Title: Weathered chunk of history
Product review: Roger Wood begins this labor of love with a tacit admission that, on moving to H-town in 1981 for job related purposes, he was unaware of the blues history lining the cracks of the nearby Third Ward sidewalks until the February 1, 1982 obituary in the Houston Chronicle of lifelong native Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins. With this tome under his belt it appears he's made up for lost time since then.In addition to covering the wealth of blues greats who were either born in Houston or called the area home for any length of time, Wood also documents the underbelly of the lower class club scene, those low rent juke joints and converted shotgun houses that kept the I-IV-V alive all those decades, and still continues to do so. Wood rightfully laments the city's growing distance from it's blues heritage as well as the disappearance of it's historic venues, but "Down in Houston" is a verbal and pictorial testament to the bedrock that no one can strip away.
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