R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country August 30, 2007
Posted by Tom Moore in : Uncategorized , trackback
R. Crumb was the quintessential cartoonist of the Sixties, part of what set the Summer of Love apart visually from that which came before and after. The hippies, while busy rejecting middle-class and mainstream social values across the board, were at the same time rediscovering culture that had been forgotten, devalued, had been part of an underground America, whether it was country blues, old-time string bands, or western swing. R. Crumb’s images reflect this fascination with the style of thirty or forty years earlier (now, of course, the music of the sixties is now as distant for us as the music of Charlie Patton or Blind Willie McTell was for Crumb and the hippies).
This charming little book presents full page portraits in color by Crumb of dozens of important early musical figures, together with brief biographies. As a bonus, you get a CD with tracks recorded by those depicted.
ML394 .C35 2006
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Have you seen the film “Ghost World” directed by Terry Zwigoff (who also directed the documentary “Crumb”). There are drawings by and references to R.Crumb slipped in, as well as a great and eclectic soundtrack, centering around an archaic recording of “Devil Got My Woman” by Skip James.