Albert King: The Velvet Bulldozer (The Roots of the Blues) - Couverture souple

Godfrey, Simon

Couverture souple

ISBN 13 : 9798235137660

Editeur : Simon Godfrey, 2026

Synopsis

Albert King held his guitar wrong.

Left-handed, he played a right-handed Flying V flipped upside down - never restrung, strings running backward, bends pulled in a direction no method book ever taught. It wasn't a style choice. It was what a poor kid in Depression-era Arkansas did when there was no money for the "correct" instrument and no one around to say otherwise.

That accident became one of the most stolen sounds in American music.

Born on a Mississippi cotton plantation in 1923, King spent two decades on the edges of the blues before Memphis's Stax Records - a soul label with no blues artists on its roster - paired him with a house band tight enough to let a single bent string carry an entire bar. The record they made together, Born Under a Bad Sign, became a songbook other people got famous from. Eric Clapton built Cream's version of the title track out of it. Jimi Hendrix studied King from the crowd. A teenage Stevie Ray Vaughan begged to sit in one night in Austin and got a lesson he carried for the rest of his life.

King spent the next twenty-five years watching younger, richer guitarists sell out arenas playing variations of a vocabulary he'd invented - and waiting for an industry that was in no hurry to say his name. It finally did, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, twenty-one years after he was gone to hear it.

The Velvet Bulldozer is the story of how a "wrong" way of holding a guitar became one of the rightest sounds in American music - and how long it took the world to catch up.

Know the story. Hear the blues differently.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Simon Godfrey is a lifelong blues enthusiast and avid listener whose deep knowledge of the genre comes from decades spent following the music wherever it led. He now writes to put that knowledge into stories, researching each subject in depth so the history behind the music gets the same care as the music itself.

His work is written for blues fan, and curious newcomers alike, with one aim: to help readers discover and understand the music through deeply researched, engaging stories that connect the artists, songs, recordings, and influences that shaped the blues - so they can uncover forgotten treasures, understand why the music matters, and hear the blues in a whole new way.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Simon Godfrey
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 13: 9798235137660
• Reliure: Paperback
• Nombre de pages: 108
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible