A01=Adam Gussow
African American religion
Author_Adam Gussow
Bessie Smith
black church
black religion
black religion and the blues
blues music in Mississippi
blues tourism
Category=AVLP
Category=JBGB
Category=QRYX9
Clarksdale
Cross Road Blues
crossroads
Crossroads film
deal with the devil
Delta blues
Delta Blues Museum
devil
devil woman
devil's music
devil's music blues
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
hell
Hellhound on my Trail
Honeyboy Edwards
I'd Rather Be the Devil
John Lee Hooker
Johnny Shines
Lonnie Johnson
Me and the Devil Blues
Mississippi
Peetie Wheatstraw
Robert Johnson
selling your soul to the devil
sold his soul to the devil
sold it to the devil
the devil's son in law
white devil
Product details
- ISBN 9781469633664
- Weight: 600g
- Dimensions: 155 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 02 Oct 2017
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
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.
In this groundbreaking study, 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 bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative 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.
In this groundbreaking study, 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 bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative 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.
Adam Gussow is associate professor of English and southern studies at the University of Mississippi and author of Mister Satan's Apprentice: A Blues Memoir.
