Blues & Gospel Records: 1890-1943 (Blues and Gospel Records)

Rating:
Summary: Indispensable
Review: This encyclopedia is indispensable to anyone seriously interested in blues and gospel recordings of the pre-WW2 era. Awe-inspiring labor has brought forth a volume of nearly 1500 pages listing, alphabetically by artist, recording data for every known African-American blues and gospel performer whose work was put on disk through 1943. It is not a jazz discography, though a few essentially jazz acts are included. As well as commercial recordings, it also attempts to catalog all known folklore field recordings of the same period, particularly those of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. Included are an index of artists, to help locate sideman appearances, and an index of song titles. The work involved here, which has occupied several writers for many years, is awe-inspiring, particularly since the book is specialized enough (and priced highly enough) that it will never break any sales records. A love for this wonderful music is evident on every page.

I bought a copy about 2 years ago and use it frequently, especially with my disk and tape collection. The kind of session data given so generously here was notoriously absent on LP reissues of early blues music. As an inveterate compiler and collator and list-maker, I can't imagine not having this info! The Oxford edition is a sturdy and well-made volume, and I consider the book worth every dime I paid for it, and then some.

One "improvement" I would like to see in a future edition is the addition of some symbol to designate records of which no copy is known to exist. Here and there the editors note that a particular recording has "never been found," but this should be done more consistently. Even with such a notoriously lost 78 as Pm 13096, only the absence of a master number indicates its status. Since 7 types of saxophone are differentiated in the instrumentation chart, I would also suggest that the Queen of Musical Instruments -- I mean, of course, the 12-string -- might be distinguished from the plain old 6-string guitar (perhaps as "12g").

The quibbles are quite minor. There is really nothing about this book that I don't like. Casual blues and gospel fans certainly don't need it, but it will be indispensable to those with a more serious interest.