THE BLUES:  A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
Author: Elijah Wald
Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA 
Date Published| August 5, 2010 
ISBN-10: 0195398939
Pges: 152 pages
Format: pdf 


The Book:
The Blues: A Very Short Introduction 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.

The Series:

Like the other books in Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series, this volume is designed to provide a brief but not dumbed-down overview of its subject. It starts with a quick note about the various definitions of blues, then is divided into two sections: a straightforward chronological history and three chapters that place blues in a broader cultural context by relating the style to jazz and country music and exploring its poetic use of language.
The Author-Elijah Wald

Elijah Wald has been a musician since age seven and a writer since the early 1980s. He has published more than a thousand articles, mostly about folk, roots and international music for various magazines and newspapers, including over ten years as "world music" writer for the Boston Globe. In the current millenium, he has been devoting most of his time to book projects, including volumes on such disparate subjects as Delta blues, Mexican drug ballads, and hitchhiking.