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Scrapper Blackwell: Borrowed Blues
Paperback
Series: The Roots of the Blues, Book 15
MusiciansBlues & SoulMusic Reference
Publisher: Simon Godfrey
Published: Sep 13 2026
Pages: 114
Weight: 0.31
Height: 0.27 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
SCRAPPER BLACKWELL: BORROWED BLUES
He helped shape the sound of the blues. Then the world forgot his name.
Before Robert Johnson recorded Sweet Home Chicago, Scrapper Blackwell was already playing the guitar lines that would help shape its musical ancestry.
A brilliant, unconventional guitarist from Indianapolis, Blackwell became half of one of the greatest partnerships in early blues when he joined forces with pianist and singer Leroy Carr. Together they created landmark recordings including How Long, How Long Blues and Blues Before Sunrise.
But Blackwell's story did not end with success.
After Carr's death in 1935, he walked away from professional music and disappeared from the recording world for more than two decades. He returned in the late 1950s to find that his extraordinary guitar technique had survived intact.
Then, just as a new generation was beginning to rediscover him, his life was violently cut short.
Scrapper Blackwell: Borrowed Blues tells the story of a gifted, fiercely independent musician whose influence was far greater than his fame-and whose music still deserves to be heard on its own terms.
Know the story. Hear the blues differently.
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