Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes

July 6, 2009
Blind Willie McTell may be “the most important Georgia bluesman to be recorded” in the first half of the 20th century, but so little information about him has survived that, for Gray, who's previously written about Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa, “getting the story is itself part of that story,” making this less a biography of the blind musician than a memoir of the effort to uncover his past. At its best, the results are colorful anecdotes about Gray and his status as a British tourist in rural Georgia, where being neither a Yankee nor a white Southerner usually makes it easy for him to get along (save for one disturbing encounter with a state prison security detail). At other times, however, Gray pads his account with arguably superfluous details, including descriptions of the public libraries he visited during his research. He is quick to acknowledge where the facts leave off and his speculations begin, and unafraid to offer critical judgment, especially when it comes to evaluating the racist culture in which McTell lived. Those who were hoping for a definitive biography of McTell may be disappointed, but enough of his story pokes through for even nonblues fans to grasp his enduring appeal.

June 15, 2009
Investigation of the great Georgia bluesman.

Since the British journalist and music researcher has mainly been known as a Bob Dylan authority (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, 2006, etc.), it's natural that Gray would have more curiosity than many about Blind Willie McTell, whose artistry inspired the Dylan song of the same name. Though McTell never enjoyed a popular hit during his brief but rich life, his"Statesboro Blues" posthumously became a signature tune for fellow Georgians the Allman Brothers Band. Less a conventional biography than a mixture of history, travelogue and detective story, Gray paints an evocative portrait of an artist who defied blues stereotypes. He was an educated man whose musical training ranged from church to glee club. He found it so easy to get around that he would help direct other blind people, and he benefited from white patrons and audiences—though the author by no means minimizes the racism of the society in which McTell lived. It's curious that Gray intends the book less for the blues fan than for"those who have never heard of him, and have no particular interest in that particular kind of old music," since it's hard to imagine casual readers wading through all the minutiae, half truths and dead-ends that the author encounters as he attempts to render the details of McTell's life. Yet his recounting of his last years—when the diabetic artist, bereft after the death of his second wife, suffered a stroke that led to his hospitalization in a mental institution, where he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1959—has a poignancy that rewards all the research. After the book's initial publication in the United Kingdom in 2007, Gray has continued to update.

What matters most about McTell is his music, and Gray's solid book will lead readers there.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2009
Probably best known to aging boomers and their issue for composing the Allman Brothers signature song, Statesboro Blues, Blind Willie McTell (18981959) was a huge influence on 1960s rockers in the U.S. and Britain. Statesboro, which borrowed lyrics from Sippie Wallaces Up the Country Blues (itself later reworked as Canned Heats Goin Up the Country), is as riff-heavy in McTells acoustic 12-string rendition as in the Allmans epic electric version and is the essence of McTells influence. Englishman Gray traveled to the American South to gather information on McTell that he uses to good advantage in the most comprehensive work to date on the bluesman. He engrossingly presents incidents in McTells early life in the South and a highly detailed account of his career, which included more than one disappearance followed by rediscovery, a few times under a pseudonym. Grays work should place McTell permanently in the pop-music pantheon. Hey, Jann WennerBlind Willie McTell in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Make it happen!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)