Mister Satan's Apprentice: A Blues Memoir

Adam Gussow grew up in suburban New York and graduated in 1979 from Princeton, where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate--a fairly typical background for a white blues fan. But Gussow took his obsession with the blues further than most when he started blowing harmonica on the New York City streets in the mid-'80s along with two gifted African American musicians. Nat Riddles, a near-contemporary and fellow harp player, helped Gussow hone his technique (this is the source of many earthy jokes about what else harmonica men do well with their tongues), and Mister Satan, a much older guitar man, imparted life lessons as well. Gussow's funny, impassioned memoir chronicles the growing success of Satan and Adam at blues festivals and on albums while poignantly depicting Nat's battle with leukemia. The author is wildly romantic about the music (described in passages of intense, charging prose) and extremely clear-sighted about the racial tensions simmering in an art form created by blacks but increasingly listened to and played by whites. Alternating sections describing collegiate musical experiences and a love affair that finally broke up in 1984 are less fascinating, but this is a moving tribute to "our American music, the best in the world." --Wendy Smith