In the 1920s, Americans talked of their times as “modern,” which is to say, fundamentally different, in pace and texture, from what went before—a new era.

Born in African American work songs, field hollers, and the powerful legacy of the spirituals, the blues traveled the country from the Mississippi delta to “S

"A signal event in the history of the music." — Ted Gioia. A noted blues historian and folklorist explores blues lyrics as poetry, quoting lyrics at length to

Are bodies sexy? How? In what sorts of ways? Sexy Bodies investigates the production of sexual bodies and sexual practices, of sexualities which are dyke, bi, t

From one of this country's most important intellectuals comes a brilliant analysis of the blues tradition that examines the careers of three crucial black women