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Elijah Wald: Escaping The Delta: Robert Johnson And The Invention Of The Blues

Tony Russell, New Humanist, May 2004

FOR A MUSIC that has always been resolutely secular, the blues has attracted a remarkable crowd of hierarchs and hierophants. Scholars, musicians, record collectors and other interested parties have spent half a century discerning musical sects (Texas blues, Chicago blues, etc.) and beatifying their performers according to arcane value-systems of authenticity or plain "greatness".

Total word count of piece: 743

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