Stephen A. King is chairperson and professor of communication at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. He has written extensively about rhetoric, public memory, and cultural tourism and is author of Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control and coauthor (with Roger Davis Gatchet) of Terror and Truth: Civil Rights Tourism and the Mississippi Movement, both published by University Press of Mississippi.
[This book] should be read by anyone with a love of music and music
history. Blues fans should stick on a Robert Johnson album, pour
themselves a large JD and ice, sit down with this thought-provoking
little gem, and make their own mind up. There have always been
three Kings when it comes to the blues: Albert, Freddie, and BB.
Now there are four.-- "Blues & Soul"
His chapters on the history of blues and the history of blues
tourism in the Mississippi Delta are grounded in solid scholarship.
Paradoxes and ambiguities inherent in the blues are especially
evident within this history. . . . King's book is a good one. His
writing conveys the deep understanding of a talented writer and
scholar, who clearly understands the blues and appreciates its
history in Mississippi.--Gregory Hansen "Arkansas Review: A Journal
of Delta Studies"
King does an excellent job in deconstructing the blues message,
which deflects inquiry into just how poorly the now-venerated
"classic" [and mostly deceased] blues musicians were treated in
their lifetimes, being poorly paid and kept in perpetual debt by
the sharecropper system, denied healthcare, and frequently buried
in unmarked graves. Blues fans believing they know blues history
will be surprised by the fabrications and half-truths associated
with the genre, as uncovered by semiotic analysis of the many code
words, metaphors, similes, and folktales that have become part of
blues tourism culture.-- "New York Journal of Books"
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