Blues Journey

Blues Journey

•  author:  Walter Dean Myers  http://www.walterdeanmyers.net/
• illustrator:  Christopher Myers  "no author website"
• medium: blue ink, white paint, and brown paper bags

• year of publication:  2003
• publication city:  New York
• publisher:  Holiday House
• ISBN:  0-8234-1613-5

annotation:  An introductory lesson to the African American legacy of blues music, using Myers’ poetry in “call and response” structure.  Accompanying artwork depicts African American blues experience from the end of slavery to today.

Personal thoughts:  My initial reaction to Blues Journey was that the pictures are very haunting and blue, almost ghostly.  It’s like we’re looking into the past.  Christopher Myers’ art is non linear and seemingly not connected from one page to the next.  The poetry is sparse and I thought it was going to be a quick, easy read.

Myers’ introduction is fantastic, describing a brief and full lesson on the history and theory of the blues.  For decades, I’ve heard blues and I never realized the “call and response” singing form, where a first verse represents the call, and the second verse representing the singer responding to their own call. 

Strange fruit hanging, high in a big oak tree

Strange fruit hanging, high in a big oak tree

You can see what it did to Willie,

can you see what it does to me?

Within the first paragraph of the introduction I have been taught a huge lesson in blues music.  The introduction explains the development of blues music as an intersection of African singing style and seven-tone scale with European English. 

The poems themselves are the real deal.  I wasn’t sure if the poems were taken from actual blues classics, but concluded that Walter Dean Myers has written new blues lyrics that are legitimately good enough to be sung as traditional blues.  The material is heart-wrenching and complicated, using lots of symbolism and sophisticated language.  Combined with Christopher Myers’ sparse paintings, you really get a feel for blues music and can almost hear steel strings in the background as you read the haunting lyrics.

***use of symbol -  strange fruit hanging, high in a big oak tree

***use of repetition,***use of sophisticated language - 

Pain will push and poke you, 

despair will scrape the bone

Pain will push and poke you, 

despair will scrape the bone

Misery loves company, 

blues can live alone