Beautiful images from the legendary Ann Arbor Blues Festival – a long-running even that's pulled together an amazing range of talent over the years – a good number of whom are featured here! The festival probably hit its biggest fame in the early 70s – when recordings documented work by Sun Ra, Art Ensemble, and many blues musicians – and most of the images here even predate those years, as almost all the photographs appear to be from 1969 and 1970 – huge appearances for still-living blues legends! The quality of the images is great – and the book features images of John Lee Hooker, Son House, Sippie Wallace, Sunnyland Slim, Roosevelt Sykes, Fred McDowell, Little Brother Montgomery, Willie Dixon, Robert Lockwood, Buddy Guy, Lowell Fulson, and many others – all in crisp, vintage black and white. 128 pages, softcover, with images throughout. (Books, Blues) Book

The fascinating story of a modern day utopia – an attempt to build a new African-American city from the ground up in rural North Carolina – envisioned as a moment of pride, power, and new opportunity – but one that never fully came to be! Before the book, we'd never heard of Soul City before – but it's clear that the planning and support for the project were huge at the time, before political forces brought the whole thing to a standstill just as it got going – a tale that's spun out here in a richly detailed narrative that provides for a compelling, if heartbreaking, read. Book is 434 pages, hardcover, with some black and white images. Book