Beyond the crossroads : the devil & the blues tradition /
The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake ('the devil's music'), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his s...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Chapel Hill :
University of North Carolina Press,
[2017]
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| Series: | New directions in southern studies.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake ('the devil's music'), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as "the crossroads" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own. |
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| Physical Description: | 404 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781469633657 1469633655 9781469633664 1469633663 |