Instead, the text predominates, along with a handful of photographs. It really is the definitive history of Texas blues, and though a large format, relatively expensive book, this is hardly the coffee table book its size implies. Their collaboration certainly does not disappoint. Urged on by the likes of Tony Russell and Arhoolie's Chris Strachwitz, Govenar, in turn, brought on board the noted musicologist Kip Lornell to assist him in putting together the final manuscript. Thanks to Texas A&M University, the project is now available, thanks to researcher, photographer and film-maker Alan Govenar who, after conferring with Oliver during the last years of the latter's life. For various reasons- health problems, mistrust and the difficulties of transatlantic communication in a pre-internet era- the book has languished in literary limbo ever since 1977. It was first conceived way back in 1959 at a time when blues scholarship was still in its infancy, by two of the most renown blues scholars Paul Oliver, author of, amongst many other books Blues Fell This Morning and Songsters and Saints, and Mack McCormick, "discoverer" of Mance Lipscomb and Lighnin' Hopkins, also known for his research on Robert Johnson and, for legal reasons, perhaps the most infamous blues research project, on Johnson entitled The Biography of a Phantom, never to see the light of day. The Blues Came to Texas was, and is, intended as a definitive history of Texas blues. It seems like I've been hearing about this book for ever.
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