Beale Black and Blue

For much of this century, blues musicians like W. C. Handy, Booker White, Lillie May Glover, B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Muddy Waters, and even Elvis Presley gravitated to Beale Street, in Memphis, Tennessee, to learn and practice their art. For many of them, the environment they encountered and helped to create there provided an escape from the poverty, despair, and anonymity that had marked their lives. Beale Black and Blue is an intimate and lively history of Beale Street and of the musicians who made its name synonymous with the blues. In the first part of the book Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall provide a social and political history of Beale Street from the turn of the century through the 1970s, from its heyday as an important center of black commerce and culture to its latter-day decline brought on in part, ironically, by the successes of the civil rights movement, which helped integrate blacks into the wider society. Following this section is a series of interviews with many of the musicians who were drawn to Beale Street. Despite the hardships and mistreatment some of them endured, they reflect fondly on their lives and careers. For anyone interested in the history of one of America's most important and enduring art forms, Beale Black and Blue is a book not to be missed.