An internationally recognized pianist, composer, scholar, and conductor, Peter C. Muir is the cofounder and codirector of the Institute for Music and Health in Verbank, New York.

Received a Certificate of Merit in the Best Music History category from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), 2011."Required reading for lovers of the blues and historians of American popular music."--Notes "One of the most important and original books on blues to be published in the past decade."--The Journal of Southern History, David Evans "Muir's revealing book contributes significantly to understanding how sheet music and the pop music industry influenced the blues. An important work."--Tim Brooks, author of Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 "This fascinating work discusses the genesis and introduction of a minority music genre into mainstream culture in a way that is impossible to ignore, given the importance of blues connections to other genres. Essential reading for anyone interested in American popular music."--Dick Spottswood, host of The Dick Spottswood Show on BlueGrassCountry.org and editor of Ethnic Music on Records

• Acknowledgments   ixA Word about the Music Examples   xiIntroduction   11. The Popular Blues Industry, 1912-1920   72. The Identity and Idiom of Early Popular Blues   283. Curing the Blues with the Blues   804. The Blues of W. C. Handy   1045. The Creativity of Early Southern Published Blues   1416. Published Proto-Blues and the Evolution of the Twelve-Bar Sequence   181Appendix: Titular Blues, 1912-1915   217Notes   221Major Works Consulted   243General Index   245Song Index   251