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Michael Gray: Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell (Bloomsbury)

Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 17 August 2007

AS MICHAEL Gray makes clear from the outset, Blind Willie McTell confounds every popular stereotype of the southern blues man. McTell was no "roaring primitive, no Robert Johnson-esque devil-dealing womaniser"; he didn't lose his sight in a bar-room brawl, and he didn't use music to escape a life behind a mule plough in the Delta.

Total word count of piece: 811

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