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Rating: "Those who do not love the Blues have a hole in their soul"
This incredibly suggestive and evocative phrase on the back cover simply but unequivocally illustrates what it means to be passionate about Blues, to love this genre and live it deeply, delving into the history and legends that have always surrounded it.
Fabrizio Poggi, an excellent harmonica player awarded by Hohner with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, offers us a fascinating and engaging journey into the incredible and mysterious world of Blues with a book that unfolds like a sort of dictionary and provides us with stories, anecdotes, myths, and legends of what is not only a musical genre but a very important part of American history and culture.
A book that develops like a dictionary, as I said, but it is not a schematic list of topics; rather, it is an exciting journey into the places, stories, and legends that have always hovered over the Blues and the musicians who decreed its birth and transformation into a genre loved and revered by those who truly love music.
Starting from the A of Alabama with the great musicians from this state such as Wilson Pickett, Blind Boys of Alabama, Percy Sledge, and the famous Muscle Shoals Studios, which I recently talked about in this post, up to the Z of Zydeco, the particular Blues style played in Louisiana, we encounter terms and words like Bottleneck, Delta Blues where it all began, Chess Records, Juke Joint, Crossroad, Cajun, Roadhouse, etc...with anecdotes and interesting backstories on the origin, the initial meaning, and the relative Americanization of the terms themselves.
Obviously, besides the terms and legends linked to the blues, like the famous legend of Robert Johnson who supposedly sold his soul to the Devil at a crossroads, the infamous Crossroad, we find substantial and interesting mini-biographies of the founding fathers of the Blues from the early 1900s like Johnson himself, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, Blind Willie Johnson, etc... to the more famous and well-known B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, etc... and a surprising and substantial mini-essay on Bob Dylan who apparently seems to have nothing to do with the Blues, yet we will discover many points of contact with the culture and music of Blues throughout his career, especially at the beginning.
An exciting and educational journey not only through the history of a musical genre but also through the American history and culture of the early 1900s, with the birth of the primordial blues, gospel, and spiritual in the cotton fields of Mississippi as a partial refuge from the barbarity of slavery by African slaves, to the urban and electric blues of the emerging northern metropolises like Detroit and Chicago through stories, anecdotes, and suggestive biographies.
Ultimately, an absolutely recommended read for those who truly love music and especially the Blues, as I also recommend listening to the records and following live performances of Fabrizio Poggi and his Chicken Mambo to experience and savor the most authentic and visceral Blues.
Finally, I thank the author for the extremely cordial and constructive email exchange.
http://www.chickenmambo.com/
Angeli Perduti del Mississippi (Fabrizio Poggi)
Ed. Meridiano Zero - pag.240 - € 15
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