Sweetback Blues: The Twelve Bar Tale of South Side Slim travels the harrowing streets and plumbs the artistic soul of a modern day soldier for the blues. Far from some pat redemption yarn of "poor boy makes good, " the protagonist here is as unsettling as his folk predecessor, John the Conqueror: unruly saint and endearing trickster. Beautifully written in twelve bar structure, complete with introductory riffs and turnarounds, this narrative nonfiction echoes the very music it celebrates. The bluesman typically sings his seven-stanza story in first person, likewise, these seven chapters get personal in the distinctive voice of Los Angeles blues veteran, South Side Slim. Hailed "the formidable guitar modernist" by Living Blues magazine, Slim has recently toured in Italy, Britain, and Germany. Over one hundred hours of recorded interviews were transcribed, verified, and distilled into eighty-eight bars (vignettes) of page-turning drama.