Rating: 
Summary: Passes My Litmus Test
Review: Whenever I find a book that devotes significant ink to my all-time favorite singer (the criminally neglected Tracy Nelson--and no, I don't mean Ricky's TV actress daughter), I can't help get excited. BLUES ROCK EXPLOSION devotes several pages to Tracy and her original band, Mother Earth. And the info is all pretty much accurate, with quotes dug up from what now must be pretty obscure sources like late 1960s HIT PARADER articles. (HP used to be quite the informative little music mag back in the day--before it went heavy metal hair band crazy.) There are gaps in the discography, and that disturbed me a bit. But any coverage of this great singer in a major publication is heartening nonetheless.Interesting though, the entry on Tracy goes on at some length about the inevitable Joplin comparisons (which were always somewhat misleading, since Tracy was more gospel influenced and much less raspy and raw than Janis--god love 'em both though). But oddly, there is no entry on Joplin herself. Hmmm. Could it be that they're going after only the rootsiest of "blues rockers" for this book, and that Janis and Big Brother will surface in some future volume (psychedelia maybe? or rock icons in general?). Some of the reviewers below complain about this or that artist or group not being included in this otherwise fairly comprehensive reference work. I AM guessing here, but as indicated above, this appears to be the first in a series of Old Goat publications, and it is likely that when the artists overlap genres that they will be included in some other volume. Led Zeppelin may strike some as the "ultimate blues rockers" as one poster notes below. But, as mentioned, this book's focus seems to be on the rootsiest artists--and Led Zep could be being saved for the metal volume. And of course, Zep only showed up at the tail end of the 60s (which is the temporal focal point of this volume) and went on to conquer the world mainly in the 70s, so that could be another factor. I have less of an answer for why Eric Burden and the Animals didn't make the cut, however, although Eric could slip into a psychedelia volume later on too (that just wasn't his BEST work). And maybe Hot Tuna was too much tied to the San Fran scene as well (though on their own, they were pretty darn rootsy too). Well, we'll have to see what future efforts by the Old Goats bring. In the meantime, this is welcome coverage for some pretty deserving artists, much of whose work is still available. Even though the book is a bit on the pricy side, I recommend it to any half-way serious student of the blues.
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