Deep Ellum: The Other Side of Dallas

Alan B. Govenar · Jay F. Brakefield

Sep 2013 · Texas A&M University Press

About this ebook

Deep Ellum, on the eastern edge of downtown Dallas, retains its character as an alternative to the city’s staid image with loft apartments, art galleries, nightclubs, and tattoo shops. It first sprang up as a ramshackle business district with saloons and variety theatres and evolved, during the early decades of the twentieth century, into a place where the black and white worlds of Dallas converged.

This book strips away layers of myth to illuminate the cultural milieu that spawned such seminal blues and jazz musicians as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Buster Smith, and T-Bone Walker and that was also an incubator for the growth of western swing.

Expanding upon the original 1998 publication, this Texas A&M University Press edition offers new research on Deep Ellum’s vital cross-fertilization of white and black musical styles, many additional rare historical photographs, and an updated account of the area in the early years of the twenty-first century.

About the author

ALAN GOVENAR is an author, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker, living in Dallas. His recent titles include Everyday Music, Jasper, Texas: The Community Photographs of Alonzo Jordan, Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues, and Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound. JAY BRAKEFIELD is a career journalist, freelance writer, and editor. He lives in Bryan, Texas.