Rating: 
Summary: A vital book for anyone who's ever listened to rock.
Review: I write this from the perspective of someone who lives as far away from the Mississippi delta as you can get - I was born, brought up and live in India. I listened to The Beatles and everything that went after, for years, and thought the blues was boring guitar exhibitionism! I happened across Robert Palmer's book at the local American Center library and to invoke a hoary old cliche - my life was not the same again. It was briliiant, powerful and very revealing. Today, as I listen to the Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson, or the early Muddy Waters, I have Mr. Palmer to thank for showing me the Majesty of the Blues. Thank you!!
Rating:
Summary: A ROAD TRIP TO THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE BLUES
Review: I've been a big fan of the work of the late great blues historian/folklorist, Robert Palmer, for sometime now. His book, DEEP BLUES, is generally regarded as the definitive reference on the Delta tradition... and rightly so (needless to say, if you don't have it... get it). What a treat to finally get a chance to meet the guy... albeit, on my TV screen. In this eponymous documentary, Palmer assumes the role of the proverbial veteran "tour guide," casually offering us expert commentary, laced with entertaining anecdotes and served up with dry Southern wit. While we do hear and see a great deal of Palmer, the film never loses its main focus-- the blues and the musicians who keep this important element of American musical heritage alive and kicking. Each of the featured artists performs one or two songs in their entirety-- in sharp contrast to so many other music documentaries, which par down their musical selections to excerpted sound bites to make room for talk, talk and more talk. Here we find everything from down-home guitars and mouth harps being played on farm house porches to full bands--influnced by the modern Chicago-style, yet still distinctly "Pure Delta"--playing in dark, smoke-filled juke joints. True to the blues tradition, the music is hot and sweaty. You can't watch this film and sit still--you gotta shake something. Highlights: cane fife player Napoleon Strickland (you can hear more of this wonderful pre-blues tradition on TRAVELING THROUGH THE JUNGLE: NEGRO FIFE AND DRUM MUSIC FROM THE DEEP SOUTH, an album on the TESTAMENT label, and several ARHOOLIE compilations); the totally stylin' Jessie Mae Hemphill (granddaughter of Blind Sid Hemphill, the pre-blues style fiddler/quills [panpipes] player documented in the Lomax field recordings); harp player Bud Spires telling a folktale about the devil, accompanied by Jack Owen's soulful guitar picking in the cranky, individualistic Bentonia style, popularized by the early bluesman, Skip James; and Lonnie Pitchford's intense singing as he accompanies himself on the diddley bow (a raised metal string nailed to the side of a house, which you pluck with a plectrum and note with a slide).
Rating:
Summary: better than good
Review: If you like the blues, this DVD will deepen your appreciation.
Rating: 
Summary: A MUST HAVE
Review: If you're new on the blues scene, this is the ultimate book you MUST read. Hystorical background, artists, and styles descriptions are perfectly trimmed in an easy-reading and pasionate pace. Defenetly an EXCELENT book to us, the new generation of blues lovers. Only one notable absence: not a single word nor mention to Mr. Albert ICEMAN Collins. ?? That's the main reason I give it a 4 stars and not 5.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Place to Start and End
Review: Palmer's book was my introduction to the blues and I'm very glad of it because it's so wide and deep (like varying parts of the Mississippi River). You read this, you get the big picture story of the Delta Blues, how the music migrated to Chicago and other big cities and why it's so important to so much great music that came after it. It begins with musical historian Alan Lomax's fruitless search for Robert Johnson and ends with an older Muddy Waters, successful and wealthy, reflecting on his amazing journey. In between, we meet all the other players in Delta Blues, learn how the genre sprang up and see how it was adopted and copied wholesale by a slew of successful British and American rock 'n' rollers. Palmer never talks down to the reader but keeps his prose lively enough to entertain and educate a person with knowledge of the blues yet accessible enough to teach a neophyte. I find I come back to this book often to flesh out details of stories or anecdotes I've read elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic effort
