing of guitars from mail order catalogs through pawn shops, and the importance of radio. As an Englishman he may come to the subject without some of the baggage an American might have to carry. He shows an awareness of the relationship race had on this music. Bastin is one of several Englishmen who have made important contributions to our understanding of American folk blues. This study comes at a time when folk blues has all but disappeared as a viable music. There are about two dozen pages of photographs, a general index, an index of tunes, and plenty of footnotes. Students and general readers.-C.M. Weisenberg, University of California, Los Angeles

English folklorist Bruce Bastin has written a history of the blues tradition in the Southern Atlantic states. Drawing on extensive interviews and primary sources, he focuses more on the performers than on the music. After describing the sociocultural context of the tradition, the author provides biographical details of its major practioners, mentioning in passing every performer he has been able to identify. The wealth of detail provided is impressive, and serious folklore collections will want this volume. The author's tendency to catalog information, however, leads to a lack of narrative cohesion; the general reader will find this slow going. Bruce Hulse, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.