Author: Russ Cheatham
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1628467444
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
“I messed up,” Calvin Newton lamented, after wasting thirty years and doing time in both state and federal prisons for theft, counterfeiting, and drug violations. “These were years of my life that I could have been singing gospel music.” During his prime, he was super-handsome, athletic, and charged with sexual charisma that attracted women to him like flies to honey. Atop this abundance was his astounding voice, “the voice of an angel.” This book is his prodigal-son story. Audacious, Newton never turned down a dare, even if it meant climbing on the roof of a speeding car or wading into a freezing ocean. As a boy boxer, he was a Kentucky Golden Gloves champ who k.o.’ed his opponent in twenty-three seconds. By his late teens he had been recruited by the Blackwood Brothers, the number-one gospel quartet in the world. In his mid-twenties while he was singing Christian songs with the Oak Ridge Quartet, Newton’s mighty talent and movie-star looks took him deep into hedonism--reckless driving, heavy romancing, and addictive pill popping. As 1950s rock ‘n’ roll began its invasion of gospel, he and two partners formed the Sons of Song, the first all-male gospel trio. Long before the pop sound claimed contemporary Christian music, the Sons of Song turned gospel upside down with histrionic harmony, high-styled tuxedos, and Hollywood verve. Their signature song, “Wasted Years,” foreshadowed Newton’s punishing fall. This biography looks back at the destructive lifestyle that wrecked a sparkling career. When well into his sixties, Newton turned his life around and was able to confront his demons and discuss his prodigal days. He talked extensively with Russ Cheatham about his self- destruction and the great personal expense of his own bad-boy choices and late redemption. In this candid biography, one of gospel’s all-stars discloses a messed-up life that vacillated between achievement and failure, fame and infamy, happiness and grief.
Author: Ronin Ro
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074343417X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
This is a tale of friendship, greed, and betrayal in the music industry—and a definitive history of America's biggest rap mogul. No one knows more about creating hits than Sean “Puffy” Combs. For years he virtually ran hip-hop. It seemed the perfect arrangement: “Puffy” provided the sounds and obsessive attention to detail while the Notorious B.I.G. promoted an image that kept rap fans happy. It should have lasted forever, but “Biggie” was murdered at the height of his career—and “Puffy”'s ascension to superstardom ushered in an age of disloyalty and deception that exploded into one of the greatest debacles in the history of the music industry. Through interviews with label insiders, grand jury testimony, and other sources, America's preeminent rap journalist Ronin Ro -reveals the true story of “Puffy” -addresses the larger issues that shaped the man and the industry -explains how Bad Boy both helped and destroyed hip-hop and R&B music -details why some artists “Puffy” created ultimately left his Bad Boy family in disgust. At once an intimate history and a portrait of an era, Bad Boy shows readers exactly how Combs lost his strangle-hold over the multibillion-dollar rap music industry. The story of Bad Boy Entertainment is the story of the American Dream, an up-close and personal account of the people, the money, the creative process that made it all come true, and the young mogul who caused the dream to fall apart. In this hip-hop tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, readers finally learn the story that Sean “Puffy” Combs does not want them to know.
Author: Mark A. Lamport
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532651287
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 387
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Book Description
Hymns and the music the church sings in worship are tangible means of expressing worship. And while worship is one of, if not the central functions of the church along with mission, service, education, justice, and compassion, and occupies a prime focus of our churches, a renewed sense of awareness to our theological presuppositions and cultural cues must be maintained to ensure a proper focus in worship. Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological Introductions is a sixty-chapter, three-volume introductory textbook describing the most influential hymnists, liturgists, and musical movements of the church. This academically grounded resource evaluates both the historical and theological perspectives of the major hymnists and composers who have impacted the church over the course of twenty centuries. Volume 1 explores the early church and concludes with the Renaissance era hymnists. Volume 2 begins with the Reformation and extends to the eighteenth-century hymnists and liturgists. Volume 3 engages nineteenth century hymnists to the contemporary movements of the twenty-first century. Each chapter contains these five elements: historical background, theological perspectives communicated in their hymns/compositions, contribution to liturgy and worship, notable hymns, and bibliography. The mission of Hymns and Hymnody is (1) to provide biographical data on influential hymn writers for students and interested laypeople, and (2) to provide a theological analysis of what these composers have communicated in the theology of their hymns. We believe it is vital for those involved in leading the worship of the church to recognize that what they communicate is in fact theology. This latter aspect, we contend, is missing—yet important—in accessible formats for the current literature.
Author: William Lee Golden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998636788
Category : Country musicians
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The wait is over! And it was worth the wait. William Lee Golden finally tells all! William's new autobiography "Behind the Beard" is an amusing, poignant and brutally honest memoir. "When you write your life story, and you decide to bare everything, it's kind of scary. It feels a lot like getting naked ... in front of the entire world. Now that I've committed to it, there is one thing going through my mind...if I was going to get naked in front of everyone, I probably shouldn't have waited until I was 82 years old!" - William Lee Golden. This deluxe, hard cover book includes over 200 rare, never-before-seen photos from William's personal collection! Told in William's own words, "Behind the Beard" includes: William's memories of his childhood and teenage years; and how he went from the cotton fields of Alabama to singing on stage with his favorite musical group. William's vision of turning a gospel group into one of the biggest acts in country music history. His first wife's one-of-kind reaction when she learned he had been unfaithful. William's stories of 50 years on the road with the Oak Ridge Boys. The real reason he was away from the group for 9 years. How he made his "Prodigal Son" return to the Oaks. What the future holds for William Lee and the Oak Ridge Boys.
