Earl "Lil' Choo-Choo" Johnson le home at the age of 10, with only his father's guitar, and stepped into the world of the Delta blues. A guitar prodigy, his music led him to play with blues legends like Robert Johnson, Charley Pa on, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters. Lil' Choo-Choo's story is a history of the blues, from sharecropper's shacks on Dockery's Planta on and whiskey-soaked juke joints in Depression-era Mississippi to the swinging clubs of post-war Memphis and Chicago. It encompasses the heyday of Delta blues, the birth of rock and roll, the Bri sh invasion, the blues revival of the 1960s, and beyond. Bryan Krull has been a history teacher for the past eight years at the high school and college level. He earned his Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as degrees from the University at Buffalo and the University at Albany (NY). He currently lives near Rochester, New York. Lil' Choo-Choo Johnson, Bluesman is his first novel.

Blues legend B.B. King spent his life sharing the music of his soul, which shone relentlessly through hardship and triumph alike. Born on a cotton plantation in 1925, the man born Riley B. King would grow up to be one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, being crowned The King of the Blues. He never wavered from his vocation, even as he gathered up other musicians in his wake and melded them into the harmony of his animating passion. In this intimate portrait of King, author Diane Williams offers a brief account of the monumental blues man's life before settling in for a series of interviews with his bandmates and beloved family members, offering readers an invaluable opportunity to feel like they know King too.

When Pete Johnson appeared on WRFG in Georgia, Curly Weaver’s daughter, Cora Mae Bryant, rang the radio station to say it was “the best goddam blues” she had heard.Ain’t Bad For A Pink records a life dedicated to music. As a young teenager in the Sixties, Pete ‘Snakey Jake’ Johnson met legendary blues players Sleepy John Estes, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Roosevelt ‘The Honeydripper’ Sykes, Jimmy Witherspoon, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Son House who taught him slide. Subsequently, Pete Johnson’s interpretation of the country blues has been as close as possible to the original spirit of Southern music. Meet Boomtown the Rat, the girls whose clothes just wouldn’t stay put, and the top-hatted man who had three wakes. Imagine being kissed by each and every one of the Three Degrees, being mistaken for a beggar in Montmartre or having to threaten with a meat cleaver to get your gig money. How about taking a pee next to the PM or forgetting where and when you met the Stones? Or helping Peter Green to remember his previous life with Fleetwood Mac?Whilst celebrating the country blues, Pete Johnson lovingly describes some beautiful guitars, examines the economics of music shop retail and offers a few perspectives on the baby-boomer generation. This is the man who cooked breakfast for Jimmy Witherspoon. This is the man who topped the blues charts in Georgia. This is the man who was almost arrested for snorting snuff in Stoke-on-Trent. This book celebrates the life of someone not famous or infamous; an ordinary man who had extraordinary experiences through being part of the post-war explosion in pop music and the blues. Ain’t Bad For A Pink will appeal to readers interested in the pop explosion of the Sixties and Seventies, the country blues and the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.

Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." Wald sees blues less as a style than as a broad musical tradition within a constantly evolving pop culture. He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was transformed by such professional performers as W. C. Handy, who first popularized the blues a century ago. He follows its evolution from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith through Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix; identifies the impact of rural field recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and others; explores the role of blues in the development of both country music and jazz; and looks at the popular rhythm and blues trends of the 1940s and 1950s, from the uptown West Coast style of T-Bone Walker to the "down home" Chicago sound of Muddy Waters. Wald brings the story up to the present, touching on the effects of blues on American poetry, and its connection to modern styles such as rap. As with all of Oxford's Very Short Introductions, The Blues tells you--with insight, clarity, and wit--everything you need to know to understand this quintessentially American musical genre.

Howlin’ Wolf was a musical giant in every way. He stood six foot three, weighed almost three hundred pounds, wore size sixteen shoes, and poured out his darkest sorrows onstage in a voice like a raging chainsaw. Half a century after his first hits, his sound still terrifies and inspires. Born Chester Burnett in 1910, the Wolf survived a grim childhood and hardscrabble youth as a sharecropper in Mississippi. He began his career playing and singing with the first Delta blues stars for two decades in perilous juke joints. He was present at the birth of rock ’n’ roll in Memphis, where Sam Phillips–who also discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis–called Wolf his “greatest discovery.” He helped develop the sound of electric blues and vied with rival Muddy Waters for the title of king of Chicago blues. He ended his career performing and recording with the world’s most famous rock stars. His passion for music kept him performing–despite devastating physical problems–right up to his death in 1976. There’s never been a comprehensive biography of the Wolf until now. Moanin’ at Midnight is full of startling information about his mysterious early years, surprising and entertaining stories about his decades at the top, and never-before-seen photographs. It strips away all the myths to reveal–at long last–the real-life triumphs and tragedies of this blues titan.