The Last Blues Preacher

The Last Blues Preacher PDF Author: Zach Mills
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506446558
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Born in 1925 into a life of sharecropping in Brownsville, Tennessee, Clay Evans was desperate to escape life working for the descendants of plantation owners. At night, he listened to jazz musicians like Cab Calloway and Guy Lombardo on the radio and imagined one day singing on a secular stage. But a greater calling drew Evans into ministry, and he soon stood upon a unique stage as one of America's most famous gospel singers, civil rights heroes, and the godfather of Chicago's black preachers. From this stage Clay sought to rescue his family from poverty and inspire a city and a nation to see, hear, and witness the dignity and value of black lives. Zach Mills's lively and powerful biography, The Last Blues Preacher, brings the life and work of Reverend Evans into our time and examines how current national conversations on race, religion, politics, and popular culture can and should inform contemporary activism.Ê

The Last Blues Preacher

The Last Blues Preacher PDF Author: Zach Mills
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506446558
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
Born in 1925 into a life of sharecropping in Brownsville, Tennessee, Clay Evans was desperate to escape life working for the descendants of plantation owners. At night, he listened to jazz musicians like Cab Calloway and Guy Lombardo on the radio and imagined one day singing on a secular stage. But a greater calling drew Evans into ministry, and he soon stood upon a unique stage as one of America's most famous gospel singers, civil rights heroes, and the godfather of Chicago's black preachers. From this stage Clay sought to rescue his family from poverty and inspire a city and a nation to see, hear, and witness the dignity and value of black lives. Zach Mills's lively and powerful biography, The Last Blues Preacher, brings the life and work of Reverend Evans into our time and examines how current national conversations on race, religion, politics, and popular culture can and should inform contemporary activism.Ê

Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon PDF Author: Mitsutoshi Inaba
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810869934
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
One of the greats of blues music, Willie Dixon was a recording artist whose abilities extended beyond that of bass player. A singer, songwriter, arranger, and producer, Dixon's work influenced countless artists across the music spectrum. In Willie Dixon: Preacher of the Blues, Mitsutoshi Inaba examines Dixon's career, from his earliest recordings with the Five Breezes through his major work with Chess Records and Cobra Records. Focusing on Dixon's work on the Chicago blues from the 1940s to the early 1970s, this book details the development of Dixon's songwriting techniques from his early professional career to his mature period and compares the compositions he provided for different artists. This volume also explores Dixon's philosophy of songwriting and its social, historical, and cultural background. This is the first study to discuss his compositions in an African American cultural context, drawing upon interviews with his family and former band members. This volume also includes a detailed list of Dixon's session work, in which his compositions are chronologically organized.

Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World

Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World PDF Author: Otis Moss III
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 1611646324
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
"Can preaching recover a Blues sensibility and dare speak with authority in the midst of tragedy? America is living stormy Monday, but the pulpit is preaching happy Sunday. The world is experiencing the Blues, and pulpiteers are dispensing excessive doses of non-prescribed prosaic sermons with severe ecclesiastical and theological side effects." â€"from chapter 1 Uniquely gifted preacher Otis Moss III helps preachers effectively communicate hope in a desperate and difficult world in this new work based on his 2014 Yale Lyman Beecher Lectures. Moss challenges preachers to preach with a "Blue Note sensibility," which speaks directly to the tragedies faced by their congregants without falling into despair. He then offers four powerful sermons that illustrate his Blue Note preaching style. In them, Moss beautifully and passionately brings to life biblical characters that speak to today's pressing issues, including race discrimination and police brutality, while maintaining a strong message of hope. Moss shows how preachers can teach their congregations to resist letting the darkness find its way into them and, instead, learn to dance in the dark.

Singing in a Strange Land

Singing in a Strange Land PDF Author: Nick Salvatore
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316030775
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
A prizewinning historian pens this biography of C.L. Franklin, the greatest African-American preacher of his generation, father of Aretha, and civil rights pioneer.

