Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta (Robert Palmer): A highly readable, anecdotal tour of the Delta's geography, personalities, customs and history told from a musician's perspective. Palmer explores the history and evolution of the blues as music, as well as the society and culture from which it sprang.  The book is filled with colorful stories and acecdotes on the blues, including Muddy Waters, the story of Robert Johnson, the Band, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, Ike an Tina Turner, Charlie Patton, and others.
	The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America (Nicholas Lemann): The best analysis of America's own Black Diaspora that took place between 1940 and the early 1960's. Lemann follows specific Black families out of the deep South and into the urban North with remarkable insight and compassion. A classic of contemporary history, this book is vivid, heartfelt and features a brilliant analysis of the social, political and cultural forces at work.  A New York Times bestseller, the groundbreaking authoritative history of the migration of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North. A definitive book on American history, The Promised Land is also essential reading for educators and policymakers at both national and local levels.
	Roll, Jordan, Roll (Eugene D. Genovese): A comprehensive interdisciplinary examination of "the world that the slaves made". This book presents an eloquent look at black and white power dynamics in the slave period and the forces they set loose in Southern culture and society.
	Robert Johnson/At The Crossroads (Scott Ainslie): Guitar transcriptions, annotated lyrics, historical introductory notes to each of Johnson's songs and a biography highlight this ground breaking work on Mississippi's most famous blues legend. Praised for its scholarship, as well as the accuracy of its transcriptions, this book has a place on the shelves of historians and musicians, alike. NOTE: This book is temporarily out of print.
	Rising Tide: The 1927 Flood of the Mississippi and How It Changed America (John Barry): This is another epic cross-disciplinary study of events in the Mississippi River valley that stretches across two centuries and cultures. One of the most influential and readable books I have read in the last decade.
	Roots 'n Blues (Columbia/Legacy): CD Boxed Set. White and black roots for American Blues including mountain string band, early country, gospel, primitive blues, cajun music and early rhythm and blues.
	Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings (Sony/Columbia): CD Boxed Set.   All 41 surviving takes of the twenty-nine songs recorded by this Mississippi Blues legend in the 1930's which upon their re-release in 1962 literally changed the direction of rock through the work of Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin and others. Other artists: Son House, Muddy Waters, Blind Blake, Jimmy Reed, J.B. Lenoir, Bukka White, B.B. King, Leadbelly (Deeper South); and Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee (Durham); Libba Cotten and Etta Baker (NC).
	North Carolina Blues, Parts 1 & 2 (Living Blues Magazine, February and April, 1993) Profiles of living blues musicians from all across the state, a valuable resource! Available from Living Blues, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677, or e-mail lblues@cssc.olemiss.edu
	Interview: Scott Ainslie (Acoustic Musician, October, 1995) An interview that exposes much of the background and social context of blues and addresses some of the issues that Blues music faces today.  Available from Acoustic Musician Magazine, PO Box 1349, New Market, VA 22844-1349, or e-mail acoustic@shentel.net
	The Land Where The Blues Began (Alan Lomax) An unequaled video introduction to the American musical and cultural background of Mississippi Delta Blues (a companion to Lomax's book by the same name).  Set in an era as harsh and fertile as Delta silt, The Land Where the Blues Began reveals how the river of African-American culture overtook its repressive banks--to give us R & B, soul, rock 'n' roll, and the only purely American art form, the blues. Alan Lomax takes us on an adventure into the "bad old days" of the post-slavery, Jim Crow Mississippi Delta--the birthplace of the blues--when railroads and levees were being built and cotton boomed at the expense of Southern working-class African Americans. Singing of their misery and their barely concealed rage, the Bluesman enlisted their African heritage to keep their souls alive and in the process created the first satirical song form in the English language. We meet Muddy Waters (the father of modern blues), learn how Robert Johnson met his end, and are introduced to Fred McDowell and Son House, who taught Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton how to play the blues.
	The Search For Robert Johnson (John Hammond) A video tour of the Delta with blues artist John Hammond as your host, examining the haunts and few existing acquaintances of this blues legend.