Blue Chicago

by Grazian, David

• ISBN13: 9780226305899
• ISBN10: 0226305899
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Blue Chicagotakes us inside the world of contemporary urban blues clubs to uncover how iconicyet emptyimages of the blues are manufactured and sold to music fans and audiences. Drawing on countless nights in dozens of blues clubs throughout Chicago, David Grazian shows how this quest for authenticity has transformed the very shape of the blues experience. He explores the ways in which professional and amateur musicians, club owners, and city boosters define authenticity and dish it out to tourists and bar regulars. He also tracks the changing relations between race and the blues over the past several decades, including the increasing frustrations of black musicians forced to slog through the same set of overplayed blues standards for mainly white audiences night after night. In the end, Grazian finds that authenticity lies in the eye of the beholder: a nocturnal fantasy to some, an essential way of life to others, and a frustrating burden to the rest. "Chicago has given the world distinctive forms of urban blues and urban sociology. . . . InBlue Chicago, David Grazian's lucid and bracingly unpious study of the blues scene, the two homegrown traditions meet with satisfying results."Carlo Rotella,Chicago Tribune

Author Biography

David Grazian is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Prologue: How Blue Can You Get
A Night in a Chicago Blues Club	xv
Introduction: Black and Tan Fantasy
Searching for the Chicago Blues	1	(32)
1 Blues in Black and White
The Politics of Race and Authenticity	33	(28)
2 The Fashion of Their Dreams
Inventing Authenticity in the Nocturnal City	61	(26)
3 Like Therapy
The Blues Club as a Haven	87	(38)
4 Keepin' It Real
Chicago Blues Musicians and the Search for Authenticity	125	(40)
5 Chicago Confidential
The Rise of the Blues Club as a Tourist Attraction	165	(32)
6 Sweet Home Chicago
Selling Authenticity in the Urban Metropolis	197	(32)
7 Conclusion
The Search for Authenticity	229	(14)
Notes	243	(36)
Bibliography	279	(14)
Index	293