Texas Blues allows artists to speak in their own words, revealing the dynamics of blues, from its beginnings in cotton fields and shotgun shacks to its migration across boundaries of age and race to seize the musical imagination of the entire world. Fully illustrated with 495 dramatic, high-quality color and black-and-white photographs—many never before published—Texas Blues provides comprehensive and authoritative documentation of a musical tradition that has changed contemporary music. Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author Alan Govenar here builds on his previous groundbreaking work documenting these musicians and their style with the stories of 110 of the most influential artists and their times. From Blind Lemon Jefferson and Aaron “T-Bone” Walker of Dallas, to Delbert McClinton in Fort Worth, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins in East Texas, Baldemar (Freddie Fender) Huerta in South Texas, and Stevie Ray Vaughan in Austin, Texas Blues shows the who, what, where, and how of blues in the Lone Star State.
About the Author
ALAN GOVENAR is a writer, photographer, folklorist, and filmmaker who lives in Dallas. Through his nonprofit organization, Documentary Arts, Inc., he has worked in association with NOVA, La Sept/ARTE, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on a number of projects. The off-Broadway premier of his musical, Blind Lemon Blues, co-created with Akin Babatunde and based on the life of Blind Lemon Jefferson, received rave reviews in The New York Times and Variety.