Current News, January 2010.

Devil At The Confluence is available at all major bookstores.

Online it can be found at  Virginia Publishing, Barnes & Noble, the Missouri History Museum, and Amazon.

The book is also available in Chicago at Delmark Records/Jazz Record Mart and in St Louis at BB's Jazz, Blues and Soups, Borders, Sue's News (Kirkwood), Subterranean Books (University City), Left Bank Books and Vintage Vinyl. 

Nomination by the ARCS.

Virginia Publishing has been informed that Devil At the Confluence: The Pre-war Blues Music of St. Louis, Missouri, by Kevin Belford has been nominated for an award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections.

Devil At The Confluence on St. Louis Public Radio 90.7 KWMU.

A discussion with Kevin Belford about his book examining the history of the blues music of St. Louis on Cityscape with Stephen Potter.

January 29, 2010 - Blues Music of St. Louis

A rare St Louis appearance by Mr Bob Koester of Delmark records.

Vintage Vinyl, University City loop, Monday, October 19.

"DEVIL AT THE CONFLUENCE Pre-War Blues Music of St. Louis, Missouri" book signing and Q & A with Bob Koester (Delmark Records founder) and Kevin Belford (Devil At The Confluence author.)

Monday, October 19, at Vintage Vinyl, 6610 Delmar Blvd, University City. 7:30 pm - 9 pm, (314) 721-4096. Free.

http://www.vintagevinyl.com/

Delmark Records is an American Jazz and Blues record label. Based in Chicago since 1958 it originated in St Louis, Missouri in 1953 when owner Bob Koester released a recording by the Windy City Six, a traditional jazz group in 1953, under the 'Delmar' imprint.

Moving to St Louis, Missouri to attend college Koester began his career as a record trader out of his dormitory room. Joining the local Jazz Club gave Koester his first taste of live jazz - seeing Bob Graf and Clark Terry perform. Koester would open his first record shop, the Blue Note Record Shop at the corner of Delmar and Oliver streets in St Louis. Taking the name from the street his shop was on Koester (then only 21 years old) recorded a local jazz group the Windy City Six in 1953. Shortly thereafter Koester searched out and found local talent in bluesmen such as Speckled Red, Big Joe Williams and J.D. Short.

After a period in St Louis Koester decided to move to Chicago in 1958. Delmark is the nation's oldest independent record label and Koester has received nearly all music-related awards one could hope for. He is one of a handful of nonperformers to have been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. 

http://delmark.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/arts/music/28roht.html

Bob Koester

Delmark Records began in St. Louis when Bob Koester was attending Saint Louis University in the 1950s and selling old 78 rpm records at his Blue Note store on DeBaliviere and Delmar Blvd. During the late-50s there was a return of interest to roots music and a rediscovering of the early blues artists. Many of those original artists were still alive thirty years after their recordings were made and in St. Louis, Koester found nearly all of the St. Louis bluesmen and women. He and local policeman and music fan Charlie O'Brien made it their hobby to track down anything they could about the names on the labels of the old phonograph records.

Delmark is the nation's oldest independent record label and Koester has received nearly all music-related awards one could hope for. He is one of a handful of nonperformers to have been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. 

Delmark has always been devoted to blues and jazz but those genres are indistinct categories today and recording older, less-commercially viable artists is a risky venture even in a strong economy. The label has never made the kind of profit mainstream music could have made and now music sharing is causing CD sales to dry up.

I met Bob in the late 90s when I had just started researching the music of St. Louis. Despite rumors of him being gruff, opinionated and outspoken, I found him to be one of the nicest guys in all of my researching. He gave me copies of nearly every Jazz Report (his mimeographed newsletter and catalog from the Blue Note days) to study and took most of a workday to go over each and every page and detail of my first draft manuscript in a Chicago coffeeshop. 

I'm very proud to have done album cover artwork and liner notes for Delmark – especially the 50th anniversary box set, but I am really happy to have a collection of rare recordings culled from Bob's archives on an exclusive CD in the book, DEVIL AT THE CONFLUENCE.

There was a great article about Koester in last weekend's NYT.

"Happily Seduced by the Blues," New York Times, June 28, 2009:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/arts/music/28roht.html

And an article by Scott Barretta for Blues Access from 1997, titled

"Bob Koester, The Monarch of Delmark" here:

http://www.bluesaccess.com/No_30/koester.html

And Delmark's catalog is on the web at:

http://www.delmark.com/delmark.catalog.htm