Henry Carter Hull

Bruce Springsteen performs at The Point, Dublin, Ireland, Nov. 2006.

An introduction to the blues, identifying the key elements of the blues sound, profiling artists from 1900 through the 1990s, offering suggestions for building a collection, providing advice about playing the blues at both the amateur and professional level, and including a sampler CD.

"The entire history of popular music over the past fifty years refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated it-including rock, country, punk, R&B, dance and hip-hop-woven together into a cosmic reckoning with music's evolution as a popular art form, as a huge cultural and economic force, and as an essential component to our identities, from Black Sabbath to Black Flag to Beyoncé, and beyond"--

This guide explains the most useful aspects of theory in clear, nontechnical language. Areas covered include scales (major, minor, modal, synthetic), chord formation, chord progression, melody, song forms, useful devices, (ostinato, mirrors, hocket, etc.), and instrumentation. It contains over 100 musical examples.