You have the advantage of me in understanding the allusions
in this series. Knowing little of the history of the blues, I
never could discern what was real and what was imagined in
the plots, and the villains were implausible, so I gave up
after the second one.
Joy
Karin Montin wrote:
> Leavin' Trunk Blues is another story altogether.
Mark Sullivan has
mentioned it a number of times. Ruby Walker, serving life in
prison for killing Billy Lyons, asks Nick Travers, a blues
tracker -- a university professor who hunts down old songs
and musicians and writes about them -- to clear her name. At
first he doesn't really believe she is innocent, but then
events lend credence to her claim.
>
> An unusual thing about this story is not just that
it is based on a
well-known song about a murder, which tells us whodunnit
right off the bat, but that virtually all the characters are
either from songs or are actual historical figures. At the
same time, I was reading the companion book to the PBS blues
series produced by Martin Scorscese, and the same names kept
cropping up. I wondered how their descendents feel about
having them portrayed as they are in the story.
>
> The historical background was interesting and there
was a lot of action.
It was good, but not great. I think I'll try to read his
Crossroad Blues, about the death of Robert Johnson, which
most people seemed to agree was better.
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