Sensation Blues is like Catcher in the Rye steeped in the world of blues music. A coming-of-age tale about a blue punk you can root for. And who is not as mopey as Holden Caulfield either.

Cover artist: Brian Langan, Philadelphia

Sensation Blues

SENSATION BLUES was published in paperback and ebook on October 8, 2024

Back Cover Blurb: Set in the contemporary Mississippi Delta, SENSATION BLUES introduces precocious practitioner McKinley Robinson in pursuit of his “It.” With beloved older brother Paul off to play college football across the country, McKinley pours himself into his blues passions, hustling from the juke joints of Clarksdale’s Delta Avenue to the neon marquees of Beale Street, Memphis. Under the auspices of their hell-raising uncle Ira, McKinley cavorts with blues legends and courts unavoidable trouble with would-be authority figures on his clear-eyed leap over the cliff of self-discovery.

"I set out to write a blues novel to honor the blues and the mythological figures that excited me as a kid,” said Bennett Kelly. “The music and simply the names of performers like Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf and others always thrilled me as an inspiring combination of wisdom and coolness.

"Sensation Blues is like Catcher in the Rye but steeped in blues music, and set in the birthplace of the blues, contemporary Clarksdale, Mississippi. My protagonist McKinley is a well-meaning blues punk that finds himself bumping up against authority a little too much for his liking, while picking up trickster passions from his favorite bluesmen Muddy Waters, Son House, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, the Chicago-Chess Records cohort, and others, and from his uncle's music instruction along the way.

"A lot of early blues hagiography is baked in. In addition to blues histories, other inspirational source materials for this project were the lives of Paul Robeson and The Beatles." - Bennett Kelly

Listen to the Sensation Blues companion playlist on Spotify

Warning: these blues range from deadly serious to booty shakers

Buddy Guy at Count Basie Theater, Red Bank NJ, 2022. Photo by Author

Robert Johnson painting, Bad Apple Blues Club, Clarksdale MS. Photo by Author

Terry BIG T Williams at Red's Blues Club, Clarksdale MS, 2023. Photo by Author