Author: Adam Gussow
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469660377
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
Mamie Smith’s pathbreaking 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues” set the pop music world on fire, inaugurating a new African American market for “race records.” Not long after, such records also brought black blues performance to an expanding international audience. A century later, the mainstream blues world has transformed into a multicultural and transnational melting pot, taking the music far beyond the black southern world of its origins. But not everybody is happy about that. If there’s “No black. No white. Just the blues,” as one familiar meme suggests, why do some blues people hear such pronouncements as an aggressive attempt at cultural appropriation and an erasure of traumatic histories that lie deep in the heart of the music? Then again, if “blues is black music,” as some performers and critics insist, what should we make of the vibrant global blues scene, with its all-comers mix of nationalities and ethnicities? In Whose Blues?, award-winning blues scholar and performer Adam Gussow confronts these challenging questions head-on. Using blues literature and history as a cultural anchor, Gussow defines, interprets, and makes sense of the blues for the new millennium. Drawing on the blues tradition’s major writers including W. C. Handy, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Amiri Baraka, and grounded in his first-person knowledge of the blues performance scene, Gussow’s thought-provoking book kickstarts a long overdue conversation.
Whose Blues?
Author: Adam Gussow
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469660377
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
Mamie Smith’s pathbreaking 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues” set the pop music world on fire, inaugurating a new African American market for “race records.” Not long after, such records also brought black blues performance to an expanding international audience. A century later, the mainstream blues world has transformed into a multicultural and transnational melting pot, taking the music far beyond the black southern world of its origins. But not everybody is happy about that. If there’s “No black. No white. Just the blues,” as one familiar meme suggests, why do some blues people hear such pronouncements as an aggressive attempt at cultural appropriation and an erasure of traumatic histories that lie deep in the heart of the music? Then again, if “blues is black music,” as some performers and critics insist, what should we make of the vibrant global blues scene, with its all-comers mix of nationalities and ethnicities? In Whose Blues?, award-winning blues scholar and performer Adam Gussow confronts these challenging questions head-on. Using blues literature and history as a cultural anchor, Gussow defines, interprets, and makes sense of the blues for the new millennium. Drawing on the blues tradition’s major writers including W. C. Handy, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Amiri Baraka, and grounded in his first-person knowledge of the blues performance scene, Gussow’s thought-provoking book kickstarts a long overdue conversation.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469660377
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
Mamie Smith’s pathbreaking 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues” set the pop music world on fire, inaugurating a new African American market for “race records.” Not long after, such records also brought black blues performance to an expanding international audience. A century later, the mainstream blues world has transformed into a multicultural and transnational melting pot, taking the music far beyond the black southern world of its origins. But not everybody is happy about that. If there’s “No black. No white. Just the blues,” as one familiar meme suggests, why do some blues people hear such pronouncements as an aggressive attempt at cultural appropriation and an erasure of traumatic histories that lie deep in the heart of the music? Then again, if “blues is black music,” as some performers and critics insist, what should we make of the vibrant global blues scene, with its all-comers mix of nationalities and ethnicities? In Whose Blues?, award-winning blues scholar and performer Adam Gussow confronts these challenging questions head-on. Using blues literature and history as a cultural anchor, Gussow defines, interprets, and makes sense of the blues for the new millennium. Drawing on the blues tradition’s major writers including W. C. Handy, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Amiri Baraka, and grounded in his first-person knowledge of the blues performance scene, Gussow’s thought-provoking book kickstarts a long overdue conversation.
