Deep Ellum Blues
Kevin Pask, Concordia University
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Essay Sections:
Introduction | Discovering Deep Ellum | Blues History and Urban Life | The Demise of Deep Ellum | Conclusion: Deep Ellum Revived |Notes | Recommended Resources

Recommended Resources:

Links:
The Handbook of Texas
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/index.html
This website, maintained by the Texas State Historical Association, is a wonderful resource for Texas history, providing accurate information and useful bibliography about a wide variety of topics. See, in particular, entries for "Dallas," "African Americans," "Deep Ellum," and "Blues."

Documentary Arts
http://www.docarts.com/about/index.html
Documentary Arts is the organization founded by Alan Govenar, the leading historian of Deep Ellum. The organization chronicles and preserves the history of black Dallas, including a photography archive and an oral history archive.

Wikipedia entry on Deep Ellum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Ellum
This entry is particularly useful for the history of the neighborhood in the past 25 years. It includes several recent photographs of clubs and street life in the area.

Marion Butts Photography Archive
http://www.dallaslibrary.org/CTX/photogallery/marionbutts.htm
Marion Butts was the leading African-American photographer of Dallas in the middle of the twentieth century. The Dallas Public Library has an archive of his photographs of black Dallas, some of which are exhibited on this site.

Dallas Public Library Online
http://www.dallaslibrary.org/
The online catalogue of the Dallas Public Library can access a wide range of digitized versions of photographs from its collection.

Dallas Observer Online
http://www.thedoordallas.com/rdh/observer_july_1999.htm
Summary of the recent (1980s-1990s) history of Deep Ellum, according the files and staff of the Dallas Observer, Dallas' leading alternative newspaper.

Frank Campagana's Website
http://www.franksart.net/
This is the website of Frank Campagana, who ran Studio D in the early 1980s. The section, “Early Years,” contains some of his concert posters from the period.

The Official Site of the Grateful Dead
http://www.dead.net/
The Official Site of the Grateful Dead contains information about, as well as a variety of recorded performances of, their version of "Deep Elem Blues."

Film:
Deep Ellum Blues
http://www.folkstreams.net/filmfacts,159
This film is one of three short films in the Living Texas Blues series which explores the 1920's and 1930's night life in Dallas through the music of Bill Neely. (10:56 min) Online streaming video.

Print Materials:
Clayton, Lawrence and Joe W. Specht, editors. The Roots of Texas Music. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003.

Govenar, Alan B, and Jay F. Brakefield. Deep Ellum and Central Track: Where the Black and White Worlds of Dallas Converged. Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 1998.

Greene, A. C. Dallas: The Deciding Years—A Historical Portrait. Austin: Encino Press, 1973.

Hill, Patricia Evridge. Dallas: The Making of a Modern City. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.

Lornell, Kip and Charles Wolfe. The Life and Legend of Leadbelly. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Malone, Bill C. Country Music U.S.A. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.

McDonald, William L. Dallas Rediscovered: A Photographic Chronicle of Urban Expansion. Dallas: The Dallas Historical Society, 1978.

Oliver, Paul. Blues Off the Record: Thirty Years of Blues Commentary. New York: Da Capo, 1984.

The WPA Dallas Guide and History. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1992.

Essay Sections:
Introduction | Discovering Deep Ellum | Blues History and Urban Life | The Demise of Deep Ellum | Conclusion: Deep Ellum Revived |Notes | Recommended Resources

Published: 30 October 2007

© 2007 Kevin Pask and Southern Spaces