In the 1950s and '60s, the blues was the dominant form of Black vernacular music throughout Texas and the surrounding areas. In segregated neighbourhoods, community members gathered in saloons, dancehalls, and each other's homes to hear their neighbours sing their stories of sorrow, heartbreak, jubilation, and triumph. Robert 'Mack' McCormick, an academically untrained but fanatical devotee of the blues, stepped into this world and became one of its most devout advocates and documentarians. By photographing Black and Latino Texans and their neighbourhoods, as well as recording and interviewing musicians, many of whom never stepped foot into a proper recording studio, McCormick endeared and eventually embedded himself into these communities. By the time he died in 2015, McCormick had amassed a collection of 590 reels of sound recordings and 165 boxes of manuscripts, original interviews and research notes, thousands of photographs and negatives, playbills, and posters. Because McCormick never published or released most of these materials, his collection became a thing of legend and intense speculation among scholars, blues aficionados, and musicians alike. 'Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958-1971' is the first compilation of music drawn from this fabled collection, which indelibly documents a pivotal moment in African American history. It features never-before-heard performances not only from musicians who became icons in their own right, including Lightnin' Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb, but also, crucially, performers whose names may be unfamiliar to even the most devoted blues fans and scholars.
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