I am sorry, but this is possibly one of the worst written books I have ever read. The author, God love him, not only misspells many words throughout the book--but he often either restates general facts, jumps around without utilizing a "flow" between names and events, and leaves disjointed narritaves about bluesmen without much information that is useful nor interesting. At times, he also dwells too much on using the terms "the blacks" and or "Negro" as well as using "black music." This borders on mild racism, and at the very least sounds to the reader a bit ignorant. For some other reason, this author seems dependent on a discussion pitting bluesmen versus songsters--an issue that seems to invade almost every other chapter of the book somehow. The grammar and syntax suffers as well. I felt when it was over like maybe a 6th grader had written it. If so, well done, but keep trying to catch all of those errors. I am unaware if this person is a native speaker of English; no joke. The worst thing though, as a 78 blues collector, is that the names/bios of the blues artists are not told in Chronological Order. IE--should be: Lemon Jefferson/Patton, Willie Brown, Blind Willie JOhnson/McTell,(prewar) and then later get to: Lightnin Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Bo Diddley, etc.. Instead, this author has not given an accurate guiding measure of how or where to locate them in the book, nor illustrate the natural progression from artist influencing artist in time. All in all, very badly written and highly disorganized with hardly no real research, and alot of references that are no longer appropriate such as "the blacks."
I am sorry, but this is possibly one of the worst written books I have ever read. The author, God love him, not only misspells many words throughout the book--but he often either restates general facts, jumps around without utilizing a "flow" between names and events, and leaves disjointed narritaves about bluesmen without much information that is useful nor interesting. At times, he also dwells too much on using the terms "the blacks" and or "Negro" as well as using "black music." This borders on mild racism, and at the very least sounds to the reader a bit ignorant. For some other reason, this author seems dependent on a discussion pitting bluesmen versus songsters--an issue that seems to invade almost every other chapter of the book somehow. The grammar and syntax suffers as well. I felt when it was over like maybe a 6th grader had written it. If so, well done, but keep trying to catch all of those errors. I am unaware if this person is a native speaker of English; no joke. The worst thing though, as a 78 blues collector, is that the names/bios of the blues artists are not told in Chronological Order. IE--should be: Lemon Jefferson/Patton, Willie Brown, Blind Willie JOhnson/McTell,(prewar) and then later get to: Lightnin Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Bo Diddley, etc.. Instead, this author has not given an accurate guiding measure of how or where to locate them in the book, nor illustrate the natural progression from artist influencing artist in time. All in all, very badly written and highly disorganized with hardly no real research, and alot of references that are no longer appropriate such as "the blacks."
by jallenwood1 on October 12, 2009 at 01:44:32 AM