Chicago Blues History: Preserving The Past
This book is a grave tour honoring eighty of the greatest Chicago Blues artists of all time. You will travel through fifteen cemeteries. Most of the cemeteries are located in and around Chicago. My goal with this book is to show you how these artists shaped and molded American Popular Music as we know it today. They are all buried within a very close distance of one another in the Chicagoland area.
Bluesmen born in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s include Papa Charlie Jackson, Thomas A. Dorsey, Daddy Stovepipe, John Henry Barbee, Kansas Joe McCoy and Papa Charlie McCoy, Sunnyland Slim, and Kokomo Arnold, who inspired Robert Johnson. These men nearly invented recording, and inspired and paved the way for the next group of Chicago Blues artists.
The Bluesmen I call the big four: Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Big Bill Broonzy, and Howlin’ Wolf gave birth to Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards & Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, John Mayer and everyone else imaginable. Willie Dixon and Fred Below are incredibly important as Dixon was the chief songwriter/producer for Chess Records, and Below played drums on nearly every hit song, creating the Blues backbeat in the process.
Also, there are powerful female Blues artists who made incredible contributions. Artists include Dinah Washington, Koko Taylor, Mississippi Matilda, Queen Silvia Embry, Mama Yancey, Edith Wilson, Big Time Sarah, and Bertha Lee Patton, the wife of Charlie Patton.
The Chicago Blues artists in this book are the source. They are the original Rock n’ Rollers and Rappers. Without them, Rock n’ Roll and Rap music wouldn’t exist. Blues remains hidden within countless forms of music. It is the mud underneath the earth making all forms of music sprout and grow. Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Post Malone, and any current artist at the top of the charts wouldn’t exist if it were not for these legendary male and female Chicago Blues artists. We are all in debt and service to them.
- Brant Buckley
#1 Amazon Hot New Release in 2 Categories: Blues Music and R&B & Soul
Brant's Favorite Graves
Book Review
What an incredibly unique idea Brant Buckley executed researching and writing this amazing coffee table book. He takes the reader on a tour of 15 different cemeteries, visiting the graves and photographing 80 different amazing Chicago blues artists, both male and female- Everyone from Roosevelt Booba Barnes, Bertha Lee Patton to Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf.Included in each artist’s page are names of songs associated with each artist- you will find yourself searching YouTube for some of these tremendous songs, some well known and some super obscure-so many of these songs are the original backbone of rock and roll and even some contemporary pop stuff today.
Also included on the page of each artist is a photograph of the headstone with flowers lovingly placed near or off to the side of the headstone. What a beautiful tribute.
Since the concept of most Blue songs deals with suffering and the tragedy of death, this book might be the ultimate blues song.
Thank you Brant Buckley for a book that both scholars of the blues and the uninitiated yet curious music lovers will appreciate.
It’s damn great! What an unbelievable idea!
- Kenn Kweder
