William Palmer
When the Levee Breaks
I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy
By Bob Riesman
University of Chicago Press 308pp £18 order from our bookshop
Blues music emerged at the start of the twentieth century from the most disadvantaged people in the poorest part of the United States, the Deep South. The lives of the uneducated men and women from the black working class who were its singers went largely unrecorded. Only a few achieved fame and much of the writing about them is riddled with speculation and romantic invention. I Feel So Good is the first full biography of one of these major figures.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'This book takes in a lot of territory, all solidly researched and footnoted. But dry? Fuhgeddaboutit.'
Patricia T O'Conner on E J White's 'You Talkin' To Me? The Unruly History of New York English'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/tawk-of-the-town
'The identification of a mighty force sparkling intermittently seems to me to constitute the finest and most consistent poetic achievement of Goudie’s book.'
Candia McWilliam on @lachlangoudie's 'The Story of Scottish Art'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/all-that-glisters
Though 'the hotel had a reputation as the area’s best, its staff were not used to looking after world leaders, so the arrival of Cuba’s new strongman, Fidel Castro, came as something of a shock.'
@dcsandbrook on @simonhallwriter's 'Ten Days in Harlem'.
http://ow.ly/I63850Bvs10