Nobody knows where the blues come from lyrics and history (University Press of Mississippi, 2006)
Includes bibliographical references and index
High water everywhere : blues and gospel commentary on the 1927 Mississippi River flood / David Evans -- Death by fire : African American popular music on the Natchez Rhythm Club fire / Luigi Monge -- Lookin' for the bully : an enquiry into a song and its story / Paul Oliver -- That dry creek Eaton Clan : a North Mississippi murder ballad of the 1930s / Tom Freeland and Chris Smith -- Coolidge's blues : African American blues songs on Prohibition, migration, unemployment, and Jim Crow / Guido van Rijn -- On the electronic trail of blues formulas / Robert Springer -- West Indies blues : an historical overview, 1920s-1950s, blues and music from the English-speaking West Indies / John Cowley -- Ethel Waters : "long, lean, lanky mama" / Randall Cherry
Musicians and music scholars rightly focus on the sounds of the blues and the colorful life stories of blues performers. Equally important and, until now, inadequately studied are the lyrics. The international contributors to Nobody Knows Where the Blues Come From explore this aspect of the blues and establish the significance of African American popular song as a neglected form of oral history. "High Water Everywhere: Blues and Gospel Commentary on the 1927 Mississippi River Flood," by David Evans, is the definitive study of songs about one of the greatest natural disasters in the history of