Lightnin' Hopkins

Lightnin' Hopkins PDF Author: Alan Govenar
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1569766207
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Based on scores of interviews with the artist's relatives, friends, lovers, producers, accompanists, managers, and fans, this brilliant biography reveals a man of many layers and contradictions. Following the journey of a musician who left his family's poor cotton farm at age eight carrying only a guitar, the book chronicles his life on the open road playing blues music and doing odd jobs. It debunks the myths surrounding his meetings with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander, his time on a chain gang, his relationships with women, and his lifelong appetite for gambling and drinking. This volume also discusses his hard-to-read personality; whether playing for black audiences in Houston's Third Ward, for white crowds at the Matrix in San Francisco, or in the concert halls of Europe, Sam Hopkins was a musician who poured out his feelings in his songs and knew how to endear himself to his audience--yet it was hard to tell if he was truly sincere, and he appeared to trust no one. Finally, this book moves beyond exploring his personal life and details his entire musical career, from his first recording session in 1946--when he was dubbed Lightnin'--to his appearance on the national charts and his rediscovery by Mack McCormick and Sam Charters in 1959, when his popularity had begun to wane and a second career emerged, playing to white audiences rather than black ones. Overall, this narrative tells the story of an important blues musician who became immensely successful by singing with a searing emotive power about his country roots and the injustices that informed the civil rights era.

Wild Cherry: The Immediate Sequel to Preacherman Blues

Wild Cherry: The Immediate Sequel to Preacherman Blues PDF Author: Jihad Uhuru
Publisher: Envisions Books
ISBN: 9780970610232
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cherry is one bad chick. That's no surprise since she s the granddaughter of one of the most thorough hitmen in history, Daddy Cool. An NFL Superstar and bad boy himself, Jordan Hayes is about to find that out the hard way when he decides to make Cherry a pawn in his game of lust, drugs and lies. After Jordan moves on, he forgets all about the girl he once called Wild Cherry. But Cherry hasn't forgotten about him. In fact, he's all she can think about as she does her time in a state mental institution. You play...you payJordan's twin Jevon has been living in his brother's shadow for years. When an encounter with a beautiful young lady opens the door for him to not just follow in Jordan s footsteps, but assume his whole identity, Jevon jumps at the chance. But Jevon is in for a rude awakening when he discovers the real reason his new woman is called Wild Cherry. Wild Cherry is an intriguing, wild, drama-filled tale that will keep you guessing all the way to the end.

I'd Rather Be the Devil

I'd Rather Be the Devil PDF Author: Stephen Calt
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1556527462
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Skip James (1902–1969) was perhaps the most creative and idiosyncratic of all blues musicians. Drawing on hundreds of hours of conversations with James himself, Stephen Calt here paints a dark and unforgettable portrait of a man untroubled by his own murderous inclinations, a man who achieved one moment of transcendent greatness in a life haunted by failure. And in doing so, Calt offers new insights into the nature of the blues, the world in which it thrived, and its fate when that world vanished.

Chasin' that Devil Music

Chasin' that Devil Music PDF Author: Gayle Wardlow
Publisher: Backbeat Books
ISBN: 0879305525
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Traces the development and characteristics of the Delta blues, and describes the most influential blues musicians and recordings of the 1920s and 1930s

Dear Church

Dear Church PDF Author: Lenny Duncan
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506452574
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Lenny Duncan is the unlikeliest of pastors. Formerly incarcerated, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make all the headlines, but Duncan sees something else at work--drawing a direct line between the church's lack of diversity and the church's lack of vitality. The problems the ELCA faces are theological, not sociological. But so are the answers. Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the future of Duncan's denomination and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church rejects the narrative of church decline and calls everyone--leaders and laity alike--to the front lines of the church's renewal through racial equality and justice. It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow in the revolutionary path of Jesus. Dear Church also features a discussion guide at the back--perfect for church groups, book clubs, and other group discussion.

The Challenge of Joseph H. Jackson

The Challenge of Joseph H. Jackson PDF Author: Jared E. Alcántara
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197598838
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
In The Challenge of Joseph H. Jackson, Jared Alcántara offers a definitive biography of one of the most controversial, complex--and, eventually, forgotten--luminaries of the twentieth century. Alcántara chronicles Jackson's rise to power as pastor of the largest Black church in the United States, the 15,000-member Olivet Baptist in Chicago, and as the longest-tenured president of the six-million-member National Baptist Convention, at one time the nation's largest Black organization. Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier contended that holding an office like this was akin to being the president of a "nation within a nation," the president of Black America. Nicknamed the "Negro Pope" along with "Silver Tongue," Jackson was known foremost for his oratorical talents. But his significance to twentieth-century Black Christianity and U.S. history more broadly has not yet been fully understood. Alcántara here provides a compelling examination of Jackson's humble beginnings, rise to power, and gradual fall from grace. The Challenge of Joseph H. Jackson examines Jackson's political alliances, describes his controversial views on race, catalogues his global ecumenical work, explains his fallout with the family of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and connects his eloquence to the maintenance of power in a tradition that prizes sacred oratory. Drawing on extensive archival material from the Chicago History Museum, Alcántara deftly chronicles the life and legacy of one of the most complex figures in African American history.