Reviews

French ``bluesologist'' Herzhaft's updated version of Nouvelle Encyclopedie du Blues (published in Paris in 1984) is primarily a biographical sourcebook, with occasional brief thematic articles (e.g., ``East Coast Blues'') and appended discography. However, the biographies are fewer and less substantial than those in Sheldon Harris's excellent Blues Who's Who ( LJ 7/79), and users will note numerous discrepancies in factual data between these two sources, especially concerning years of birth. Some readers may also be irked by the space accorded some performers: Soul artist Ann Peebles rates a full article, whereas the legendary Alberta Hunter is relegated to a paragraph under ``Female Blues Singers.'' Recommended only as a supplement to Harris, not as a sole source.-- Anthony J. Adam, Prairie View A&M Univ. Lib., Tex.