Red Hot and Blue: Fifty Years of Writing About Music, Memphis, and Motherf**kers

by Stanley Booth

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.

Genres: Music, History, Journalism

400 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2019

About the author

Stanley Booth was an American music journalist based in Memphis, Tennessee. Characterized by Richie Unterberger as a "fine, if not extremely prolific, writer who generally speaking specializes in portraits of roots musicians, most of whom did their best work in the '60s and '50s," Booth has written extensively about Keith Richards, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, James Brown, Elvis Presley, Gram Parsons, B.B. King, and Al Green. He chronicled his travels with the Rolling Stones in several of his works.

Reviews

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant collection, marred only slightly by the fact that several of the pieces had already been gathered in Rythm Oil: but, at that, it was well worthwhile becoming reacquainted with those essays.

[Javier Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you release a passionate, witty, highly literated journo with an addictive writing style on the Memphis music world you get a brilliant set of stories, some of them unforgettable, about a genre of music thats has originated most of what we love: blues, jazz, soul, r&b, rock.
A must read.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

He's got the beat.

My thoughts on Stanley Booth's latest collection. He's been at it for fifty years and is still fine as wine...
https://www.splicetoday.com/music/sou...

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few can say "I was there" regarding major musical moments of the 20th century as frequently, truthfully, and impressively as Stanley Booth, who toured with the Rolling Stones, joined Otis Redding at Stax days before his death, and swept the Memphis streets with Furry Lewis, among other existential accomplishments. Luckily for the rest of us, Booth is also an extraordinarily gifted stylist, who lends skills honed by reading deeply and widely to subject matter too often covered by amateurs. Less fortunately, for decades he'd only produced three books over a 50+ year career -- iconic, almost holy tomes by the estimation of any true student of music history. Now, at last, comes another, just as the 20th century recedes into a strange, often burdensome memory, in need of some redemptive interpretation. Booth's reflections on American music, his renderings of artists known and unknown, and the gravity and grace he grants these subjects, remind us that, as he's written elsewhere, American music contains, at its best, "a deep strain of mysterious insurrection," which has fueled some of the finer moments of our spotty collective history. Booth's work is a light in the darkness in which we find ourselves.