Chasing the Blues: A Traveler's Guide to America's Music

by Josephine Matyas, Craig Jones

Chasing the Blues explores the roots of the blues---the music birthed in the Mississippi Delta by African Americans who fashioned a new form of musical expression grounded in their shared experience of brutal oppression. They used the power of music to survive that oppression, creating a simple-in-structure, emotionally complex form that transformed and upended culture and became the bedrock of popular song.



Tracing the music back to its geographical and cultural origins in the Delta is key to understanding how the blues were shaped. Over time, the Delta blues have touched virtually every form of popular music (rock and roll, soul, R&B, country-western, gospel), creating the soundscape of our lives.



What makes this book unique? Fathoming how the music flowed from living and working conditions in the heart of the Deep South; appreciating how life-changing events like the Flood of 1927 sparked a mass migration away from plantation life, spreading the blues to the cities in the North and becoming the soundtrack to the civil rights movement; how blues musicians interacted, "cross-fertilizing" their music by learning, influencing, and imitating each other.



The habits of travel are shifting, and there is more interest and a larger market for diving deep into destinations closer to home. Interest in Black history and culture and the role Black Americans played in shaping America is at an all-time high. By appreciating the roots of this most American style of music, readers will have a richer experience listening to songs and visiting blues' holy and sacred sites.

273 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 15, 2021

Reviews

[Connie M · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read in quite some time.
I was doing some research on the connection between the Blues and Rock-n-Roll, and I found a Treasure!! It has taught me so much about my own culture and a music genre that is dear to my heart. I grew up listening to my mother play some of the “Blues Greats" like B.B. King and Muddy Waters, but this book gave me the insights of just how prominent those icons were. It makes you want to visit Mississippi and takes you on a historical-musical journey that outlines the importance of the Blues and the contributions it has made to American Music.
I would Highly Recommend it!

[Jerri Jerreat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love history, not names and dates, but stories of individuals and communities, the hardships they faced, and how they managed. Jo and Craig may have serendipitously meandered around the Mississippi Delta area and beyond, following notes of music, but I am the richer for their trips.

A fascinating read, and you can skip around in the book, which was fun, following your interests.

A great gift for someone who loves Blues, Old Rock, or history.

[Michael Goodspeed · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like music and travel, you'll love this book. The authors take you on a fascinating road trip through the Deep South visiting all the most important locales where the Blues was formed. A great read and extremely informative!

[Stu Pike · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on many levels. Engaging story-telling and a real sense of place. Especially appealing for musicians and music lovers of course, but also an excellent human scale look at the politics, economics and culture of a pivotal time in U.S history.

[Philip Labossiere · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am going to use this book as the planning guide for my blues adventure to the Delta post COVID. Really appreciated having the website links in each section and the recommended items to read/listen to/watch.

[Detlef J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book that depicts, through travel experience and historical accounts, the emergence of blues music. Fueled by their combined passion for writing, travel, promoting and playing the blues, Jo and Craig took their home on wheels and directed it into the very heart of blues country, experiencing and learning first-hand how this fabulous and widely influential music form originated. So if your musical sensibilities resonate with rock, folk or jazz, and are curious about how these musical idioms became shaped, you need go no further than diving into "Chasing The Blues", and along with the inspired authors, learn about the genesis of the blues, while traveling with them down the numerous dirt roads, meeting the folks that are deeply connected with blues history, and stop in the many towns and settlements of the Mississippi Delta region where it all began!