Description
Book SynopsisExplores the work of professional blues musician Lonnie Johnson, demonstrating how his recorded works reveal lyrical and musical themes that call into question critical assumptions about the genre.
Trade Review“With an impressive command of primary and secondary literature, including archival materials, The Inconvenient Lonnie Johnson makes an original contribution to the growing body of interdisciplinary scholarly work that seeks to understand music’s connection to politics, society, and ethnicity. Simon’s work is subtle and sophisticated.”
—Charles Hersch,author of Jews and Jazz: Improvising Ethnicity
“A scrupulously researched, exceedingly well-written, and deeply insightful work of original scholarship. Surprisingly, there is very little written about Johnson; Simon’s book thus fills a giant hole in the literature on American jazz, blues, and popular music from the first part of the twentieth century.”
—Andrew Berish,author of Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams: Place, Mobility, and Race in Jazz of the 1930s and ’40s
“[A]n engaging and informative read for the hobbyist and novices to the history of blues music.”
—Monica F. Ambalal Journal of Jazz Studies
