Crossroads: How the Blues Shaped Rock 'n' Roll (and Rock Saved the Blues)
Blues legend Muddy Waters said that “blues had a baby, and they called it rock ’n’ roll.” That is an oversimplification. This book, by contrast, may be an overcomplication, an informed fan’s dizzyingly comprehensive account of the intricate and reciprocal relationships of the two musical genres, coalescing during and after the blues revival of the 1960s. It is a commonplace that the blues generation of Robert Johnson, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt, among others, and the later one of Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, and others was listened to obsessively by young white American musicians, and by their British counterparts, notably Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, with results that transformed the sound of popular music. Milward’s narrative, while not ignoring its negative components, stresses the mutual advantages of the exchange, and his passion for the form is obvious. And why not? It has defined popular music for the past several decades and still provides a joy that a reading of this fine book should enhance. --Mark Levine