Blues Routes: Heroes & Tricksters

Blues Routes: Heroes & Tricksters Review

Blues Routes is a resonant almanac of blues styles and blues-related music and musicians including: Memphis barrelhouse and Harlem parlor piano players; blues guitarists from the Delta and Piedmont, San Francisco and Chicago; Kansas City and New Orleans jazz masters; hambone call-and-response and Mardi Gras Indian chants; Texas jump blues and Louisiana Creole zydeco; minstrel and jazz banjomen; street go-go bucket-drummers and railroad track-lining gandy dancers. In this fin de siècle collection, the diversity of American blues and blues-influenced styles and the unity of their African ancestral heartbeats can be heard in great performances recorded live at the influential Folk Masters concert and radio series.