Frog Mountain Blues
Author: Charles Bowden
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816515011
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Discusses the development of Tucson, Arizona, and its impact on local environment, describes the beauty and fragility of the Catalina Mountains, and argues that they must be protected
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816515011
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Discusses the development of Tucson, Arizona, and its impact on local environment, describes the beauty and fragility of the Catalina Mountains, and argues that they must be protected
Pioneers of the Blues Revival
Author: Steve Cushing
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252096207
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
Steve Cushing, the award-winning host of the nationally syndicated public radio staple Blues before Sunrise, has spent over thirty years observing and participating in the Chicago blues scene. In Pioneers of the Blues Revival, he interviews many of the prominent white researchers and enthusiasts whose advocacy spearheaded the blues' crossover into the mainstream starting in the 1960s. Opinionated and territorial, the American, British, and French interviewees provide fascinating first-hand accounts of the era and movement. Experts including Paul Oliver, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sam Charters, Ray Flerledge, Paul Oliver, Richard K. Spottswood, and Pete Whelan chronicle in their own words their obsessive early efforts at cataloging blues recordings and retrace lifetimes spent loving, finding, collecting, reissuing, and producing records. They and nearly a dozen others recount relationships with blues musicians, including the discoveries of prewar bluesmen Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, and Bukka White, and the reintroduction of these musicians and many others to new generations of listeners. The accounts describe fieldwork in the South, renew lively debates, and tell of rehearsals in Muddy Waters's basement and randomly finding Lightning Hopkins's guitar in a pawn shop. Blues scholar Barry Lee Pearson provides a critical and historical framework for the interviews in an introduction.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252096207
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
Steve Cushing, the award-winning host of the nationally syndicated public radio staple Blues before Sunrise, has spent over thirty years observing and participating in the Chicago blues scene. In Pioneers of the Blues Revival, he interviews many of the prominent white researchers and enthusiasts whose advocacy spearheaded the blues' crossover into the mainstream starting in the 1960s. Opinionated and territorial, the American, British, and French interviewees provide fascinating first-hand accounts of the era and movement. Experts including Paul Oliver, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sam Charters, Ray Flerledge, Paul Oliver, Richard K. Spottswood, and Pete Whelan chronicle in their own words their obsessive early efforts at cataloging blues recordings and retrace lifetimes spent loving, finding, collecting, reissuing, and producing records. They and nearly a dozen others recount relationships with blues musicians, including the discoveries of prewar bluesmen Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, and Bukka White, and the reintroduction of these musicians and many others to new generations of listeners. The accounts describe fieldwork in the South, renew lively debates, and tell of rehearsals in Muddy Waters's basement and randomly finding Lightning Hopkins's guitar in a pawn shop. Blues scholar Barry Lee Pearson provides a critical and historical framework for the interviews in an introduction.
Blues - Philosophy for Everyone
Author: Jesse R. Steinberg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470656808
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
The philosophy of the blues From B.B. King to Billie Holiday, Blues music not only sounds good, but has an almost universal appeal in its reflection of the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Its ability to powerfully touch on a range of social and emotional issues is philosophically inspiring, and here, a diverse range of thinkers and musicians offer illuminating essays that make important connections between the human condition and the Blues that will appeal to music lovers and philosophers alike.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470656808
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
The philosophy of the blues From B.B. King to Billie Holiday, Blues music not only sounds good, but has an almost universal appeal in its reflection of the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Its ability to powerfully touch on a range of social and emotional issues is philosophically inspiring, and here, a diverse range of thinkers and musicians offer illuminating essays that make important connections between the human condition and the Blues that will appeal to music lovers and philosophers alike.
The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music
Author: Allan Moore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107494532
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
From Robert Johnson to Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson to John Lee Hooker, blues and gospel artists figure heavily in the mythology of twentieth-century culture. The styles in which they sang have proved hugely influential to generations of popular singers, from the wholesale adoptions of singers like Robert Cray or James Brown, to the subtler vocal appropriations of Mariah Carey. Their own music, and how it operates, is not, however, always seen as valid in its own right. This book provides an overview of both these genres, which worked together to provide an expression of twentieth-century black US experience. Their histories are unfolded and questioned; representative songs and lyrical imagery are analysed; perspectives are offered from the standpoint of the voice, the guitar, the piano, and also that of the working musician. The book concludes with a discussion of the impact the genres have had on mainstream musical culture.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107494532
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
From Robert Johnson to Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson to John Lee Hooker, blues and gospel artists figure heavily in the mythology of twentieth-century culture. The styles in which they sang have proved hugely influential to generations of popular singers, from the wholesale adoptions of singers like Robert Cray or James Brown, to the subtler vocal appropriations of Mariah Carey. Their own music, and how it operates, is not, however, always seen as valid in its own right. This book provides an overview of both these genres, which worked together to provide an expression of twentieth-century black US experience. Their histories are unfolded and questioned; representative songs and lyrical imagery are analysed; perspectives are offered from the standpoint of the voice, the guitar, the piano, and also that of the working musician. The book concludes with a discussion of the impact the genres have had on mainstream musical culture.
