While the blues musical form has been widely studied, the structure and content of blues lyrics have been less fully explored. "The Blues Lyric Formula" is a structural analysis of the formulaic composition of blues lyrics, focusing on the songs recorded by African-American singers for the pre-World War II commercial recording companies. While some scholars have worked in this area, there has never been a rigorous and detailed exploration of exactly how blues singers used formulas in creating a commercially acceptable form of song. This book gives a step-by-step description of the rules...