The Blues Singers: Ten Who Rocked the World. Illustrations by Lisa Cohen, 2001.A grandfather passes on to his granddaughter stories about ten blues singers from Bessie Smith to Aretha Franklin. From "Muddy Waters", p. 21: I remember Muddy myself. The first time I saw him was shortly after I moved up north from Nashville, Tennessee. His band was playing in the Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the autumn of 1961. There he stood, among the sculptures of Brancusi, Giacometti, Henry Moore, and Alexander Calder, singing the blues to an audience of white people — and me! The sun was going down, and the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan hovered over us, but he and his band rocked like they were playing at a barbecue in somebody's yard down in Mississippi. I had never seen a black man carry himself with the confidence and dignity that Muddy Waters did. He made me feel like I could deal with anything the world put in my path. His were the blues of joy, exuberance and triumph. |
|