Literacy in a Long Blues Note
Author: Coretta M. Pittman
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496843053
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Literacy in a Long Blues Note: Black Women’s Literature and Music in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries traces the evolution of Black women’s literacy practices from 1892 to 1934. A dynamic chronological study, the book explores how Black women public intellectuals, creative writers, and classic blues singers sometimes utilize singular but other times overlapping forms of literacies to engage in debates on race. The book begins with Anna J. Cooper’s philosophy on race literature as one method for social advancement. From there, author Coretta M. Pittman discusses women from the Woman’s and New Negro Eras, including but not limited to Angelina Weld Grimké, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, and Zora Neale Hurston. The volume closes with an exploration of Victoria Spivey’s blues philosophy. The women examined in this book employ forms of transformational, transactional, or specular literacy to challenge systems of racial oppression. However, Literacy in a Long Blues Note argues against prevalent myths that a singular vision for racial uplift dominated the public sphere in the latter decade of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. Instead, by including Black women from various social classes and ideological positions, Pittman reveals alternative visions. Contrary to more moderate predecessors of the Woman’s Era and contemporaries in the New Negro Era, classic blues singers like Mamie Smith advanced new solutions against racism. Early twentieth-century writer Angelina Weld Grimké criticized traditional methods for racial advancement as Jim Crow laws tightened restrictions against Black progress. Ultimately, the volume details the agency and literacy practices of these influential women.
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496843053
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Literacy in a Long Blues Note: Black Women’s Literature and Music in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries traces the evolution of Black women’s literacy practices from 1892 to 1934. A dynamic chronological study, the book explores how Black women public intellectuals, creative writers, and classic blues singers sometimes utilize singular but other times overlapping forms of literacies to engage in debates on race. The book begins with Anna J. Cooper’s philosophy on race literature as one method for social advancement. From there, author Coretta M. Pittman discusses women from the Woman’s and New Negro Eras, including but not limited to Angelina Weld Grimké, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, and Zora Neale Hurston. The volume closes with an exploration of Victoria Spivey’s blues philosophy. The women examined in this book employ forms of transformational, transactional, or specular literacy to challenge systems of racial oppression. However, Literacy in a Long Blues Note argues against prevalent myths that a singular vision for racial uplift dominated the public sphere in the latter decade of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. Instead, by including Black women from various social classes and ideological positions, Pittman reveals alternative visions. Contrary to more moderate predecessors of the Woman’s Era and contemporaries in the New Negro Era, classic blues singers like Mamie Smith advanced new solutions against racism. Early twentieth-century writer Angelina Weld Grimké criticized traditional methods for racial advancement as Jim Crow laws tightened restrictions against Black progress. Ultimately, the volume details the agency and literacy practices of these influential women.
Early Published Blues and Proto-Blues (1850–1915)
Author: Peter C. Muir
Publisher: A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN: 1987208854
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 567
Book Description
This volume is a critical edition of early blues-related sheet music, including forty-three known blues songs and instrumental compositions from the first four years of the blues industry, 1912–15, and twenty-four pre-1912 proto-blues; that is, published works stylistically related to the emerging blues style (for instance, using a twelve-bar blues sequence) from 1850–1912. The purpose of the edition is to present in systematic form, and for the first time, the rise of popular blues culture. Up until 1920, sheet music was the dominant medium of blues dissemination. The first blues recordings did not appear until 1914, two years after the appearance of sheet music; furthermore, almost all the recordings of blues that did appear before 1920 were of pre-existent published compositions. This situation only changed with the rise of the race record industry in the 1920s when the identity of blues became increasingly linked to recordings. For this earliest period of blues history, the documentation offered by sheet music is crucial. A majority of this music has not been reissued since its original publication, while some has never been published at all, and exists only as copyright deposits in the Library of Congress. As a body of work, it is little known to historians and musicians despite its importance to the understanding of the evolution of blues and popular music.
Publisher: A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN: 1987208854
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 567
Book Description
This volume is a critical edition of early blues-related sheet music, including forty-three known blues songs and instrumental compositions from the first four years of the blues industry, 1912–15, and twenty-four pre-1912 proto-blues; that is, published works stylistically related to the emerging blues style (for instance, using a twelve-bar blues sequence) from 1850–1912. The purpose of the edition is to present in systematic form, and for the first time, the rise of popular blues culture. Up until 1920, sheet music was the dominant medium of blues dissemination. The first blues recordings did not appear until 1914, two years after the appearance of sheet music; furthermore, almost all the recordings of blues that did appear before 1920 were of pre-existent published compositions. This situation only changed with the rise of the race record industry in the 1920s when the identity of blues became increasingly linked to recordings. For this earliest period of blues history, the documentation offered by sheet music is crucial. A majority of this music has not been reissued since its original publication, while some has never been published at all, and exists only as copyright deposits in the Library of Congress. As a body of work, it is little known to historians and musicians despite its importance to the understanding of the evolution of blues and popular music.
