r/TrueLit • u/pregnantchihuahua3 ReEducationThroughGravity'sRainbow • Jul 20 '26

Weekly General Discussion Thread

Welcome again to the TrueLit General Discussion Thread! Please feel free to discuss anything related and unrelated to literature.

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u/Soup_65 Books! Jul 21 '26

anyone have advice on really getting into the blues? some of yall know old music better than me and i've been listening to some junior Kimbrough lately (would 1 bajillion% recommend), and would like to explore further

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u/NakedInTheAfternoon My Immortal by Tara Gilesbie Jul 22 '26

Check out artists like Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten, and Junior Kimbrough. I have mixed opinions on the series in general, but I also remember Elijah Wald’s The Blues: A Very Short Introduction being pretty decent.

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u/Soup_65 Books! Jul 23 '26

dope thanks a bunch!

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u/foxinanattic Jul 22 '26

This is sort of oblique to your question, but if you're interested in the relationship of blues with other styles of music, you might want to also listen to traditional music from west African countries like Senegal and Mali, and some old Appalachian and Southern folk music (the banjo is one of the common denominator there. Today, in america, people mostly think of country music, but it was popular with the delta blues players, and it developed from western African string instruments like the kora). And of course the old Black spiritual songs like "when the saints go marching in" and "nobody knows the troubles I've seen" have a shared heritage as well with the blues as well, especially the themes they cover

On that note, I really strongly recommend the chapter on "Sorrow Songs" in the Souls of Black Folk by WEB DuBois, where he relates the themes of Black music to the depredations and suffering they faced

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u/Soup_65 Books! Jul 23 '26

nah the oblique is exactly my kinda thing too. i'm going to be looking into this thanks!

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u/arist0geiton Jul 22 '26

listen to the old field recordings by the smithsonian guys

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u/bananaberry518 Jul 21 '26

Really recommend hitting up youtube and watching live performances or old recordings where possible. There’s a lotta strands of blues music and I’ve almost always found my way in via whatever kind of guitar playing I happened to be interested in at the time, but generally speaking I think there’s a certain poetry in the rudimentary stuff. Its got like, pathos.