Satan and Adam CDs

Harlem Blues / Mother Mojo / Living on the River  (Reviews)

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Seems Like Murder Here:

Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition

By Adam Gussow

Seems Like Murder Here offers a revealing new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard times, the blues emerges in this provocative study as a vital response to spectacle lynchings and the violent realities of African American life in the Jim Crow South. With brilliant interpretations of both classic songs and literary works, from the autobiographies of W.C. Handy, David Honeyboy Edwards, and B.B. King to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, Seems Like Murder Here will transform our understanding of the blues and its enduring power.

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Seems Like Murder Here reshapes the blues to form a resonant and persuasive narrative of violence, trauma, memory, resilience, expressive cultural resistance, and healing. As an intimate practitioner and inspired scholar, Gussow offers stunning insights and provocative new understandings of the blues worldview. he is abreast of blues in song, lyricism, story, and action, and his ambitious and impressive tale is blues itself at its audacious and speculative heights."

— Houston A. Baker, Jr., author of Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature

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Seems Like Murder Here  is a cogent and insightful reflection on the meaning and purpose of the blues. Gussow has liberated the genre by establishing it as a vehicle for chronicling and interpreting the complex relationship between music, its performers, its venues, and the conditions that informed and shaped its content. This book will fascinate anyone who is interested in exploring this marvelous music and American culture."

— Daphne Duval Harrison, author of Black Pearls: Blue Queens of the 1920s

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Seems Like Murder Here  is a true and rare presentation of the blues. With this phenomenal book, Gussow becomes a triple-crown winner in his contributions to the blues: as a brilliant performer, as a poignant memoirist, and now as a seminal blues scholar."

— Sterling D. Plumpp, author of Blues Narratives

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 Satan and Adam albums: Harlem Blues / Mother Mojo / Living on the River  (Reviews)

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Adam Gussow is assistant professor of English and southern studies at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Mister Satan's Apprentice: A Blues Memoir and has been a professional blues harmonica player for many years, touring widely in the 1990s a s part of the Harlem-based duo Satan and Adam.

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 updated 17 March 2009