The Art of the Blues: A Visual Treasury of Black Music's Golden Age

by Bill Dahl

This stunning book charts the rich history of the blues, through the dazzling array of posters, album covers, and advertisements that have shaped its identity over the past hundred years. The blues have been one of the most ubiquitous but diverse elements of American popular music at large, and the visual art associated with this unique sound has been just as varied and dynamic. There is no better guide to this fascinating graphical world than Bill Dahl—a longtime music journalist and historian who has written liner notes for countless reissues of classic blues, soul, R&B, and rock albums. With his deep knowledge and incisive commentary—complementing more than three hundred and fifty lavishly reproduced images—the history of the blues comes musically and visually to life.
           
What will astonish readers who thumb through these pages is the amazing range of ways that the blues have been represented—whether via album covers, posters, flyers, 78 rpm labels, advertising, or other promotional materials. We see the blues as it was first visually captured in the highly colorful sheet music covers of the early twentieth century. We see striking and hard-to-find label designs from labels big (Columbia) and small (Rhumboogie). We see William Alexander’s humorous artwork on postwar Miltone Records; the cherished ephemera of concert and movie posters; and Chess Records’ iconic early albums designed by Don Bronstein, which would set a new standard for modern album cover design.
           
What these images collectively portray is the evolution of a distinctively American art form. And they do so in the richest way imaginable. The result is a sumptuous book, a visual treasury as alive in spirit as the music it so vibrantly captures.

Genres: Music

224 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 2016

Reviews

[Adam Carrico]

Perfect coffee table book to flip through while listening to records.

[Rick Jackofsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful oversized hard-cover book written by Grammy Award-winning music writer Bill Dahl and published by the University of Chicago Press. "The Art of the Blues: A Visual Treasury of Black Music’s Golden Age" is much more than a “coffee table” book; yes it is lavishly illustrated with high-quality reproductions of various types of musical ephemera including record catalogs, covers, labels, and advertisements, as well as posters and publicity photos, but it is also an in-depth history of African American music (blues, jazz, gospel, and R&B) from the 1920s through the 1960s.

[Mid Century Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone is familiar with the blues as a genre of music – but how many know it as an art form, with its own visual style? This volume has compiled nostalgic and ephemeric artwork into a beautiful hardcover edition that is a tribute to be enjoyed by fans and musicians alike, a scrapbook of memories to be shared with your blues family. For full review, at MidCenturyBooks.Net, Blues

[Mills College Library]

704.94978 D1311 2016