Chasin' That Devil's Music,  Searching for the Blues
Chasin' That Devil Musichas the feel of a documentary about the making of a thrilling motion picture. The main focus is on the Delta blues singers of the early 20th century--artists such asCharley Patton,Tommy Johnson,Son House, andBlind Lemon Jeffersonwho've achieved near-mythic status in blues circles. In addition, many of the articles gathered in this splendidly illustrated volume capture the process and people involved in tracking long-lost recordings nearly as elusive as the performers who made them. Here, for example, is the story of author/blues scholar Gayle Dean Wardlow's three-year hunt for the death certificate ofRobert Johnson, the celebrated Mississippi bluesman and a figure whose legend has grown greater with each year since his much-debated death in 1938. The text here is nearly as raw in spots as the music that sparked it, but, as with those sounds (which can be heard on a terrific CD sampler included with the book), enthusiasts will findChasin' That Devil Musicriveting.--Steven Stolder