Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music.(Book Review)

Edited by Allan Moore. (Cambridge Companions to Music.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. [xviii, 208 p. ISBN 0-521-90635-6. $60. (hbk.); ISBN 0-521-00107-2. $22. (pbk.).] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, discography, index.

There are few genres of music that have influenced the development of American popular music and the popular music traditions of Europe, Africa, and Asia like blues and the gospel traditions of African Americans. The impact of these genres on other traditions can be traced easily through the gospel-inspired sound of Elvis Presley, the fusion of blues and rock that defined the sound of the Rolling Stones and Cream in the 1960s, and the gospel-laced nuances of rhythm and blues artists Aretha Franklin, Jackie Wilson, and Sam Cooke. The Cambridge Companion to Gospel and Blues Music is the latest volume in a series of anthologies dedicated to the study of various forms of music from jazz to musical theater. It focuses on the ever-evolving, ever-complex history and performance etiquette of the gospel and blues traditions. The breadth of the discussion presented in the articles contained in this work indicate the complexity of trying to understand these traditions, especially outside of the cultural and communal confines of the black community, as well as the, duplicitous nature of trying to separate the sacred and secular of the black aesthetic.

The essays contained in this volume move easily from the most basic introductory discussion of the blues to intricate analyses of the performance practices of vocalists and instrumentalists, to cultural and historical examinations of how racial identity and social politics and practices have shaped the music and the lives of its purveyors. While these individual essays have their own respective merit, together they lack the type of balanced discussion to justify calling this collection a companion to blues and gospel. The discussion offered on the blues is more defined and explorative than that on gospel music. One never gets the clear sense that there is more than just a passing ...