Last updated April 11, 2024.
Welcome back to the website world of BluEsoterica Archives & Productions, BluEsoterica.com Mail Order, Stackhouse Recording Company, Drop Top Music, and Jim O'Neal. This archival, production, consultation, research, publishing, media, and mail order enterprise is dedicated to the esoteric appreciation of the blues, as well as to buying, selling, and trading all sorts of records, with an eye for the obscure and unusual. You'll also find material here from my work with the Mississippi Blues Trail and Living Blues magazine -- for those official websites, go to msbluestrail.org and livingblues.com. BluEsoterica is the name of a column I started in Living Blues in 1994.
This website was inactive for several years as I lost, and finally regained, rights to the BluEsoterica domain name. I maintained a blog for a while in the interim, and web pages from 2005 to 2011 are archived there:
http://stackhouse-bluesoterica.blogspot.com.
Some of those pages will be reposted here.
Contents of www.bluesoterica.com will include:
* The Casey Bill Weldon page, in tribute to "The Hawaiian Guitar Wizard," with information on the dedication ceremony for his headstone and updates to the "Unraveling Casey Bill Weldon" article in Living Blues 228.
* The Memphis Minnie page, with additions to the 2014 edition of Paul & Beth Garon's book Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues -- material that didn't make it into either the foreword I wrote or the main text, including findings that have turned up since the book was published
• The Voice of the Blues page: additions & corrections to The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews From Living Blues Magazine, including Muddy Waters' First Chicago Record and a 1969 Howlin' Wolf Interview.
* Pages on Tampa Red, Otis Rush, Casey Bill Weldon, John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, Charley Patton, Gabriel "The Flock-Rocker," Son House, and others as time permits
* Information on the postwar Delta Blues book started by the late Mike Leadbitter, in the process of additions and revisions ever since
* BluEsoterica columns from Living Blues and new BluEsoterica blogs
* Previously unpublished blues interviews and photos
* Label histories and discographies (currently in progress: Missouri, Kansas and Mississippi labels)
• Mail Order Catalogue: Blues, R&B, Jazz, Rock, Folk, Country, Gospel & World LPs, CDs, 78s, 45s, posters, books and magazines. (Also see items for sale on eBay and discogs.com under seller ID Stackhouse232 and at gemm.com under Jim O'Neal - Stackhouse and Bluesoterica.)
• Stackhouse Recording Company news and new CD releases, plus news on any prospects for releasing material from the Rooster Blues vaults
• BluEsoterica Research Forum
* Thanks -- to everyone who has contributed to this website in the past and to all those who offered moral and monetary support after I was diagnosed and treated (successfully, so far) for lymphoma in 2011. I will post photos from the benefit shows organized by Memphis Gold, Kenny Neal and John May.
HELP WANTED: INTERN/VOLUNTEER
I'm looking for someone who enjoys working with old vinyl to list records on the computer. I also need help with data entry, scanning, cataloguing, and filing to manage a multitude of papers and photos. There are many interview tapes that need to be digitized and transcribed; anyone with a good ear for Southern blues dialect who wants to assist, please get in touch. One day maybe I can get a grant or hook up with an institution to pay someone to do some of this archival work, but it's a volunteer job for now.
SITE SEARCH MISSPELLINGS: This is for those who've tried to search the web for BluEsoterica under various permutations of the name. If you've searched for Bluesoeteria, Bluesoteria, Bluesesoterica, Blusoterica, Bluesotarica, Blusotarica, Bluesotaria, Bluesotrca, Bluesotrica, Bluestrica, Blues Esoterica, Bluesesoterics, Blues Esoterics, Bluesamerica, Blueshistorica, Blueserotica, Blueshysteria, Bluesetcetera, Bluesadnauseam . . . you've found it! Likewise if you were looking for my seller ID on eBay and other sites, Stackhouse232.