billwymansbluesodyssey

Everyone knows that Bill Wyman was bass player for The Rolling Stones at one time, but not everyone may know that he was always a tremendous fan of the blues in all it's many incarnations. Now Wyman has published a wonderful coffee-table sized book that goes to demonstrate his love and devotion for this great musical genre. A documentary show based on the book aired on The Bravo Channel on November 1-3 and a double-CD featuring 47 tracks of his personal favorites has also been released.

This is a book for blues aficionados and newcomers alike. It's not too hard to read like some previous scholarly works, but it still digs deep enough to contain a lot of information many readers may have missed. It's also a big, fun read filled with eye-catching photographs, maps, lyric-slang definitions, song time-lines and showcases 40 blues legends.

It starts out discussing the African slaves and thier journey to the southern plantations. The book explains the blue's musical roots quite well and tells of the early practiioner's move off of the plantations and into the big cities of Chicago, St. Louis and the like via Memphis. Various chapters go on to describe and discuss not only blues, but jazz, vaudeville, rock and roll, minstrel song and white country music.

Originally planned out as a radio series that never materialized, the eventual fruition of Bill Wyman's Blues Odessey was an odyssey in it's own right. The monumental research involved in this project included Wyman's combing through the wealth of books, documents, personal diaries, memories and recorded conversations that he'd amassed over 40 some-odd years. His collections of music alone contained over 800 vinyl records and 600 CDs. Wyman also investigated birth names, dates and places for many artists who had multiple identies and recorded under multiple labels.

Although I'm sure Wyman contributed a ton of research to his book, co-author Richard Havers (who isn't even mentioned on the cover) must have done quite a bit of the research and writing aa well. There isn't a bibliography in the back of the book, but there is an interesting discography of Wyman's favorite recordings.

This is a blues book for everybody and is a delight to look at and read. Hat's off to Bill Wyman for a job well done.