In the summer of 2009, two friends embarked on a road trip through a narrative history of American music. They visited cities of the dead, sold their souls at the Crossroads, dipped their feet in the Mississippi, and made memories with preachers, police, and teachers. Musicians, hippies, and gatekeepers. And when the dust settled, they discovered more than just music. They found the Blues.

From 'Crossroads Blues' to 'Sweet Home Chicago', 'Hellhound on My Trail' to 'Come On In My Kitchen', Robert Johnson wrote some of the most enduring and formative songs of the original blues era, songs that would go on to help shape the birth of rock'n'roll in the 1960s. Beloved of Clapton, Dylan and the Stones, Robert Johnson remains one of the most iconic and mythologised figures in popular music (and the first of many to die at the age of 27). Born in the in the South in Mississippi, Johnson made his way to the urban North as a travelling musician, but it was only when he returned to the South that he recorded the twenty-nine songs, in two sessions, which would create his legacy.Exploring the stories and legends that surround his life and death - his childhood, his womanising, his pact with the devil at the crossroads - Mezzo and DuPont have produced a fittingly creative and beautiful depiction of this most extraordinary life.

In this thinker's guide to rock and roll, Robert Pattison contends that rock music mirrors the tradition of 19th-century Romanticism. The music is vulgar, he notes, and vulgarity is something that high culture has long despised but rarely bothered to define. This book is the first effort since John Ruskin and Aldous Huxley to describe in depth what vulgarity is, and how, with the help of ideas inherent in Romanticism, it has slipped the constraints imposed on it by refined culture and established its own loud arts.

Here is the eagerly awaited new edition of The Oxford Book of American Poetry brought completely up to date and dramatically expanded by poet David Lehman. It is a rich, capacious volume, featuring the work of more than 200 poets-almost three times as many as the 1976 edition. With a succinct and often witty head note introducing each author, it is certain to become the definitive anthology of American poetry for our time. Lehman has gathered together all the works one would expect to find in a landmark collection of American poetry, from Whitman's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry to Stevens's The Idea of Order at Key West, and from Eliot's The Waste Land to Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But equally important, the editor has significantly expanded the range of the anthology. The book includes not only writers born since the previous edition, but also many fine poets overlooked in earlier editions or little known in the past but highly deserving of attention. The anthology confers legitimacy on the Objectivist poets; the so-called Proletariat poets of the 1930s; famous poets who fell into neglect or were the victims of critical backlash (Edna St. Vincent Millay); poets whose true worth has only become clear with the passing of time (Weldon Kees). Among poets missing from Richard Ellmann's 1976 volume but published here are W. H. Auden, Charles Bukowski, Donald Justice, Carolyn Kizer, Kenneth Koch, Stanley Kunitz, Emma Lazarus, Mina Loy, Howard Moss, Lorine Niedecker, George Oppen, James Schuyler, Elinor Wylie, and Louis Zukosky. Many more women are represented: outstanding poets such as Josephine Jacobsen, Josephine Miles, May Swenson. Numerous African-American poets receive their due, and unexpected figures such as the musicians Bob Dylan, Patti Smith and Robert Johnson have a place in this important work. This stunning collection redefines the great canon of American poetry from its origins in the 17th century right up to the present. It is a must-have anthology for anyone interested in American literature and a book that is sure to be consulted, debated, and treasured for years to come.

Poet, critic, and hybrid-genre artist Johnson tracks the use of trouble in word, concept, and practice in this debut of brief, elliptical, lyric essays. He moves through a wide swath of 20th- and 21st-century music, always alert to a sense of melancholy shared among songwriters, their songs, and their listeners in the ever-growing web of popular music. "When we say 'trouble,' we refer to the history of trouble whether or not we have it in mind. When we sing trouble, we sing (with) history," Johnson writes. "A Trouble Song is a complaint, a grievance, an aside, a come-on, a confession, an admission, a resignation, a plea. It's an invitation-to sorrow." The effect of all this trouble is dizzying. Highly annotated-often to personal, humorous, and hidden effects-the book weaves among genres, chronologies, and various forms of trouble to ask "Where are we in song? Who are we in song?" Johnson suggests that an answer lies somewhere in the locus of singer, song, and listener-the "essential relations in the Trouble Song." Detouring into philosophy, cultural theory, and verse, Johnson works multilaterally to explore what trouble in popular music does to connect listeners, embolden them, and open a space from which trouble can be addressed across time.

The story of one man’s efforts to authenticate a photograph of the influential King of the Delta Blues amid pushback from others. After Zeke Schein purchased the lost photograph of Robert Johnson online, he knew he held something important in his hands. But would anyone else see what he saw? One of only three or four known photos of the legendary blues guitarist, the photograph was certainly an exceptional artifact of music history. Despite official recognition of its authenticity by the estate of Robert Johnson, music historians have continued to dispute the photograph’s legitimacy. The story of Johnson’s lost photograph is also the story of Schein’s crusade to prove he’s holding a bona fide piece of music history. Much like a modern-day Don Quixote in a felt fedora, Schein is on a mission to convince others to see the truth as only he can. “When you love the music and the person behind the music, you want to know more about him. That’s what this book is all about.”—from the foreword by Dion DiMucci, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and author of Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth “Magic and mystery meld with humility and history. Portrait of a Phantom is a tale told by a true acolyte and seeker of the source of the blues.”—Patti Smith, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and author of the National Book Award–winner Just Kids “A fascinating trip into the world of blues history . . . The details and anecdotes herein give a great perspective to “the Phantom.””—John Hammond, blues singer and musician

An electrifying collection of the most entertaining and illuminating writing on and from the rock-and-roll scene. "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" assembles the writing of those who played the music and pushed it to new limits, as well as those who were there to witness and celebrate its power. 20 photos.