Josephine Matyas

Wherever you are, you don’t have to go far in the United States to find world-class music museums and historical sites. Whether in major cities like Nashville, Detroit, and New Orleans or less familiar locales like Hibbing, Minnesota (the birthplace of Bob Dylan) or Bozeman, Montana (home of the Gibson Guitar Company), the riches of the nation’s musical heritage are available to everyone from newbie tourists to veteran road-trippers.Tangled Roots is the first guidebook of its kind, focused on the best music museums and other points of interest between the Atlantic and the Pacific. In addition to practical information it provides fascinating background on the history, culture, geography, and politics of the United States, and covers everything from major destinations like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to festivals, signature instrument shops, driving and walking tours, and more.

Chasing the Blues explores the roots of the blues---the music birthed in the Mississippi Delta by African Americans who fashioned a new form of musical expression grounded in their shared experience of brutal oppression. They used the power of music to survive that oppression, creating a simple-in-structure, emotionally complex form that transformed and upended culture and became the bedrock of popular song. Tracing the music back to its geographical and cultural origins in the Delta is key to understanding how the blues were shaped. Over time, the Delta blues have touched virtually every form of popular music (rock and roll, soul, R&B, country-western, gospel), creating the soundscape of our lives.What makes this book unique? Fathoming how the music flowed from living and working conditions in the heart of the Deep South; appreciating how life-changing events like the Flood of 1927 sparked a mass migration away from plantation life, spreading the blues to the cities in the North and becoming the soundtrack to the civil rights movement; how blues musicians interacted, "cross-fertilizing" their music by learning, influencing, and imitating each other.The habits of travel are shifting, and there is more interest and a larger market for diving deep into destinations closer to home. Interest in Black history and culture and the role Black Americans played in shaping America is at an all-time high. By appreciating the roots of this most American style of music, readers will have a richer experience listening to songs and visiting blues' holy and sacred sites.