In 2020, I published a book, Immersed in Blues - A Musical Journey. I am now offering it as a free e-book download, although the paperback version is still available on Amazon. The book is about my personal take on the Blues. I draw on my 50+ years of experience of playing guitar and harmonica with Australian bands Sid Rumpo, The Elks, The Roosters and other ensembles. I also spent about 15 years working at 78 Records and several other iconic record shops, and learned a lot from this. The book however, isn’t really about me. It is about my blues journey and the musical places and thoughts and ideas that the music has revealed to me. It is a disparate collection of chapters about the concept and structure of blues, my early obsession with the form, blues history, record labels, classic albums, seminal blues players, geographic regions and styles, together with a lot of my own thoughts about the blues. Also, and I think importantly, it is written in a non-technical style. If you listen to blues, you will likely understand it. A full Table of Contents can be viewed here. This will definitely give you an idea of the scope of the material presented. Check it out!

The book will be sent to you in EPUB format. I think this is the most popular e-book style. In fact, Amazon Kindle have now accepted it as its preferred format, for the Kindle device, although it also uses its own proprietary styles, which is not an issue here. There are many free downloadable e-book reading programs, available both for computers and tablets. With Windows 11, I use SumatraPDF which is free, and supports many different kinds of e-book. I should mention that the EPUB format will even run on a phone, but with the small screen size, and the fact that the book contains images, I definitely wouldn't recommend it!

You can request a copy of the book from me via email at johnhood@iinet.net.au. I will reply to you with the EPUB file sent as an attachment. There is one small issue. Sometimes, I receive emails with no return addresses. If you don't hear from me within a couple of days, send me an email with your address in the body, and I will reply to that. Also email me if you have any other questions, either musical or technical.

Happy reading!
 

Someone has put up a YouTube tune of me playing backing guitar with blues harp virtuoso John McKittrick in 1972. John plays with an incredibly soulful feeling. Check it out here

I have also located some Sid Rumpo YouTube clips from the 70's. These can be found on the Sid Rumpo page under 'Bands'.

My musical autobiography For the Love of Music is now available from highvoltagepublishing.com/ 

There is also a review by former Go-Set journalist and owner of Melbourne's "Archie & Jughead's" import record shop, David Pepperell, online here.

I recently did a couple of interviews for Melbourne FM radio stations. To listen or download click here

I have decided to offer most of my CDs as free MP3 downloads. Check them out here. I recommend that you browse my thoughts on the albums that follow the picture section on this page or, sample tracks from the individual album pages before you make your selections. I have also put the CD artwork up as PDFs for convenience.