The Life and Music of Booker "Bukka" White
Recalling the Blues
For years only a name on old 78 records—and believed by some to be dead—White was "rediscovered" by John Fahey and ED Denson in the summer of 1963. He went on to have a productive second career, playing venues and festivals throughout the United States and in Canada, and touring Europe and Great Britain with the American Folk Blues Festival. In 1975, he was invited to Bremen, Germany, for a solo concert that was released as his final album.
In July 1976, the author interviewed White shortly before his discharge from a Massachusetts hospital where he was recovering from a stroke. After spending eight days in the intensive care unit and three weeks in rehabilitation, White was ready to talk about his life. Recalling stories of "slavery time," White told the author, ". . . some of the [formerly enslaved] guys were wise enough to hold that in their head where they could tell a young pants, where it would go down in history, you know. Just like you doing that now—something happen to you, somebody else will carry that on."
The product of years of research, The Life and Music of Booker "Bukka" White is the first full-length biography of this remarkable country blues performer. Interviewing those who knew White, including his second cousin B. B. King, Johnson has written a detailed and sometimes surprising account of how a young Black man born in the first decade of the twentieth century—the grandson of a slave—found a way to rise above his circumstances and maintain a decades-long career as a musician.
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Release date
November 28, 2024 -
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Kindle Book
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- ISBN: 9781496853462
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- ISBN: 9781496853462
- File size: 7023 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Library Journal
December 1, 2024
As Johnson (Lonesome Melodies: The Lives and Music of the Stanley Brothers) attests in the final chapter of this comprehensive but occasionally laconic biography, Booker "Bukka" White hasn't always been granted his due as one of the foundational players of American blues. Johnson's exhaustively researched book is a labor of love, rooted in his sole in-person meeting with White in 1976. His accounting of his research highlights the challenges of ascertaining such basic facts as where and when White was born. White was fond of a good yarn; his recordings are notable for their lengthy improvisational storytelling as well as for his considerable technical and expressive accomplishments on the guitar. The later chapters, following White's revived career in the 1960s and 1970s, proceed on surer ground. The biography is a thorough and affectionate look at a complex artist whose influence on musicians ranging from Bob Dylan and B.B. King (White's second cousin) to Corey Harris and Eric Bibb is well established. VERDICT A welcome and long-overdue biography of an important blues figure, for fans, musicians, and researchers.--Genevieve Williams
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
subjects
Languages
- English
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