The Blues Highway: New Orleans to Chicago
Richard Knight

$13.96 - ISBN: 1873756437

'The Blues Highway: New Orleans to Chicago' is the definitive music and travel guide to the roots of jazz and blues. It follows Highway 61 and the Mississippi River to explore the cradle of American music.

Deep Blues
Robert Palmer

$11.16 - ISBN: 0140062238

This is the best of the semi-academic texts on the development of blues in America. Palmer wrote the book back in the late seventies but it is still a gripping and highly insightful read.

Chasin' That Devil Music
Gayle Dean Wardlow

$13.96 - ISBN: 0879305525

Wardlow is one of America's best-known blues writers and this book, which includes a CD of interviews and music, searches for the very origins of blues and paints a vivid picture of the lives of stars like Tommy Johnson and Charley Patton.

The Land Where the Blues Began
Alan Lomax

$25 - ISBN: 0679404244

Suffering now from limited availability, this book is a blues classic. Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded early blues for the US Library of Congress during the forties. His was a unique vantage point from which to observe the development of the genre.

Blues All Around Me
BB King, David Ritz

$11.20 - ISBN: 0380807602

The Beale Street Blues Boy's autobiography is a compelling sift through the author's life from his early days in Indianola, Mississippi to his eventual domination of stages worldwide.

Sweet Soul Music
Peter Guralnick

$13.60 - ISBN: 0316332739

An intelligent and entertaining stroll through the Stax phenomenon charting the rise and fall of the Memphis sound in the context of racially troubled sixties America.

The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz
Barry Kernfeld (Editor)

$42 - ISBN: 0312113579

This classic jazz reference is not for the faint-hearted. With 4500 articles on every aspect of jazz it delights devoted fans but it isn't an easy read.

The Rough Guide to Jazz
Brian Priestley (Editor)

$18.86 - ISBN: 1858285283

An easy-to-read alternative to the New Grove Dictionary, Rough Guide's effort is a useful introduction to jazz capably edited by Priestley. It has also benefited from contributions by leading British jazz star Digby Fairweather.

Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life
Wynton Marsalis, Carl Vigeland

$17.50 - ISBN: 0306810336

Get to know the New Orleanian jazz darling as he takes you on tour through his life and gives some useful insights into both the past and future of jazz as he travels.

Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life
Laurence Bergreen

$12.80 - ISBN: 0767901568

Any Satchmo biographer courts trouble. How can you synthesize the life of such a towering genius in a way which appeals to fans but explodes the myths and hype? Bergreen's stab at it is pretty convincing and leaves the reader with a vivid impression of Armstrong's personality.

Jazz: A History of America's Music
Geoffrey C Ward et al

$45.50 - ISBN: 067944551X

This heavy tome is the printed version of Ken Burns' ground-breaking series on the history of jazz. Burns' series divided jazz lovers but the extensive use of early film archive and explanatory interviews with Wynton Marsalis made the series - and the book - the best attempt to chronicle jazz history so far.