Review: Palmer's love of the blues shines through in this exceptional book. He's not interested in showing off his knowledge of the form (although that knowledge is exceptional); he's interested in illuminating for the reader the roots of a great indigenous art form and how that form developed in the 20th century. In that effort, he succeeds masterfully. A fine early section explores how the music that we call the blues was seeded in N. America by African music. That chapter is a mini-history lesson in itself; Palmer shows how the music of slaves from W. Africa was viewed as subversive and dangerous by whites in the new land. The remainder of the book is chock full of portraits of the heroes of early blues in the Mississippi Delta, from Charley Patton to Son House to Robert Johnson to Little Walter to Muddy Waters and beyond. Palmer shows how these men developed a music that grew directly out of the soil of the Delta, making do with the instruments they had and often living itinerant lives, moving from tiny town to tiny town to play dances and juke joints to keep the music alive. The book also describes the historic migration of African-Americans from the Deep South to the industrial cities of the North, most importantly, of course, Chicago, where the musicians transformed the blues again, creating the electrified sounds that exerted such a powerful influence on white rock musicians from London to Liverpool to La Jolla, California. Palmer has given us a great work with "Deep Blues," one that should be read by students of music and social history alike. It deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of any serious lover of music.
Rating:
Summary: Sincerity!
Review: Probably the best music video to ever come around in the late 80s/early 90s.----This is really what the REAL blues is all about!! Not someone prancing about in a Versace suit brandishing a gold-plated Gibson Les Paul! Thanks to the incredible and much missed Robert Palmer and Dave Stewart we have a glimpse of what blues must've sounded like (and looked like) back in the days of Charley Patton.
This is an earthy, funky and sincere look at some of the remnants of that period......the artists are stoned, they play a semi-tone away from the rest of the band,their equipment probably came from sears & roebuck ...but the end result is a raw, gritty and no-holds barred excursion into the basis of rock and roll! Hound Dog Taylor would've looked great also on this video (if he had still been around)
Check out the c.ds of these artists on the Fat Possum label.
If you wish to bypass B.B. King and his gold rings or Clapton and his Dolce & Gabana black suit then this IS the book/video for you!
Rating:
Summary: Sincerity!
Review: Probably the best music video to ever come around in the late 80s/early 90s.----This is really what the REAL blues is all about!! Not someone prancing about in a Versace suit brandishing a gold-plated Gibson Les Paul! Thanks to the incredible and much missed Robert Palmer and Dave Stewart we have a glimpse of what blues must've sounded like (and looked like) back in the days of Charley Patton.
This is an earthy, funky and sincere look at some of the remnants of that period......the artists are stoned, they play a semi-tone away from the rest of the band,their equipment probably came from sears & roebuck ...but the end result is a raw, gritty and no-holds barred excursion into the basis of rock and roll! Hound Dog Taylor would've looked great also on this video (if he had still been around)
Check out the c.ds of these artists on the Fat Possum label.
If you wish to bypass B.B. King and his gold rings or Clapton and his Dolce & Gabana black suit then this IS the book/video for you!
Rating:
Summary: An insight into the real Delta Blues
Review: Robert Palmer concentrates on the Delta blues as played by the likes of Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters and many others. A good idea. Blues is such a vast thing, you could easily loose both focus and perspective if you try to put them all into the same bag.Palmer writes with a high degree of respect for the men (Bessie Smith is not an issue in this book) behind the blues, which is good. Not so good that the vicious discrimination and all that doesn't really play a part in Palmers book.
Rating:
Summary: This book is the BIBLE of juke joint fables!
Review: Robert Palmer wrote the most colorful stories on the blues I have ever read. The way he describes the way Ike Turner "accidently" discovers distortion/fuzz by having his amps fall off of the top of his station wagon as he is racing across state lines (narrowly outrunning the local law enforcement) in order to catch the last ferry crossing the Mississippi to make it to a second gig, wow! I would have loved to have knocked back a few tall cool ones with this guy!
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