Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, & Billie Holiday 
 
Angela Y. Davis. 
 
Pantheon: 1998. First edition. Hardcover in a jacket. Book good with slight foxing on the top edge and a cocked spine. Jacket very good. Inscribed. 
 
"The railroad tracks were concrete evidence of something different, perhaps better, somewhere elese. The protagonist of 'Traveling Blues' does not know, in fact, where she is headed. Yet she had purchased her ticket and is certain of the fact that she has got to go wherever her travels may lead her. This song provides a powerful refutation of the blues cliche that 'when a man gets the blues, he hops a train and rides, [but] when a woman gets the blues, she lays down and cries.'"