Mojo Triangle: Birthplace Of Country, Blues, Jazz and Rock 'n' Roll

by James L Dickerson

Draw a straight line from New Orleans to Nashville, then over to Memphis and back down to New Orleans via Highway 61, and you have the Mojo Triangle, a geometrical, cultural, and spiritual configuration that represents the birthplace of America’s original Blues, jazz, rock & roll, and country It is no coincidence that the same geographical territory that gave the world Elvis Presley, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King and Tammy Wynette, also produced William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Tennessee Williams. Mojo Rising traces the origins of the music that came out of New Orleans, the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, Muscle Shoals and Nashville, and explains, often in the words of the artists themselves, the apocalyptic vision that gave birth to the music.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

250 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2005

Reviews

[Steve]

The book investigates and loosely tries to explain why all of America's unique music forms were born in the triangle formed by New Orleans, Memphis, and Nashville. Jazz, Blues, Rock, and Country were all started here by people from here. He sort of writes off hip-hop crudely as being largely derivative which is highly debatable. Anyway it is pretty staggering to contemplate that all of these original American forms originated in the "Mojo Triangle".

The author's extremely loose thesis is that the land's history (lots of floods, wars, etc.), inhabitants (music-loving Indians, slaves, creole/carribean), and just inherent spookiness and character provided the fuel and catalysts necessary to innovate and produce artistically in a unique and powerful manner. The author doesn't really spend too much effort in "proving" this one way or another. Largely, the book is a collection of stories about the influential people, places and times that produced such an amazing amount of musical culture. How Elvis got discovered, how Louis Armstrong got his first cornet, did Robert Johnson sell his soul at the crossroads? Fellow Drive-by Truckers fans will be amused to see that Patterson Hood 's dad David Hood is featured prominently in the chapter about Muscle Shoals (he played bass in the classic Muscle Shoals studio band).

I'd recommend this book highly to fans of roots music who want to see how it all ties together.

[Kerry Evans]

This is a frustrating book - it is full of fascinating information but it delivers it in small snippets, jumps to the next one not necessarily in any discernible order other than each chapter has a specific focus which he tries to keep to.
A lot of the focus is on the more "minor " characters rather than the stars which is excellent since they were mostly people of whom I'd not previously heard.

If you want to listen to the music referred to make notes as you go along - there's no musician/song index at the back which would have been great.

If you have an interest in the history of music this is well worth a read.

[Kathryn Rogers]

Mojo Triangle is a slam dunk! As a Southerner and music lover, I appreciated learning how so much great music originated from local places I am familiar with. Anyone who likes history, appreciates the South, or enjoys music would appreciate this book!

[Ted]

Full of odd chronologies. I couldn't finish it, it was so poorly edited and fact checked.

Like referring to Dr John: The Day Tripper??? It's the night tripper..