Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta (1981)

by Robert Palmer

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493	6	50,158	(4.11)	5
Blues is the cornerstone of American popular music, the bedrock of rock and roll. In this extraordinary musical and social history, Robert Palmer traces the odyssey of the blues from its rural beginnings, to the steamy bars of Chicago's South Side, to international popularity, recognition, and imitation. Palmer tells the story of the blues through the lives of its greatest practitioners: Robert Johnson, who sang of being pursued by the hounds of hell; Muddy Waters, who electrified Delta blues and gave the music its rock beat; Robert Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson, who launched the King Biscuit Time radio show and brought blues to the airwaves; and John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, B. B. King, and many others. "A lucid . . . entrancing study" -- Greil Marcus "Palmer has a powerful understanding of the music and an intense involvement in the culture." -- The Nation… (more)

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Interesting account of where the blues came from and how they affected rock and roll, etc. Makes me want to listen more to Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and others. (

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kslade | Dec 8, 2022 |

Palmer's book serves as a great introduction to the Blues Greats from Charlie Patton to Otis Rush, with a big focus on Muddy Waters, whom Palmer must have talked to for days on end. It is an interesting history of how some of the poorest people in the United States created one of its enduring musical treasures--but as Ted Gioia points out in his "Subversive History of Music", new musical innovations always rise up from the minority. Palmer's writing is not always the most fluid, especially when reeling off so many dates and places, but when he starts to write about the music itself and its effect on him, every word rings true. (

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datrappert | Sep 29, 2021 |

No idea how to rate this one; it was a good history, as histories go, but then there's the enjoyment factor, too. I blogged a bit about it: https://wp.me/p4LPys-kM.

KatrinkaV | Nov 10, 2018 |

Hollar Back: I think I may go out the back door under the moon and catch a train to a crossroads to see what sound resounds and who I might meet in the deep blue of midnight. (

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NAKnott | Jan 1, 2016 |

The best book on the blues I have read. I would like to know how something like this can be done better. Palmer uses Muddy Waters as the pivotal figure on which to base his history of the blues. It is because this device is utterly plausible that a seamless narrative account immediately takes shape and flows easily through at least a century's worth of American history and beyond. Filled with insight, research, historical and cultural information, extrapolation into folklore and African forms, anecdotes with the author's discographical and bibliographical sources all fully referenced. Yet the narrative style is laid-back, conversational and (given the breadth of the subject) utterly UNintimidating. A joy to read for anyone at all interested in the blues and other popular musics at any level. (

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atyson | Nov 7, 2006 |

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▾Awards and Honors

Awards

ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Music Writing (1982)

Notable Lists

CounterPunch's Top 100 [and a few more] Non-fiction Works of the 20th Century

UC Berkeley Summer Reading List (1985)

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Canonical title

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1981

People/Characters

Muddy Waters

Important places

Mississippi, USA

Important events

Related movies

Deep Blues (1992 | IMDb)

Epigraph

Dedication

This Book Is Dedicated To Harriett Tyson Palmer

First words

"For the past six weeks," a high school student in the Mississippi Delta town of Clarksdale wrote in her composition book in May 1943, "Miss Waddell's Sixth Grade English classes have been having a unit on poetry."

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Marcus, Greil

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▾Book descriptions

Blues is the cornerstone of American popular music, the bedrock of rock and roll. In this extraordinary musical and social history, Robert Palmer traces the odyssey of the blues from its rural beginnings, to the steamy bars of Chicago's South Side, to international popularity, recognition, and imitation. Palmer tells the story of the blues through the lives of its greatest practitioners: Robert Johnson, who sang of being pursued by the hounds of hell; Muddy Waters, who electrified Delta blues and gave the music its rock beat; Robert Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson, who launched the King Biscuit Time radio show and brought blues to the airwaves; and John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, B. B. King, and many others. "A lucid . . . entrancing study" -- Greil Marcus "Palmer has a powerful understanding of the music and an intense involvement in the culture." -- The Nation

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