Looking for fiction about blues/jug bands/medicine shows
July 17, 2018 10:58 AM Subscribe
I love the blues, especially early blues (pre 1940), and after having read numerous factual accounts and histories of blues musicians I'm really interested in reading fiction set in that world. I'd be grateful for any recommendations for fiction featuring black musicians in the early part of the 20th century, especially featuring blues/ragtime/jug bands and the like.
Victor LaValle's stunning The Ballad of Black Tom features a black blues guitarist in 1920's New York.
posted by oh pollo! at 11:22 AM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by oh pollo! at 11:22 AM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
Jackie Kay's Trumpet might work. It's set in 1997 but looks back over the career of jazz musician Joss Moody over the previous fifty years.
posted by paduasoy at 12:14 PM on July 17, 2018
posted by paduasoy at 12:14 PM on July 17, 2018
Murder Ballads, a graphic novel with accompanying blues soundtrack.
posted by CheeseLouise at 1:11 PM on July 17, 2018
posted by CheeseLouise at 1:11 PM on July 17, 2018
The time period is earlier than your target but I'm going to sneak in a recommendation for Tom Piazza's A Free State, which is set in the world of blackface minstrelsy in 1855. (While antebellum minstrel troupes were very white indeed, the novel revolves around a black banjo player and escaped slave.)
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 2:46 PM on July 17, 2018
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 2:46 PM on July 17, 2018
Perhaps a bit on the nose, but how about Ragtime, by EL Doctorow? I've not read it, but it's on my to-read list as I've just finished his novel The March, which I loved.
posted by Rinku at 5:06 PM on July 17, 2018
posted by Rinku at 5:06 PM on July 17, 2018
Half-Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan
Ragtime, mentioned above, is a wonderful novel, but it's not about ragtime musicians, from what I remember. It's about an era in American history.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 10:19 PM on July 17, 2018
Ragtime, mentioned above, is a wonderful novel, but it's not about ragtime musicians, from what I remember. It's about an era in American history.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 10:19 PM on July 17, 2018
P.S. Not about a black protagonist, but Young Man With A Horn is loosely based on the life of Bix Biederbecke.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 10:21 PM on July 17, 2018
posted by Miss T.Horn at 10:21 PM on July 17, 2018
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posted by neroli at 11:17 AM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]