Crossroads: How the Blues Shaped Rock ’n’ Roll (and Rock Saved the Blues) - Hardcover

Milward, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1555537448 ISBN 13: 9781555537449

Publisher: Northeastern University Press, 2013

Synopsis

The blues revival of the early 1960s brought new life to a seminal genre of American music and inspired a vast new world of singers, songwriters, and rock bands. The Rolling Stones took their name from a Muddy Waters song; Led Zeppelin forged bluesy riffs into hard rock and heavy metal; and ZZ Top did superstar business with boogie rhythms copped from John Lee Hooker. Crossroads tells the myriad stories of the impact and enduring influence of the early-’60s blues revival: stories of the record collectors, folkies, beatniks, and pop culture academics; and of the lucky musicians who learned life-changing lessons from the rediscovered Depression-era bluesmen that found hipster renown by playing at coffeehouses, on college campuses, and at the Newport Folk Festival. The blues revival brought notice to these forgotten musicians, and none more so than Robert Johnson, who had his songs covered by Cream and the Rolling Stones, and who sold a million CDs sixty years after dying outside a Mississippi Delta roadhouse. Crossroads is the intersection of blues and rock ’n’ roll, a vivid portrait of the fluidity of American folk culture that captures the voices of musicians, promoters, fans, and critics to tell this very American story of how the blues came to rest at the heart of popular music.

About this title

About the Author

JOHN MILWARD has been the pop music critic of the Chicago Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and USA Today, and has contributed articles and reviews to Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among many others. He lives in Woodstock, New York.

Reviews

Blues legend Muddy Waters said that “blues had a baby, and they called it rock ’n’ roll.” That is an oversimplification. This book, by contrast, may be an overcomplication, an informed fan’s dizzyingly comprehensive account of the intricate and reciprocal relationships of the two musical genres, coalescing during and after the blues revival of the 1960s. It is a commonplace that the blues generation of Robert Johnson, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt, among others, and the later one of Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, and others was listened to obsessively by young white American musicians, and by their British counterparts, notably Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, with results that transformed the sound of popular music. Milward’s narrative, while not ignoring its negative components, stresses the mutual advantages of the exchange, and his passion for the form is obvious. And why not? It has defined popular music for the past several decades and still provides a joy that a reading of this fine book should enhance. --Mark Levine

Edition details

• Publisher: Northeastern University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555537448
• ISBN 13: 9781555537449
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296