title: Looking Up at Down: The Emergence of Blues Culture
author:  William Barlow 
description: In this encyclopedic work of interest to specialists rather than general readers, Barlow, who teaches radio, television and film at Howard University, traces the blues as music and culture from its origins on cotton plantations in the 1890s through migration to urban ghettos in the 1920s, to its commercialization in today's recording studios. Basing much of his study on interviews with blues musicians and scholars, Barlow analyzes the music and examines in depth the lives of the men and women who wrote and performed it. He devotes sections to the major blues personalities and includes numerous examples of lyrics, demonstrating that the blues, a powerful emotional outlet for an oppressed people, also tells the story of African-American resistance to white domination. <BR>Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: The Blues: A Very Short Introduction
  
  **Very Short Introductions available now:**
  
  > ADVERTISING **Winston Fletcher**
  
  > AFRICAN HISTORY **John Parker and Richard Rathbone**
  
  > AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND ELECTIONS **L. Sandy Maisel**
  
  > THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY **Charles O. Jones**
  
  > ANARCHISM **Colin Ward**
  
  > ANCIENT EGYPT **Ian Shaw**
  
  > ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY **Julia Annas**
  
  > ANCIENT WARFARE **Harry Sidebottom**
  
  > ANGLICANISM **Mark Chapman**
  
  > THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE **John Blair**
  
  > ANIMAL RIGHTS **David DeGrazia**
  
  > ANTISEMITISM **Steven Beller**
  
  > THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS **Paul Foster**
  
  > ARCHAEOLOGY **Paul Bahn**
  
  > ARCHITECTURE **Andrew Ballantyne**
  
  > ARISTOTLE **Jonathan Barnes**
  
  > ART HISTORY **Dana Arnold**
  
  > ART THEORY **Cynthia Freeland**
  
  > ATHEISM **Julian Baggini**
  
  > AUGUSTINE **Henry Chadwick**
  
  > AUTISM **Uta Frith**
  
  > BARTHES **Jonathan Culler**
  
  > BESTSELLERS **John Sutherland**
  
  > THE BIBLE **John Riches**
  
  > BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY **Eric H. Cline**
  
  > BIOG