1 Introduction -- 2 Harnessing the echo -- 3 "Way out there" : hillbilly, blues and jazz -- 4 "Blue shadows on the trail" : space and place in the imagined west -- 5 "And as the Sun sinks slowly in the west ..." : sobbing guitars, distant horizons and the acoustics of otherness -- 6 "How near, how far?" : inner voices, weird space and the ghostly west -- 7 "Off the wall" : blues recording at Sun and Chess studios, 1947-1954 -- 8 "Train I ride ..." : rock 'n' roll echo -- 9 "Train kept a rollin'" : popular music's new territories -- 10 Conclusion : "race with the devil"