The history of purely American music is the story of the blues, which combined West African and Caribbean fables and folk tales with the hardscrabble life of an expanding nation. Ted Gioia’s new book Delta Blues explores the history and makes the links between Robert Johnson’s meeting with the devil and modern genre-benders like the Black Keys and North Mississippi All-Stars. Click below for the full review.

• From the Delta to the Black Keys: The Story of the Blues

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