Softcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 6th pr., 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 231 pages, b&w illustrations. Charles Keil examines the expressive role of blues bands and performers and stresses the intense interaction between performer and audience. Profiling bluesmen Bobby Bland and B. B. King, Keil argues that they are symbols for the black community, embodying important attitudes and roles--success, strong egos, and close ties to the community. While writing Urban Blues in the mid-1960s, Keil optimistically saw this cultural expression as contributing to the rising tide of raised political consciousness in Afro-America. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
