The odds are good that even if you don't recognize William Stout's name, that you're at least familiar with some of his work. An acclaimed artist, illustrator, designer, and overall creative genius, Stout has written and drawn both underground and mainstream comics; illustrated numerous book and album covers (including a few cool bootleg CD covers); worked on video games and theme park design (including Michael Jackson's private Neverland Ranch); and has even dabbled in film (he designed the alien Edgar for the first Men In Black movie, for instance).
Stout has worked for both Walt Disney Imagineering and George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic and has won numerous awards for his talents. Stout is probably best-known, however, for his dinosaur illustrations, and the original paintings from his book The New Dinosaurs have been exhibited in such lofty venues as the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. As it turns out, Stout is also a HUGE blues music fan, an obsession that has resulted in his recently-published book Legends of the Blues.
Here's the back story: in 2003, Shout! Factory Records released a series of "best of" albums on a number of legendary blues artists, and the label licensed several illustrations from Robert Crumb's Heroes of the Blues trading card set to use as CD covers. There were some musicians they were releasing compilations albums for, however, that Crumb had never illustrated, so Shout! Factory asked Stout to draw portraits of Ma Rainey, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and J.B. Lenoir similar to the Crumb illustrations. Stout enjoyed the task so much that he just kept on going, planning on creating three sets of 50 trading cards each. His publisher convinced him to do a book instead, which resulted in the wonderful Legends of the Blues.
Featuring 100 full-color illustrations similar to the great Muddy Waters portrait on the cover, the criteria for Stout's drawings for the book is that he had to love the artist's music, they were all born before 1930 (nothing but old-school bluesmen-and-women here, folks!) and, with a couple of notable exceptions (Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson), none of the portraits here duplicate any artists covered by Crumb. To be honest, as much as I like Robert Crumb's musical portraits, I like William Stout's even better, and the handy size of the book (roughly 6"x7.5") allows for vivid full-page illustrations that really capture the essence of the featured musician.
Legends of the Blues offers up brilliant portraits of blues music giants like Lightnin' Hopkins, Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Bukka White, Muddy Waters, and many others. Stout also includes several blues-influenced R&B greats like Lowell Fulson and Johnny Otis as well as fringe choices like jazz diva Billie Holiday and blues-rock pioneer Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Stout doesn't overlook the talented instrumentalists of the blues, either, including folks like Fred Below, Albert Ammons, and Papa John McCoy. Each portrait is accompanied by a brief but well-researched and informative biography and many profiles include interesting trivia on the artist.
Legends of the Blues is a beautifully-constructed 224 page hardback book with an attractive $19.95 price tag, less if you want to go with the Kindle eBook version. But then you'd miss out on the included CD that was put together by Stout and the folks at Shout! Factory. Featuring 14 tracks from the likes of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Bukka White, Robert Wilkins, Big Joe Williams, and Blind Willie McTell, among others, it's the perfect accompaniment to a book obviously created by a blues fan for other lovers of the music. Highly recommended!
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Legends of the Blues photo courtesy Abrams ComicArts
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