Howard Rye Author

John Godrich (1926–1991) was a merchant seaman who became a shipping clerk at Swansea Docks in Wales. He wrote many articles on blues and coauthored Recording the Blues with Robert M. W. Dixon. Robert M. W. Dixon has taught linguistics at the University of London, Harvard University, University of California Santa Cruz, and several Australian universities. He has written three monographs that examine the structure and lexicon of English and was a principal compiler of the first four editions of Blues and Gospel Recordings. Howard Rye is an independent scholar specializing in African American music and the African entertainment diaspora in Europe. He is associate editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and a contributor to the Dictionary of National Biography, the American National Biography, and the Oxford Companion to Black British History. Chris Smith is an independent researcher and discographer of jazz, blues, and gospel music who has written numerous articles and reviews in the specialist press and has annotated many LPs and CDs.