Author: John Forest
Publisher: James Clarke & Company
ISBN: 022790723X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
Hymns and the music the church sings are tangible means of expressing worship. And while worship is one of, if not the, central functions of the church along with mission, service, education, justice, and compassion, and occupies a prime focus of our churches, a renewed sense of awareness to our theological presuppositions and cultural cues must be maintained to ensure a proper focus in worship. Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological Introductions is a 60-chapter, three-volume introductory textbook describing the most influential hymnists, liturgists, and musical movements of the church. This academically grounded resource evaluates both the historical and theological perspectives of the major hymnists and composers that have impacted the church over the course of twenty centuries. Volume 1 explores the early church and concludes with the Renaissance era hymnists. Volume 2 begins with the Reformation and extends to the eighteenth-century hymnists and liturgists. Volume 3 engages nineteenth century hymnists to the contemporary movements of the twenty-first century. Each chapter contains these five elements: historical background, theological perspectives communicated in their hymns/compositions, contribution to liturgy and worship, notable hymns, and bibliography. The mission of Hymns and Hymnody is (1) to provide biographical data on influential hymn writers for students and interested laypeople, and (2) to provide a theological analysis of what these composers have communicated in the theology of their hymns. We believe it is vital for those involved in leading the worship of the church to recognize that what they communicate is in fact theology. This latter aspect, we contend, is missing-yet important-in accessible formats for the current literature.
Author: Leah Payne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197555241
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
By combining musical styles young people loved with the wholesomeness their parents wanted, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) became a multimillion-dollar industry. In this book, author Leah Payne traces the history of contemporary Christian music in America and, in the process, demonstrates how the industry, its artists, and its fans shaped--and continue to shape--conservative, (mostly) white, Protestant evangelicalism.
Author: Carl Bean
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439173354
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 282
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Book Description
In I Was Born This Way, Carl Bean, former Motown recording artist, noted AIDS activist, and founder of the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church in Los Angeles, shares his extraordinary personal journey from Baltimore foster homes to the stage of the Apollo Theater and beyond. CARL BEAN has been crossing boundaries all his life and helping others do the same. He’s never been stopped by his race or orientation, never fit or stayed in the boxes people have wanted to put him in. He left his foster home in Baltimore at seventeen and took the bus to New York City, where he quickly found the rich culture of the Harlem churches. As a singer, first with the gospel Alex Bradford Singers and later as a Motown recording artist, Bean was a sensation. When Berry Gordy signed him to record "I Was Born This Way," it was a first: the biggest black-owned record company broadcasting a statement on gender identity. The #1 song, recorded with the Sweet Inspirations, was the first gay liberation dance club hit. Whether making records, educating the black community about HIV and AIDS, or preaching to his growing congregation, Archbishop Bean has never wanted to minister to just one group. He’s worked on AIDS issues with C. Everett Koop and Elizabeth Taylor and on civil rights issues with Maxine Waters, Julian Bond, and Reverend Joseph Lowery. At the height of his recording career, he worked with Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Miles Davis, and Sammy Davis Jr. He’s brought South Central Los Angeles gang members into his church, which now has 25,000 members in twelve cities nationwide; those same Crips and Bloods have shown up at the Gay Pride parades Bean has organized with U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters. And he has courageously devoted his time and energy to spurring black civil rights leaders to address the AIDS health crisis within the African American community—an issue on which they had been silent. Preaching an all-embracing progressive theology, he is an outspoken practitioner of brotherly love, a dynamic preacher, and a social activist. The Unity Fellowship message is grace: "God is love, and God is for everyone"; "God is gay, God is straight, God is black, God is white." I Was Born This Way is the rare personal history of one of black gospel’s biggest stars and a frank, powerful, and warmhearted testament to how one man found his calling.
Author: Marc Ryan
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 9781617035258
Category : Sound recording industry
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
In a new edition, the history of a regional record company and the blues, gospel, and R&B greats it launched nationally
Author: Douglas Harrison
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252094093
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
In this ambitious book on southern gospel music, Douglas Harrison reexamines the music's historical emergence and its function as a modern cultural phenomenon. Rather than a single rhetoric focusing on the afterlife as compensation for worldly sacrifice, Harrison presents southern gospel as a network of interconnected messages that evangelical Christians use to make individual sense of both Protestant theological doctrines and their own lived experiences. Harrison explores how listeners and consumers of southern gospel integrate its lyrics and music into their own religious experience, building up individual--and potentially subversive--meanings beneath a surface of evangelical consensus. Reassessing the contributions of such figures as Aldine Kieffer, James D. Vaughan, and Bill and Gloria Gaither, Then Sings My Soul traces an alternative history of southern gospel in the twentieth century, one that emphasizes the music's interaction with broader shifts in American life beyond the narrow confines of southern gospel's borders. His discussion includes the "gay-gospel paradox"--the experience of non-heterosexuals in gospel music--as a cipher for fundamentalism's conflict with the postmodern world.
Author: Charlie Grainger
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1532085389
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
Charlie Grainger has lived through eight decades of positive change in his favorite place---the American South. Born on an unpaved Alabama country road during the Great Depression, he nearly died twice during infancy, nearly drowned as a teenager, then escaped death as a young man while flying on a small plane. Through multiple near death experiences, he says that God was always in his corner. As a young man, the Summer of 1955 was filled with magic. He worked as a newspaperman and as a public relations professional. He witnessed an angry mob that beat up black Freedom Riders at the Montgomery Bus Depot. He was saved by a State Public safety director. Others were not so lucky. View America through the eyes of a country boy who grew up to become a successful business executive, state legislator, and Washington lobbyist. It will give you a greater appreciation of how far we have come as a nation.
