|
Books > Music > Contemporary popular music > Blues
This is a new, thoroughly revised edition of Paul Oliver's classic
study of the blues. First published in 1960, this remarkable book
has not been superseded and its reappearance will be welcomed by
all who wish to understand the complexity of meaning in the blues
and the experiences which they expressed. The book examines the
functions of the blues as black American folk music recorded during
the 78 rpm era, from the 1920s to the 1950s. The lyrics are quoted
extensively throughout the book, revealing their significance as a
means of communication within black society. The author shows how
the themes of labour and unemployment, migration and the Depression
years, love, sex, and marriage, crime, violence and imprisonment,
disasters, sickness, war and death are expressed in black idioms
and he discusses their meaning on many levels.
With roots in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, the
Piedmont, Memphis, and the prairies of Texas and the American West,
the musical genre called Americana can prove difficult to define.
Nevertheless, this burgeoning trend in American popular music
continues to expand and develop, winning new audiences and
engendering fresh, innovative artists at an exponential rate. As
Lee Zimmerman illustrates in Americana Music: Voices, Visionaries,
and Pioneers of an Honest Sound, "Americana" covers a gamut of
sounds and styles. In its strictest sense, it is a blanket term for
bluegrass, country, mountain music, rockabilly, and the blues. By a
broader definition, it can encompass roots rock, country rock,
singer/songwriters, R&B, and their various combinations. Bob
Dylan, Hank Williams, Carl Perkins, and Tom Petty can all lay valid
claims as purveyors of Americana, but so can Elvis Costello,
Solomon Burke, and Jason Isbell. Americana is new and old, classic
and contemporary, trendy and traditional. Mining the firsthand
insights of those whose stories help shape the sound-people such as
Ralph Stanley, John McEuen (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), Chris Hillman
(Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers), Paul Cotton and Rusty Young
(Poco), Shawn Colvin, Kinky Friedman, David Bromberg, the Avett
Brothers, Amanda Shires, Ruthie Foster, and many more-Americana
Music provides a history of how Americana originated, how it
reached a broader audience in the '60s and '70s with the merging of
rock and country, and how it evolved its overwhelmingly populist
appeal as it entered the new millennium.
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 Grimke, 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 Grimke 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.
"From Buddy Collette's brilliant ruminations on Paul Robeson to
Horace Tapscott's extraordinary insights about artistic production
and community life . . . this collection of oral testimony presents
a unique and memorable portrait of the 'Avenue' and of the artists
whose creativity nurtured and sustained its golden age."--George
Lipsitz, author of "Dangerous Crossroads
"If ever the West Coast enjoyed its own equivalent of the Harlem
Renaissance, it was here on Central Avenue. This too-often
forgotten setting was nothing less than a center of cultural
ferment and a showplace for artistic achievement. Finally its story
has been told, with a richness of detail and vitality of
expression, by those who helped make it happen."--Ted Gioia, author
of "West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California
"What a wonderful, comprehensive volume, full of knowledge and
insight about an important time and place in jazz history. This
book is a needed and welcomed addition on the rich African-American
musical heritage of Los Angeles. It is well written and edited by
people who were actually involved in the creation of the music,
along with others who have a deep concern for preserving that
legacy. This work gives the reader a truly in-depth look at the
musicians, the music, and the social and political climate during
that important development in American culture."--Kenny Burrell,
jazz guitarist and Director of the Jazz Studies Program and
Professor of Music and Ethnomusicology at the University of
California, Los Angeles
Beginning with the African musical heritage and its fusion with European forms in the New World, Marshall Stearns's history of jazz guides the reader through work songs, spirituls, ragtime, and the blues, to the birth of jazz in New Orleans and its adoption by St Louis, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York. From swing and bop to the early days of rock, this lively book introduces us to the great musicians and singers and examines jazz's cultural effects on American and the world.
As Louis Armstrong forever tethered jazz to New Orleans and Clifton
Chenier fixed Lafayette as home to zydeco, Slim Harpo established
Baton Rouge as a base for the blues. In the only complete biography
of this internationally renowned blues singer and musician, Martin
Hawkins traces Harpo's rural upbringing near Louisiana's capital,
his professional development fostered by the local music scene, and
his national success with R&B hits like Rainin' in My Heart,
Baby Scratch My Back, and I'm A King Bee, among others. Hawkins
follows Harpo's global musical impact from the early 1960s to today
and offers a detailed look at the nature of the independent
recording business that enabled his remarkable legacy. With new
research and interviews, Hawkins fills in previous biographical
gaps and redresses misinformation about Harpo's life. In addition
to weaving the musician's career into the lives of other Louisiana
blues players-including Lightnin' Slim, Lazy Lester, and Silas
Hogan-the author discusses the pioneering role of Crowley,
Louisiana, record producer J. D. Miller and illustrates how Excello
Records in Nashville brought national attention to Harpo's music
recorded in Louisiana. This engaging narrative examines Harpo's
various recording sessions and provides a detailed discography, as
well as a list of blues-related records by fellow Baton Rouge
artists. Slim Harpo: Blues King Bee of Baton Rouge will stand as
the ultimate resource on the musician's life and the rich history
of Baton Rouge's blues heritage.
`The best one-volume history of jazz.' That is how the American Music Guide described the book that Louis Armstrong once said `held ol' Satch spellbound'. A unique blend of history and criticism, this lively and perceptive book includes chapters on such jazz giants as King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman. In addition to an expanded essay on Count Basie, this revised edition also includes pieces on Eric Dolphy, Bill Evans, and the World Saxophone Quartet.
|
|