Reviews
"The most comprehensive work to date on the bluesman." —Booklist
"Gray paints an evocative portrait." —Kirkus Reviews
"A superb meditation on a rare American figure, one who grows more mysterious and iconic the more Gray reveals of his facts and context; a brilliant exhibition of how musical study becomes cultural study; and an elegant and passionate book that expands until its subjects seems to be time and memory themselves." —Jonathan Lethem, author, The Fortress of Solitude
"The blues is the bedrock of popular music, and while its story has been told many times, rarely has it been told as effectively as this." —Record Collector
"More than a search for the bluesman Blind Willie McTell, this is an evocation of a whole vanished world . . . Part biography, part genealogy, part history, part travel writing, this wonderful book is suffused with empathy for its subject." —Independent on Sunday
“[An] assiduous work of reclamation." —Observer
"A wonderful book about a spellbinding musician." —Guardian
"Gray . . . presents not just an authoritative portrait of the great bluesman, but also vivid history of the South in general and the area of rural Georgia that was mostly home to McTell, with an especially vivid account of the Civil War." —Uncut
Author Biography
Michael Gray is the author of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, Mother: The Frank Zappa Story, and Song and Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan.