Rythm Oil: A Journey Through The Music Of The American South

By Stanley Booth

Book Overview

Here are Stanley Booth's acclaimed writings about the South and the music that emanates from it. Rythm Oil --you don't have to know how to spell "rhythm" to have it in your body and soul--is a potion sold on Beale Street in Memphis. The home of Sun Records, B. B. King, Elvis Presley, Howlin' Wolf, and Jerry Lee Lewis, Memphis is also the home of fantastic stories and broke-down dreams. As Booth makes his way from Memphis to the Mississippi Delta to the depths of the Georgia woods exploring the sounds, the music, and the culture of the American South, "he has produced some of the most gracefully written, thoughtful, and thought-stirring musings on the characters--the famous and the forgotten, the infamous and the unknown--who command the kingdom or drift through the shadowland of the South's rich-chorded patrimony" (Nick Tosches, Los Angeles Times ).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306809796
• ISBN13: 9780306809798
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.5" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

All roads lead to Memphis

This book really captured the true essence of the influence of Memphis on the world music scene. Popular music is poorly written about and is normally glamorized or scandalized. This book really seems to capture the true essence of the music, the musicians, and the times. This book was so interesting to me I went to Memphis last summer on vacation and went to many of the old out of the way musical history spots in Memphis.

Author Booth breaks back, spirit in attempt to convey music

Stanley Booth has always sacrificed something for his work; whether it's his health or his sanity or his relationships but never his sense of humour. Rythm Oil takes its shape as an overview of Memphis, living on through yellow fever and famine, the death of all its musical heroes, who as it happened, came to Memphis and died there or who were born there and who left never to return. Even Booth, who today lives in Georgia, his home state, can't seem to find it in his heart to repudiate this strange and fascinating town with its greasy river that recently claimed another musical hero, Jeff Buckley. Memphis is a town of contradictions: its streets run north-south and its avenues run east-west, something Priscilla Presley never knew. "It's like she lived in a cocoon," remarks Booth, talking to his mother who replies "She did, it was on top of her head."

A look at the source of all popular music; Memphis Blues.

Booth seems to have written this book in his own blood. He lived among and through many of the people who's stories he tells. Booth shows Memphis to be the fountain from which popular music has flowed across the years and the world. Booth exposes the roots of rock & roll, soul and even country music with love and devotion