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Blues, Funk, R&B, Soul, Hip Hop, and Rap: A Research and Information Guide. By Eddie S. Meadows. New York: Routledge, 2010. [xxviii, 388 p. ISBN 9780415973199. $150.] Appendices, indexes.
Jazz Books in the 1990s: An Annotated Bibliography. By Janice Leslie Hochstat Greenberg. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010. [xvii, 209 p. ISBN 9780810869851. $45.] Indexes.
A bibliography can be more than a list. If the citations are carefully arranged, the overall presentation can be read like a report written in shorthand. Annotating a bibliography increases the opportunities for reportage, not only for readers today, but also for tomorrow's researchers who may realize that some of the listed items may have fallen out of print during the meantime. Such notes are greatly needed for topics in popular music, for which many books and magazines may be held only in a few libraries. Two new publications by Meadows and Greenberg offer annotated bibliographies for several styles of African American popular music.
For the last thirty years, Eddie S. Meadows has produced several books and annotated bibliographies on jazz, the most recent of them being Jazz Scholarship and Pedagogy: A Research and Information Guide (New York: Routledge, 2006). The title of the present work, Blues, Funk, R&B, Soul, Hip Hop and Rap: A Research and Information Guide, suggests a complementary offering to that previous volume. Blues seems to be ascribed by many writers as "roots" for nearly every contemporary popular music style today, but Meadows's addition of funk, R&B (rhythm and blues), and soul to his scope are appropriate as they are indeed African American outgrowths from the blues. Hip hop and rap may be descended not as much from the blues, but rather more from the oral arts and games that have been shared among African Americans as cultural traditions parallel to the blues. The three sections are broadly proportioned, with blues containing 445 citations, funk, R&B and soul having 354, and rap and hip hop 545. Meadows cites books, dissertations, and articles from periodicals and journals, and in four appendices he adds Web resources and periodical titles. He appears to aim for comprehensive coverage instead of completeness, a sensible and manageable strategy in view of the fat size of Robert Ford's second edition of A Blues Bibliography...