A lyrical road trip through the Mississippi Delta, exploring the landmarks that shaped one of America’s most beloved musical traditions.
I woke up early one morning before the light of day. I fixed my dog a big pot of bones and breakfast scraps.
Sometimes life is a mystery. love is a mountain climb.
The blues grabbed me like a shaking chill.
I found my dog house—empty.
While aunt Jessie and Mr. Willie danced under the disco lights, I search the crowded club for my missing puppy love. He did not show up in Merigold, and my tears broke like a river.
Aunt Jessie said, “You better not stain my velvet seats.”
Like a patient saint, she took her flower handkerchief and cleaned my snotty nose.
I cried like a baby—”Let’s leave this juke joint town.”
A man on a corner gave a wild report like something we never heard.
He said, “I saw a yellow dog. That scamp left here on a Greyhound bus. He was traveling with a band.”
Yellow Dog Blues
Written by Alice Faye Duncan
Illustrated by Chris Raschka
Releases: 9/27/2022
One morning Bo Willie finds the doghouse empty and the gate wide open! Farmer Fred says Yellow Dog hit Highway 61 and started running. Aunt Jessie picks up Bo Willie in her pink Cadillac, and together they look for his missing puppy love. Their search leads them from juke joints to tamale stands to streets ringing with the music of B.B. King and Muddy Waters. Where, where did that Yellow Dog go?
Acclaimed creators Alice Faye Duncan and Chris Raschka present a boogie-woogie journey along the Mississippi Blues Trail. With swinging free verse and stunning hand-stitched art, Yellow Dog Blues is a soulful fable about what happens when the blues grabs you and holds on tight.
