This book is a cultural tour of the burial places of Southern musicians. It honors the men and women that formed modern American music. Detailed here are the gravesites of more than 300 blues, country and rock musicians through the South from New Orleans to Kentucky. The gravesites of well-known musicians such as Bill Monroe, Tammy Wynette, Duane Allman and Mahalia Jackson are visited, as well as the final resting places of dozens of less well known, but vitally important, American musicians. Many pictures of gravesites are included, along with specific directions to burial sites. The book is especially thorough in relation to the most important cities in Southern music--Nashville, New Orleans and Memphis. There are numerous side trips through Cajun country, blues related sites in Mississippi, old time country musicians' final resting places throughout Alabama and North Carolina, and many other places in all the states of the South.

Jazz and Death: Reception, Rituals, and Representations critically examines the myriad and complex interactions between jazz and death, from the New Orleans "jazz funeral" to jazz in heaven or hell, final recordings, jazz monuments, and the music’s own presumed death. It looks at how fans, critics, journalists, historians, writers, the media, and musicians have narrated, mythologized, and relayed those stories. What causes the fascination of the jazz world with its deaths? What does it say about how our culture views jazz and its practitioners? Is jazz somehow a fatal culture? The narratives surrounding jazz and death cast a light on how the music and its creators are perceived. Stories of jazz musicians typically bring up different tropes, ranging from the tragic, misunderstood genius to the notion that virtuosity somehow comes at a price. Many of these narratives tend to perpetuate the gendered and racialized stereotypes that have been part of jazz’s history. In the end, the ideas that encompass jazz and death help audiences find meaning in a complex musical practice and come to grips with the passing of their revered musical heroes -- and possibly with their own mortality.

A pivotal member of the hugely successful bluegrass band Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, Dobro pioneer Josh Graves (1927-2006) was a living link between bluegrass music and the blues. In Bluegrass Bluesman, this influential performer shares the story of his lifelong career in music. In lively anecdotes, Graves describes his upbringing in East Tennessee and the climate in which bluegrass music emerged during the 1940s. Deeply influenced by the blues, he adapted Earl Scruggs's revolutionary banjo style to the Dobro resonator slide guitar and gave the Foggy Mountain Boys their distinctive sound. Graves' accounts of daily life on the road through the 1950s and 1960s reveal the band's dedication to musical excellence, Scruggs' leadership, and an often grueling life on the road. He also comments on his later career when he played in Lester Flatt's Nashville Grass and the Earl Scruggs Revue and collaborated with the likes of Boz Scaggs, Charlie McCoy, Kenny Baker, Eddie Adcock, Jesse McReynolds, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and his three musical sons. A colorful storyteller, Graves brings to life the world of an American troubadour and the mountain culture that he never left behind. Born in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, Josh Graves (1927-2006) is universally acknowledged as the father of the bluegrass Dobro. In 1997 he was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

Offers a guide to the shrines, graves, and memorabilia of jazz, blues, country, rhythm and blues, and rock musicians.

1970- issued in 2 vols.: v. 1, General reference, social sciences, history, economics, business; v. 2, Fine arts, humanities, science and engineering.

This book relates the stories and describes the memorials of the people buried in Shelby, North Carolina's historic Sunset Cemetery, a microcosm of the Southeastern United States. The authors, an academic and a journalist, detail the lives and memories of people who are buried here, from Civil War soldiers to those who created the Jim Crow South and promoted the narrative of the Lost Cause. Featured are authors W.J. Cash and Thomas Dixon, whose racist novel was the basis for The Birth of a Nation. Drawn from historical research and local memory, it includes the tales of musicians Don Gibson and Bobby "Pepper Head" London, as well as a paratrooper who died in the Battle of the Bulge and other ordinary folks who rest in the cemetery. A bigger responsibility is to give a voice to the silenced, enslaved people of color buried in unmarked graves. Cemeteries are sacred places where artistry and memory meet--to understand, we need both the tales and the tombstones.