Long lost blues : popular blues in America, 1850-1920 / Peter C. Muir.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Muir, Peter C., author.

Series:

Music in American life.

Music in American life

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Blues (Music)--History and criticism.

Blues (Music).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (300 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Champaign, Illinois : University of Illinois, [2009]

Summary:

Mamie Smith's 1920 recording of ""Crazy Blues"" is commonly thought to signify the beginning of commercial attention to blues music and culture, but by that year more than 450 other blues titles had already appeared in sheet music and on recordings. In this examination of early popular blues, Peter C. Muir traces the genre's early history and the highly creative interplay between folk and popular forms, focusing especially on the roles W. C. Handy played in both blues music and the music business. Long Lost Blues exposes for the first time the full scope and importance of early popular blues to mainstream American culture in the early twentieth century. Closely analyzing sheet music and other print sources that have previously gone unexamined, Muir revises our understanding of the evolution and sociology of blues at its inception.

Contents:

The popular blues industry, 1912-1920

The identity and idiom of early popular blues

Curing the blues with the blues

The blues of W.C. Handy

The creativity of early Southern published blues

Published proto-blues and the evolution of the twelve-bar sequence.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [243]-244) and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Muir, Peter C. Long Lost Blues

ISBN:

9780252056048

0252056043