Too Much — Robert James

Selected stories inspired from the recorded gems of the Delta blues, Chicago blues, Memphis blues and Texas blues. Called "the Devil's music," the stories of the blues goes beyond jump turns, slow drag ditties, reel, jigs, minstrel songs, ragtime, or the buzzard lope. These lyrics connected to these stories celebrate heartache, separation, distrust, betrayal, lust, but they promise a healing love of revival and renewal. It's a celebration of the present, of the now, and it's totally mad at the past and suspicious of the future. But who are kidding? Let us tell the truth. Really, the themes of this raucous collection often wallow in carnal pain, in the weakness of the flesh, and the temptation of sin. Taboo love, forbidden love. Sometimes it's just plain nasty. All of the good stuff.

In Too Much Boogie, the spirit of the blues afflicts everybody. Within the emotional pull of the lyrics and its stirring music, there is a common language of the heart and the soul. Although the blues were born and bred in the land of Jim Crow by black people, it has nothing to do with class, color, or category. Even the rich get the blues and do dumb things. The book shows there is a pulse beating within each of us and that pulse is the blues.

1. The Things I Used to Do by Alegra Verde
2. For Love or Money by Alice Sturdivant
3. Rocking Chair Blues by Jayme Whitfield
4. What's in the Box by Kalamu ya Salaam
5. Mother's Milk by Kevin James Breaux
6. Ask the Heart by Akua Lezli Hope
7. She Had to Go and Lose It at the Astor by D. L. King
8. The Summer of Bobby by Jolene Hui
9. Can't Be Satisfied by Gary Phillips
10. Midnight Special by Victor J. Banis
11. Tricked by Zander Vyne
12. Come for Me, Dark Man by Anne Tourney
13. Heaven is a Blues Café by Hzal
14. Red Eye by Lisabet Sarai
15. The Backup Singer by Rebecca Kyle
16. Hole by Remittance Girl
17. Once You Go Black by Amanda Fox
18. Goodbye Blues by Thomas S. Roche
19. Effects of Moonshine by Dorla Moorehouse
20. It's Tight Like That by Cole Riley
21. The Principal of the Thing by Savannah Stephens Smith
22. P.K. by Art Nixon
23. Warming Up by Maxmilian Lagos
24. My Strongest Weakness by C. Dennis Moore
25. Head Games by Robert Buckley
26. Sunday Morning by Dean Jean-Pierre
27. The Room by Nick Nicholson
28. Hurricane Love by Alicia Night Orchid