Blues Journey

by Walter Dean Myers Narrated by Richard Allen

Overview

The opening line of this call and response style verse asks the question that forms the thread throughout - Blues, what you mean to me?

In a magnificent collaboration of words, art, and song, a timeline of the blues is presented in a soulful reading and dramatic musical accompaniment that offers a compelling evocation of the blues experience.

A Live Oak Media audio production.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

This handsomely designed volume by the father-and-son creators of Harlem succeeds as an introduction to the blues genre but lacks a story line to unify the disparate verses. The author begins with a history of the blues, tracing its roots to Africa and describing its metamorphosis in America, as freed captives began to explore lyrics fully and white musicians became influenced by the musical form. He explains that the first two lines represent a call, and the third is the response. In one of the most effective spreads, Walter Dean Myers subtly alters the repetition of the call to chilling effect: "My landlord's cold, cold as a death row shave/ My landlord's so cold, cold as a death row shave/ Charged fifty cents for a washtub, three dollars for my grave." Opposite, Christopher Myers uses blue ink and white paint on brown bags to depict two boys looking out one side of a window, one peering fearfully around the corner, the other holding up his hand, perhaps in protection, perhaps in an attempt to escape. The sides of the window and a collage screen create a sense of imprisonment. But a few juxtapositions are jarring, such as a portrait of a boy reading with a stately, elderly woman appearing over his shoulder, while the verse seems to indicate a romantic sentiment ("I hollered to my woman, she was across the way/ I said I loved her truly, she said,/ `It got to be that way' "). All ages. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 2-6-Father/son talents Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers teamed up to create a beautiful exploration of musical blues (Holiday House, 2003). The elder wrote and Christopher illustrated this deeply symbolic tale. A collection of blues verse follows an in-depth introduction that studies the historical roots and the musical elements of blues. The call-and-response text is brought alive by narrator Richard Allen's enthusiastic rendition of the text, accompanied by simple blues instrumentation. Although this title will provide a wonderful introduction to blues music, it will be appreciated by those who have thoroughly studied the subject as well. The illustrations and text, sometimes paired with a hauntingly lonely harmonica, explore such subjects as poverty, lynching, slavery. and injustice. One verse reads: "Heard the top deck groaning, yes, and the ocean roar/ Heard my brother crying till I couldn't hear no more/ O Lord, O Lord/ Ain't it hard when your brother's crying/ And you don't hear him anymore?" The subjects are serious and sensitive, but perhaps the first verse in this collection ultimately sums up the books intention: "Blues, blues, blues/ Blues, what you mean to me?/ Are you my pain and misery/or my sweet, sweet company?" Appropriate for group or individual listening, this title is best utilized with adult guidance to help with the blues glossary in the back of the book. An essential addition to school and public library collections.-Kirsten Martindale, formerly Menomonie Public Library, WI Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A powerful union of text and image transmutes itself into a work of art-and it explains what the blues is, besides. Walter Dean Myers takes fragments of blues songs and creates an arc of poetry with them. His son, Christopher, using only brown paper, blue ink, and white paint, creates a visual counterpoint to the words that sometimes reflects them and other times goes to a different but related place. In his one-page introduction, the elder Myers describes the blues as coming from the encounter between the five-tone scale and the call-and-response singing of African music, and the American idiom. This volume comes as close as you can in print to reproducing the feeling of the blues, even as Chris Raschka did for Bird in Charlie Parker Played Be Bop (1992), and does it in a way that small children can grasp. "Hollered to my woman, / she was across the way" shows a boy and his grandmother hovering over an open book; "Misery loves company, / blues can live alone" shows two boys sitting on a curb, one turns from the other. "If you see a dollar, tell it my full name" faces a portrait of a young man against a wrought iron fence. He holds his shoe up to his face and looks steadily through the hole in its sole to gaze at the viewer. Myers fils wields his limited palette in extraordinary ways: figures are blue and blue-black and brown, they have a sculptural presence against dark or light backgrounds, and their postures respond strongly to the words. "Blues, what you mean to me? / Are you my pain and misery, / or my sweet, sweet company?" Children will see both replies in the pictures and in the sweet dark rhythm of the words. (introduction, time line, glossary) (Picture book. 6-11)

From the Publisher

★ "A powerful union of text and image transmutes itself into a work of art-and it explains what the blues is, besides. Walter Dean Myers takes fragments of blues songs and creates an arc of poetry with them. His son, Christopher, using only brown paper, blue ink, and white paint, creates a visual counterpoint to the words that sometimes reflects them and other times goes to a different but related place." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

★ "In this collection of original poems, Myers's blues extend themselves to themes of racism, loneliness, slavery, and just plain hard luck. Christopher Myers's illustrations are impressively composed and imaginatively varied in design. You'll have to make up the tunes, but Myers père et fils are so deeply immersed in the rhythms and idioms of the blues that the music will seem to come right out of you in response." —The Horn Book, Starred Review


"The blues' deceptively simple rhyme scheme tracks the deeper feelings of lives that have been bruised. In this picture book for older readers, Myers offers blues-inspired verse that touches on the black-and-blue moments of individual lives. His son Christopher's images, which illustrate the call-and-response text, alternate between high spirited and haunting." —Booklist

FEB/MAR 06 - AudioFile

By itself, BLUES JOURNEY is an enticing and provocative book. Once you've heard this recording, however, it will be impossible to consider it complete without the voice and music of Richard Allen. With the same articulation that Myers brings to his discussion of the evolution of the blues as a musical form, Allen brings depth to the poetry; he evokes the pain or joy of each poem through his deliberate, soulful reading and expressive musical accompaniment. This is a total experience, and the listener comes away wiser, richer, and uplifted. A.R. 2006 Audie Award Finalist © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172688690
Publisher:	Live Oak Media
Publication date:	01/01/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

Blues--what you mean to me?
Are you my pain and misery,
or my sweet, sweet company?

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