Listen to the Blues! Exploring A Musical Genre provides an overview of this distinctly American musical genre for fans of the blues and curious readers alike, with a focus on 50 must-hear artists, albums, and subgenres. Unlike other books on the blues, which tend to focus on musician biographies, Listen to the Blues! devotes time to the compositions, recordings, and musical legacies of blues musicians from the early 20th century to the present. Although the author references musical structure, harmony, form, and other musical concepts, the volume avoids technical language; therefore, it is a volume that should be of interest to the casual blues fan, to students of blues music and its history, and to more serious blues fans. The chapters on the impact of the blues on popular culture and the legacy of the blues also put the genre in a broader historical context than what is found in many books on the blues. The book opens with a background chapter that provides an overview of the history and structure of blues music. A substantial, encyclopedic chapter that focuses on 50 must-hear blues musicians follows, as does a chapter that explores the impact on popular culture of blues music and musicians and a chapter that focuses on the legacy of the genre. A bibliography rounds out the work.

This unique book and CD will give you the tools you need to transform the music that you read into the way it should sound when played. Written music offers the notes, but it may not completely tell you how to perform them. Playing the blues in an authentic manner requires specific techniques that are difficult to notate. However, it can be achieved by combining note reading along with listening to a recording of how it is supposed to sound. Once and for all, the Listen & Play approach puts an end the often-heard lament, "I'm reading it correctly, but why doesn't it sound like the blues?" The CD includes performances of all the examples and tunes-----some of the music is played at a slower practice tempo to make learning easier.

The philosophy of the blues From B.B. King to Billie Holiday, Blues music not only sounds good, but has an almost universal appeal in its reflection of the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Its ability to powerfully touch on a range of social and emotional issues is philosophically inspiring, and here, a diverse range of thinkers and musicians offer illuminating essays that make important connections between the human condition and the Blues that will appeal to music lovers and philosophers alike.

Around twenty percent of your playing time on the bandstand is spent soloing—have you studied how to play during the other eighty percent? Blues Harmonica Accompaniment Playing, within the School of the Blues® Lesson Series, is an exciting journey into the art of traditional blues harmonica accompaniment (playing fills, under vocals and chording patterns) as well as modern approaches to playing horn, organ and bass lines. Additional studies cover openings, breaks and endings. This book and CD is for the intermediate to advanced harmonica player. Recording includes all harmonica parts notated in the book with accompaniment music.

"This book is about understanding the blues and putting the blues on the keyboard." -- Introduction, p. 5.

Chrys Chime, a postgraduate student at Southampton, writes a book: The Wacky World of Dark Dictators. Many Publishers were not impressed, but Pete Alott, an upstart publisher and son of a British publishing mogul decides to gamble on it. The book stirs up the Rastamuffins, an obscure group of fundamentalist Rastafarians, who considered it heretical and a collective insult that Haile Selassie should be maligned as a dictator. The media take up the story, and cowboy publishing triumphs. Chrys's wife, Amanda, is shot in Lagos, Nigeria. Chrys is abducted in London, England. The arrows point to the controversial book. But investigations also reveal a shocking web of intrigues, cultism, family lies, and scams.

It's 1989 and, whenever he isn't hanging out in the local bars, Herr Lehmann lives entirely free of responsibility in the bohemian Berlin district of Kreuzberg. Through years of judicious sidestepping and heroic indolence, this barman has successfully avoided the demands of parents, landlords, neighbours and women. But suddenly one unforeseen incident after another seems to threaten his idyllic and rather peaceable existence. He has an encounter with a decidedly unfriendly dog, his parents threaten to descend on Berlin from the provinces, and he meets a dangerously attractive woman who throws his emotional life into confusion. Berlin Blues is a richly entertaining evocation of life in the city and a classic of modern-day decadence.

Allan Dayhoff, D.Min., the Founder and Executive Director of Evangelize Today, writes about his life experiences and his path to evangelism. He presents a new approach to teaching evangelism that offers participants the opportunity to reflect on their own conversion process and to apply their new insights. The book provides "a perspective that might actually set some folks free to love, free to say, 'Tell me more'" (Dr. David B. Wallover, Senior Pastor, Harvest Presbyterian Church (PCA), Medina, OH). "Al's story is earthy and redemptive. He invites you to "listen to hear" in a way that is refreshing. I invite you to listen to those around you, but first listen to Al" (Dr. Tom Wood, President of CMM, Inc., Atlanta).

This is a soloing system I came up with for intermediate guitarists based on exploring the sounds of blues-rock improvisation which involves minimal theory, while focusing on concepts you can apply to your playing right away. Here we dispense with scales, arpeggios and whatnot in favor of just 3 positions on the fretboard that will allow you to get a wide variety of blues-rock sounds under your fingers in no time at all. This is accomplished by focusing on a handful of intervals rather than endless scales, arpeggios and permutations; in other words, we’re going straight to the good stuff! This book is aimed at intermediate guitarists looking for a practical yet musical approach to blues-rock soloing with concepts and ideas you can get up and running on the fretboard without having to wade through a ton of theory and scale patterns. What’s more, there’s very little to remember as we learn how to connect sounds by starting off with a handful of notes and then navigating the rest of the fretboard with ease by connecting intervals. If you’re a high beginner-intermediate guitarist, I think you’ll like this approach, especially if you’ve gotten stuck in scale patterns/pentatonics and find yourself playing the same things over and over.