Reviewed by Tony Cummings

In case you didn't know, Britain's Paul Oliver is the most celebrated blues scholar in the world and down the years has written a series of books which have vastly increased our understanding of African American blues music. Screening The Blues was originally published in 1968 and the Da Capo Press reprint put back into circulation an important volume which will provide rich pickings for all blues enthusiasts. For Cross Rhythms readers the two most interesting chapters are The Santy Claus Crave, which documents how blues singers like Peetie Wheatstraw, Walter Davis and Leroy Carr recorded numerous blues about Christmas and Santa Claus and sometimes, bizarrely, attributed almost Godlike characteristics to the mythical figure. Even more fascinating is the long chapter Preaching The Blues which recounts how many bluesmen made references to God in their songs. This chapter, coupled with Getting The Blues by Stephen J Nichols, shows that some bluesmen had a very real Christian faith while others, though living the life of bad whiskey and bad women, still retained some vestiges of Christian thinking in their songs. Having said all this, there is a much longer chapter The Blue Blues which many Cross Rhythms readers will find pretty unpalatable, containing as it does dozens of lyrics of old blues songs ranging from the mildly erotic to the graphically pornographic. There's something surreal about an academic writing in such dry studious terms about lyrics which sometimes resemble the scrawlings on a lavatory wall, though it could be argued, even here, that Oliver's detailed analysis of endless double entendres about jelly rolls and dentists filling cavities were needed for us to more fully understand black culture.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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