Adam Gussow

My life and career path have been an unusual journey. At 25 I was an English grad student at Columbia, freelance literary journalist, and marathoner. At 30 I was a street blues harmonica player in Harlem, partnered with Sterling "Mister Satan" Magee; a pit musician with the bus-and-truck tour of "Big River"; and a harmonica instructor at the Guitar Study Center in New York. At 35 I was Adam of "Satan and Adam," a suddenly-successful blues duo--touring with Bo Diddley, playing the New Orleans JazzFest and the Philadelphia River Blues festival, with a first CD, "Harlem Blues," nominated for a W. C. Handy Award. At 40 I was an English grad student at Princeton, a cover story (with Mr. Satan) in LIVING BLUES magazine, and the author of a memoir, MISTER SATAN'S APPRENTICE. At 45, after Mr. Satan's disappearance down in Virginia and my own unexpected visit to the intensive care unit of a Florida hospital, I was a credentialed Ph.D., author of an academic study entitled SEEMS LIKE MURDER HERE: SOUTHERN VIOLENCE AND THE BLUES TRADITION, and a visiting assistant professor at Vassar. Now, in my late 40s, I'm an associate professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi; happily married; a proud father (Shaun David Gussow was born March 17, 2006); a freelance literary journalist; and a marathoner all over again. I am also performing once again, and delightedly, with Sterling Magee, who now lives in Gulfport, Fla. Many of these life-chapters, particularly my formative experience in the New York City blues scene, are touched on in my new book, JOURNEYMAN'S ROAD: MODERN BLUES LIVES FROM FAULKNER'S MISSISSIPPI TO POST-9/11 NEW YORK, published in June 2007.