This collection of over fifty years of writing about the South and its music by Stanley Booth, one of the undisputedly great chroniclers of the subject, is a classic, essential read. Booth’s close contacts with many of the musicians he writes about provide a gateway to truly understanding the music and culture of Memphis and other blues strongholds in the South. Subjects include Elvis Presley, Otis Redding, William Eggleston, Ma Rainey, Blind Willie McTell, Graceland, Beale Street and much more. “You couldn’t ask for a better guide to American music than Stanley Booth, who drank deep from the source, experienced the past sixty years of Memphis and knows the century before that, and writes as flowingly and seductively as anyone alive.” —Luc Sante, author of Low Life and The Other Paris   “The heroic Stanley Booth is one of the great progenitors of the language and culture surrounding American popular music, one of the great enshriners of various forms of potentially lost knowledge, and one of the great survivors of the era and the scene.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Feral Detective   “[Stanley Booth] 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, author of Dino and Hellfire   “Stanley is the Magus of the Southland. Elected by ancestral right, esoteric knowledge, and apostolic succession, he knows things that cannot be learned.” —David Dalton, author of Who Is That Man? and James Dean   "The combination of Stanley's great warmth, subtle crusading, saucy humor, dazzling intellect, dizzying breadth of interests, and energy casts him as a truly unique literary giant....Stanley has romanced the abyss, enduring a harrowing high-wire act between life and death, light and dark. His profiles are voiced with unmistakable insight, desire, empathy, and awe."  —Kandia Crazy Horse, editor of Rip It Up: The Black Experience in Rock n' Roll “Further entertaining testimony from a music journalist whose writing pulsates with the same blues rhythms as the soil and streets in which they were born.” -- Kirkus Reviews “Booth is as well informed on Memphis as just about anyone and his insights into the city and its culture are valuable for understanding the evolution of American music.”  -- Shepherd Express "Not one pull punches, Booth is a joy to read, issuing insightful perspectives with irreverent humor and a keen eye for detail that most writers miss...A truly remarkable volume that deserves a wide audience of music enthusiasts!" —  Blues Bash Magazine Stanley Booth is the author of The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones , Keith: Till I Roll Over Dead  and  Rythm Oil: A Journey Through the Music of the American South . He has written for  Rolling Stone ,  Esquire  and  Playboy, among other publications. He wrote the first serious articles about Elvis Presley and Otis Redding in 1967 and won the Playboy Best Nonfiction Award for his 1970 piece on Furry Lewis. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee. Red Hot and Blue Fifty Years of Writing About Music, Memphis, and Motherfuckers By Stanley Booth Chicago Review Press Incorporated Copyright © 2019 Stanley Booth All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-64160-106-1 Contents Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication Page, Blues Dues, "Chimes Blues," by Joe "King" Oliver, Ma Rainey: The Mother of the Blues, Blind Willie McTell, Furry's Blues, Furry's Blues Again, Situation Report: Elvis in Memphis, 1967, The Memphis Soul Sound, The Gilded Palace of Sin: The Flying Burrito Brothers, The 1969 Memphis Blues Show: Even the Birds Were Blue, Dixie Fried, Blues for the Red Man, Beale Street's Gone Dry, The King Is Dead! Hang the Doctor!, Graceland, Mose Allison, Wiregrass, Fascinating Changes, The Godfather's Blues, Elementary Eggleston, Sweet Daddy, BobbyRush!, For Real: Marvin Sease, Where the People Smile, Hands Up!, Distant Thoughts, Why They Call It The Blues, Mr. Crump Don't Like It: If Beale Street Could Talk, Red Hot and Blue, Index, CHAPTER 1 BLUES DUES "Underpaid and overprivileged," is how one reporter described his livelihood. That's how it's been with me. While barely surviving, I've hung out with the most amazing characters. A few years ago, I received in the mail, with increasing urgency, a series of postings that consisted of at least two galley proofs and three letters from a New York literary agent whose client (a regular, probably salaried, contributor to one of the oldest American periodicals, one named after an ocean) had written a history of the blues. My collection of blues- and jazz-related pieces, Rythm Oil, had appeared about four years earlier and, according to the agent, her client liked it a bunch. He wanted my endorse