Samuel Charters belongs to a small group of writers about music whose work has transformed their -subject--without his discoveries, insights and interventions, the history of blues over the past 50 years would have been very different. This book is a -collection of his writings from 1954 to 2004.

Samuel Charters walks us from Houston, Texas alongside Lightnin' Hopkins and Thunder Smith to Memphis and Willie B, and on to St. Louis. The book includes chapters from his writing on the poetry of the blues and on country music.

Samuel Charters has written several books on the blues, as well as novels and memoirs. Many of his original recordings of artists who never reached a recording studio are available on CD.