Josephine Matyas and Craig Jones are recognized for their deep dive into the history and culture of blues music.
January 2023
Family RVing readers have been treated to an array of travel articles penned by Josephine “Jo” Matyas, F468364. She and her husband, Craig Jones, explore North America in their motorhome and discover the sites, culture, and history of each area.
Chasing The Blues by Josephine “Jo” Matyas and Craig Jones blends history, culture, geography, and song into a guidebook for travelers who wish to better understand this impactful genre of American music.
In September 2022, the couple received a bronze award in the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition for their book Chasing The Blues: A Traveler’s Guide To America’s Music. The contest is sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Chasing The Blues was honored in the Travel Guidebook category.
Jo and Craig were “thrilled and honored to receive this award,” Jo said. “It reminded us of how we appreciated the flexibility of traveling in our Class B Roadtrek — three different months-long road trips — to do the research we needed and meet the people of Mississippi and the musicians who carry forward the torch of the blues.
“Traveling by RV allowed us to follow a lifestyle that combines our passions of travel, music, and writing. It, of course, feeds our off-the-leash curiosity!” she added.
The competition is named for Lowell Thomas, an acclaimed broadcast journalist, author, and world explorer whose career spanned five decades. This past year, more than 100 writers were recognized for excellence in the travel journalism field, from a near-record 1,438 entries.
Chasing The Blues explores the roots of blues music, which was birthed in the Mississippi Delta by African Americans who sought a new form of musical expression to survive the oppression they faced. The book traces geographical and cultural origins of this genre, which has touched virtually every other form of popular music, including rock ’n’ roll, soul, R&B, country-western, and gospel.
As writers, Josephine’s areas of expertise include travel, food, and culture, and Craig, a self-proclaimed “lifer-musician,” combines that passion with his interests in history, politics, and current affairs.
Both were born in the age of rock ’n’ roll, so tracing the roots of rock back to its blues origins was a natural fit, Craig noted. “It gave me the opportunity to look deep into the history, culture, and sociology of the blues. You may not think you know the blues, but you most certainly do — it’s at the root of rock ’n’ roll, Motown, soul, and R&B — the music that formed the sonic background for most of us.”
Chasing The Blues (Backbeat Books) is available from online booksellers.