BLUES-SINGER, songwriter, piano- and guitar-player, William Bunch (1902-1941) was well-known as Peetie Wheatstraw, the Devil's Son-in-Law and the High Sheriff from Hell. Long recognized by con-noisseurs as one of the most influential blues people of all time, his life and work are little known to the broad public. Blues scholar Paul Garon's important and abun-dantly illustrated study-drawing on his own extensive interviews with Wheatstraw's relatives, and fellow musicians-brings the exciting Wheatstraw saga to life at last.
With insight and imagination, Garon explores Peetie Wheatstraw's crucial role not only in blues history, but also in African American urban mythology (he was, for example, a pivotal character in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man), and-via a penetrating analysis of song lyrics-his appreciable contributions to blues poetry and to vernacular surrealism.
Originally published in England in 1971, this substantially revised and expanded edition includes a mass of new information and images as well as an updated bibliography, discography, and index.
Also included with the book is a 24-track CD portraying Peetie at his best, with a bonus track by "Peetie Wheatstraw's Buddy" Harmon Ray-the previously unissued XMAS BLUES!
"A brilliant reconstruction of one particular blues singer and the life he must have led . . . a fascinating picture of an era long-departed . . . a very fine book." -Derrick Stewart-Baxter, Jazz Journal
"A model for any future books of this kind. No blues lover should fail to read this illuminating account." -Bob Groom, Blues World
