At 11 inches deep, 8.5 inches wide and 1 inch thick, this BIG F-A-T coffee-table book includes rare old blues photographs and historic illustrations. An enthralling new exploration of the blues, America's Gift pulls together the various musical strands intertwining through history to create, conceivably, the most emotive musical genre of them all - blues. Revelation follows revelation at a galloping pace. Current blues chronology is re-written and common myth corrected, with some facts appearing in print for the first time. America's Gift is an amalgamation, by popular demand, of Paul Merry's two highly-acclaimed eBooks, How Blues Evolved Volume One, and How Blues Evolved Volume Two. As American critic and leader of the blues rock band The Bloody Nerve, Stacey Blood, wrote after awarding America's Gift Five Stars: "One quickly attains a foundation of blues history with Paul's no-frills approach. Despite being 367 pages, its interesting content makes the book a lightning read. In the little time it takes to finish I am astonished by how much I have to ponder afterward. After reading the final page I'm left thinking back to the first page in disbelief." ***** Readers wanted hard copies of 'How Blues Evolved Volumes One and Two, so here they are combined, extended, updated and re-titled as America's Gift: The Untold Story of How Blues Evolved for this special print edition.