Can We Tell You ?...
Author: Dayvaughn Jerome Mays
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 144010798X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 94
Book Description
Mission Statement: As poets we aspire to reach higher by living life through our passion for writing, providing therapy, entertainment, and joy for all readers. Also becoming that voice for those, who, for various reasons, are unable to express openly how they feel. The healing and closure can and will be heard through our writing, we hope to reach many. As we have been inspired to write by life's lessons, our intent is to be that motivation which will allow the hesitant to speak and stand up without compromise, but do it with respect, dignity, and a certain level of sensitivity to others, we will be understood. As you get to know us, very quickly, you will conclude we are very similar to you, a visual tape recorder constantly recording, absorbing, internalizing, and forming opinions to be, in most cases, stored away and never again retrieved. To that end, we're driven to rewind and press play so the masses can unite and realize, as human beings, we all are very much the same, though cosmetically, economically, and socially different. Together we can meet at your favorite get away location, stand on common ground, and communicate without inhibitions. After our encounter, we will forever be connected through words of reception, and if we choose to, continue to grace one another with strength and gifting, as we pass what we've shared to those in our paths. If for some reason we only measure our similarities and growth on one occasion, may your journey be blessed and patterned in love, giving, peace, and total fulfillment. For those that are engaged, let's ride the radiant rainbow while the showers precipitate the blossoming of the newly planted seed we all seek for positive and inspirational change. We sincerely thank you for your time.
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 144010798X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 94
Book Description
Mission Statement: As poets we aspire to reach higher by living life through our passion for writing, providing therapy, entertainment, and joy for all readers. Also becoming that voice for those, who, for various reasons, are unable to express openly how they feel. The healing and closure can and will be heard through our writing, we hope to reach many. As we have been inspired to write by life's lessons, our intent is to be that motivation which will allow the hesitant to speak and stand up without compromise, but do it with respect, dignity, and a certain level of sensitivity to others, we will be understood. As you get to know us, very quickly, you will conclude we are very similar to you, a visual tape recorder constantly recording, absorbing, internalizing, and forming opinions to be, in most cases, stored away and never again retrieved. To that end, we're driven to rewind and press play so the masses can unite and realize, as human beings, we all are very much the same, though cosmetically, economically, and socially different. Together we can meet at your favorite get away location, stand on common ground, and communicate without inhibitions. After our encounter, we will forever be connected through words of reception, and if we choose to, continue to grace one another with strength and gifting, as we pass what we've shared to those in our paths. If for some reason we only measure our similarities and growth on one occasion, may your journey be blessed and patterned in love, giving, peace, and total fulfillment. For those that are engaged, let's ride the radiant rainbow while the showers precipitate the blossoming of the newly planted seed we all seek for positive and inspirational change. We sincerely thank you for your time.
Rhino's Cruise Through the Blues
Author: Barry Hansen
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9780879306250
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Better known as Dr. Demento on nationally syndicated radio, Hansen traces the history of blues music and its social and cultural mores and profiles its legendary players. Published in cooperation with Rhino Records. 200 color and B&W photos.
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9780879306250
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Better known as Dr. Demento on nationally syndicated radio, Hansen traces the history of blues music and its social and cultural mores and profiles its legendary players. Published in cooperation with Rhino Records. 200 color and B&W photos.
Damage Incorporated
Author: Glenn Pillsbury
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113609122X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
"Damage Incorporated" is the first book about the legendary heavy metal band Metallica that provides a detailed exploration of the group’s music and its place within the wider popular music landscape. Written with a broad readership in mind, it offers an interdisciplinary study that incorporates a range of topics which intersect with the band’s music and cultural influence. For students of popular culture, mass media, and music, "Damage Incorporated" will be necessary reading, and sets a new standard for the study and exploration of metal within the field of popular music studies.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113609122X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
"Damage Incorporated" is the first book about the legendary heavy metal band Metallica that provides a detailed exploration of the group’s music and its place within the wider popular music landscape. Written with a broad readership in mind, it offers an interdisciplinary study that incorporates a range of topics which intersect with the band’s music and cultural influence. For students of popular culture, mass media, and music, "Damage Incorporated" will be necessary reading, and sets a new standard for the study and exploration of metal within the field of popular music studies.