Margo Cooper visits Gibson’s Bookstore, 45 S. Main St., on Feb. 20 to share her stunning new book of photographs and interviews, Deep Inside the Blues. Cooper will be joined in conversation by Holly Harris, host and producer of Spinning the Blues, a radio show airing Saturday nights on WUMB. Margo and Holly’s conversation will cover the musicians in the book, the music they made, the clubs in the Boston area, (including Harper’s Ferry, the original House of Blues, and Johnny D’s), and the clubs, picnics, and festivals in Mississippi and Helena, Arkansas they’ve attended, and Margo’s photographs.
Deep Inside the Blues collects Margo Cooper’s interviews with blues musicians, most born in Mississippi, and is illustrated with over 160 of her photographs, many published here for the first time. For 30 years, Cooper has been documenting the lives of blues musicians, their families and homes, neighborhoods, festivals, and gigs. Her photographic work combines iconic late-career images of many legendary figures including Bo Diddley, Honeyboy Edwards, B.B. King, Pinetop Perkins, and Hubert Sumlin with youthful shots of Cedric Burnside and Sharde Thomas, themselves now in their thirties and forties. During this time, Burnside and Turner families and other Mississippi artists such as T-Model Ford, James “Super Chikan” Johnson, and L.C. Ulmer entered the national and international spotlight, ensuring the powerful connection between the authentic Delta, Hill Country, and Piney Woods blues musicians and their audience continues.
The Feb. 20 event begins at 6:30 p.m. There is no registration required. Can’t make this event? Order the book at gibsonsbookstore.com and leave your personalization/signing request in the order notes.
