Overview

"How do you love and not like the same thing at the same time? This was the riddle that met Mississippi writer B. Brian Foster when he returned to his home state to learn about black culture and found himself hearing about the blues. One moment, black Mississippians would say they knew and appreciated the blues. The next, they would say they didn't like it. For five years, Foster listened and asked: ""How?"" ""Why not?"" ""Will it ever change?"" This is the story of the answers to his questions. In this illuminating work, Foster takes us where not many blues writers and scholars have gone: into the homes, memories, speculative visions, and lifeworlds of black folks in contemporary Mississippi to hear what they have to say about the blues and all that has come about since their forebears first sang them. In so doing, Foster urges us to think differently about race, place, and community development and models a different way of hearing the sounds of black life, a method that he calls listening for the backbeat."

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9781469660424

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Reviews

Foster's thoughtful and well-researched look at race and the blues via an exploration of a distressed and declining Southern rural town will be useful to music and sociology academics. -Library Journal

Author Information

B. Brian Foster is assistant professor of sociology and southern studies at the University of Mississippi.

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